http://www.askaboutcomputers.com Reviews of primary literature from computer and microprocessor companies. Emphasizes financials and financial-related content. Emphasizes primary over secondary sources. http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=330 Intel has a new web page dedicated to the Penryn family of processors and the Nehalem microarchitecture. It is more informative in many respects than the press release. 2 Apr 2007 23:10:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=330 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=304 Intel disclosed details about the family of processors known as Penryn and about the next microarchitecture called Nehalem. 1 Apr 2007 23:04:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=304 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=305 PodTech spoke with senior vice president at Intel Pat Gelsinger and caught it all on audio. 31 Mar 2007 20:03:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=305 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=297 The fab that Intel intends to build in China may not be state of the art, but then it won’t be 200mm either. Instead the size of the wafers shall be 300mm. In other respects, the fab will not be state of the art. 28 Mar 2007 11:24:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=297 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070304_amd_q4.html#highlights Highlights for the fourth quarter, 2006, for AMD included ... 7 Mar 2007 23:33:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070304_amd_q4.html#highlights http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070304_amd_q4.html#share AMD gaining market share for the year should have come as a surprise to no one. It came as more of a surprise, however, when AMD gained market share for the quarter, as well as the year. 6 Mar 2007 23:18:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070304_amd_q4.html#share http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070304_amd_q4.html#margins In a nutshell, AMD gave up profits in return for market share in the fourth quarter of '06. AMD won the battle for overall x86 market share. However, the company lost the fight for profit margins. 5 Mar 2007 23:55:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070304_amd_q4.html#margins http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070304_amd_q4.html A digest of AMD's fourth quarter and annual results for 2006 4 Mar 2007 18:11:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070304_amd_q4.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html#viiv When will Intel's Viiv initiative start to make enough money that the Digital Home Group is reported as a separate category? Not yet. This past quarter the Digital Home Group still did "not meet the quantitative thresholds for reportable segments". 2 Mar 2007 23:16:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html#viiv http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html#efficiency_program The efficiency review continues at Intel. It is not done. 1 Mar 2007 23:34:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html#efficiency_program http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html#wimax Intel seems to be making steady progress on the WiMAX front. 28 Feb 2007 23:24:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html#wimax http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html#dual_core One misleading statistic that Intel published about its fourth quarter was that the company had ... 27 Feb 2007 20:49:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html#dual_core http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html#45nm One of the milestones of the fourth quarter for Intel was that the company "completed the development of its next-generation 45nm process technology". 26 Feb 2007 23:32:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html#45nm http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html#amd You remember those processors with four cores that Intel recently released. Some people say that those processors are not genuine quad-core processors. AMD's strategy with quad-core, on the other hand, is different. 25 Feb 2007 18:26:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html#amd http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html#gross Intel may have set a few records in Q4. However, gross profit margins were basically flat. 24 Feb 2007 21:24:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html#gross http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html#core Intel's financials fell into the mire in the first quarter (Q1) of 2006, and Intel has since been digging its way out. Its notebook and desktop chips and its volume, DP (dual-processor) server chips have now leapfrogged the competition by a factor of two in terms of performance. 23 Feb 2007 23:25:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html#core http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html#profits_down It has been said that you can prove almost anything with statistics. About the most misleading statistic that has been printed recently about Intel's fourth quarter (Q4 '06) is that, compared to the year before, profits were down 39%. 22 Feb 2007 23:01:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html#profits_down http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#sooner Third party prototype computers already exist that have built-in WiFi and WiMAX chips. NAND hard drives will be upon us before you know it, too. 22 Feb 2007 01:01:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#sooner http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#umpc While there has been a Mobility Group at Intel for some time, the Ultra Mobile Group is new. 20 Feb 2007 22:18:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#umpc http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html An analysis of Intel's fourth quarter 2006 earnings release. 19 Feb 2007 19:19:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070219_intel_earnings.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#wimax A technology to watch is WiMAX, which is wireless broadband that does not require an access point nearby the way 802.11 WiFi wireless requires an access point only a few hundred feet away. By 2008, the U.S. should have "almost nationwide coverage". Intel hopes to drive the adoption of WiMAX the same way it drove the adoption of 802.11 WiFi wireless. 18 Feb 2007 12:24:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#wimax http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#centrino The new platform for Centrino debuts early 2007, codename Santa Rosa. Two new features include a NAND Flash cache and 802.11n wireless. 17 Feb 2007 13:10:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#centrino http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#laptop It's not that the market share of notebooks is spectacular. Rather, it's the market share of notebooks compared to just a few years ago. 12 Feb 2007 23:10:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#laptop http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#core_challenge The primary objective behind Intel's Core 2 Challenge is to stimulate the desktop. Content keeps changing. However, "the desktop is not evolving nearly as rapidly". 11 Feb 2007 10:34:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#core_challenge http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070210_terascale.html Intel Developer Forum is largely about firsts. One big first in 2006 was the terascale computer chip. 10 Feb 2007 23:28:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070210_terascale.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#xeon_5100 The dual-processor (DP) server version of the Core microarchitecture has had, per Intel, "the fastest ramp of any server chip in the history of our corporation". 9 Feb 2007 22:13:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#xeon_5100 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#data_center Intel hopes to address the needs of the data center with a teraflop chip ... Energy efficiency is so important that data centers are being built in locations where energy is the cheapest. 8 Feb 2007 04:23:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#data_center http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#microarchitectures It has taken Intel time to adjust after having pushed clock speeds as high as they would go under the NetBurst microarchitecture. However, the chipmaker says that it now has its rhythm down. "We have a model now for sustained technology leadership". 6 Feb 2007 00:12:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#microarchitectures http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#process_techs Current state-of-the-art process technology is 65nm (nanometers). Up next is 45nm. Then comes 32nm. The following is a good illustration of just how small the current 65nm process technology is: "up to 10 million transistors can now fit on the tip of your ballpoint pen". 3 Feb 2007 16:32:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#process_techs http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#core_2 Significant bumps in clock speed used to result in comparatively little performance increase. It was "an era where 5 percent or 10 percent increments in performance seem normal". 2 Feb 2007 11:44:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#core_2 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#apple Since the transition began in January ('06) of moving Apple hardware to Intel processors, Apple was able to double the market share of its notebooks in the space of about six months: "market share of notebooks had risen from 6 percent in US retail in January to 12 percent this summer". 26 Jan 2007 15:49:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html#apple http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html A writeup of the keynote delivered by the Intel CEO and president at the Fall Intel Developer Forum, 2006 21 Jan 2007 20:34:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070121_ceo_keynote.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070114_reality_check.html Shares of AMD dropped almost 10% on Friday. 14 Jan 2007 22:49:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070114_reality_check.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070104_analyst_day.html 2007 will be interesting. AMD expects to drive microprocessor growth at twice the rate of the industry. One of the things that was interesting about the Analyst Day was the way in which it impacted the financial community. AMD's stock rose by more than 10%. At the very least, the conference convinced the financial community that the acquisition of ATI is going well. 4 Jan 2007 19:15:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/070104_analyst_day.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061226_silicon_advances.html#super Supercomputing has finally been reduced to a chip. 31 Dec 2006 07:33:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061226_silicon_advances.html#super http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061226_silicon_advances.html#hdv Maybe the next killer app will be high definition (HD) video. HD requires about 8 times the horsepower of SD (to encode). 30 Dec 2006 04:42:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061226_silicon_advances.html#hdv http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061226_silicon_advances.html#energy We are currently at the beginning of the era of energy efficient performance, as opposed to just performance driven by increasing clock speeds. Such a change represents "the most profound shift in decades". 28 Dec 2006 12:39:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061226_silicon_advances.html#energy http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061226_silicon_advances.html#roadmap Ask About Computers incorrectly predicted the name of the mainstream quad-core processor as Core 2 Quadro. Close but no cigar. Rather, the processor "will be called the Intel® Core™2 Quad". 27 Dec 2006 10:43:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061226_silicon_advances.html#roadmap http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061226_silicon_advances.html A digest of the Intel press release 'Silicon Advances Usher in new era of energy efficient performance' 26 Dec 2006 14:10:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061226_silicon_advances.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061215_style.html Maybe the market for the PC in the future shall be driven primarily by something more than just price. Rather, by style. 15 Dec 2006 11:48:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061215_style.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061210_directv.html 50 hours of high definition (HD) equals about 200 hours of standard definition (SD). 10 Dec 2006 09:51:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061210_directv.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061207_terascale.html Bytes per second (BPS) is primarily for measuring bandwidth, bits per second (bps) I/O (input/output). The requirements for tera-scale computing include (1) trillions of operations per second (OPS), (2) trillions of bytes per second bandwidth, and (3) trillions of bits per second input/output. That's 'teraOPS of performance, terabytes-per-second of memory bandwidth, and terabits-per-second of I/O capacity'. 07 Dec 2006 06:55:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061207_terascale.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061203_embedded.html Dual-core processors based on the Core microarchitecture are making their way into the lower-end embedded market. 03 Dec 2006 10:09:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061203_embedded.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061202_trusted_execution.html Intel's LaGrande security technology has been officially named Trusted Execution Technology and should appear in 2007 in next generation vPro computers. 02 Dec 2006 10:27:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061202_trusted_execution.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061128_socket_compatibility.html Current quad-core products from Intel--Core 2 Extreme quad-core and Xeon 5300 processors--should fit inside their dual-core counterpart systems thanks to 'socket compatibility with existing Intel platforms'. 28 Nov 2006 11:20:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061128_socket_compatibility.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061127_pcie.html For years computers primarily relied on parallel bus technology. PCIe marked a switch from parallel bus technology to a serial bus. 'Its introduction signaled the transition of computing platform I/O from the parallel bus model that had existed since the PC industry’s inception to a high-speed, serial I/O standard'. 27 Nov 2006 12:29:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061127_pcie.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061126_centrino.html Features of the next generation Centrino Duo technology platform include balanced WiFi throughput and energy efficiency, 802.11n wireless Ethernet, 3G cellular network connectivity, Robson NAND flash technology, and new form factors for mobile devices, such as the platform for the next Ultra Mobile PC. 26 Nov 2006 12:49:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061126_centrino.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061115_nvidia.html The graphics company NVIDIA is on a roll. Said the president and CEO, 'For the third consecutive quarter, we delivered record revenue'. 15 Nov 2006 22:54:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/061115_nvidia.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060917_kentsfield_n_p965.html Kentsfield is the codename for the quad-core CPU that Intel has in store for us by the end of this year. Its design is relatively simple and consists of putting together two Core 2 Duo processors in a single CPU. Originally only the 975X chipset was to support Kentsfield. However, support has been expanded to include the P965 chipset as well. Not all P965 motherboards will support the new Kentsfield CPU, however. Don't be too surprised if Intel comes out with a second generation quad-core part. Expect Intel to put two quad-core CPUs together to produce the industry's first eight-core CPU design. 17 Sep 2006 12:36:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060917_kentsfield_n_p965.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060915_mc_sw.html While certain applications on quad-core CPUs do see a doubling of performance compared to dual-core, most applications experience only a small boost, even when the applications are multithreaded. One of the problems is the software. To this end, efforts are under way to prepare tommorrow's programmers to code for multi-core. "The full potential of multi-core based systems to deliver great performance and expanded usages is unleashed when software is designed to take advantage of the full capabilities". 15 Sep 2006 15:35:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060915_mc_sw.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060914_xeon_7100.html Most recently Intel announced the Xeon 7100 family of chips, codenamed Tulsa, for the high-end x86 multiprocessor (MP) server market. According to Intel, the Xeon 7100 chips offer as much as twice the performance of the previous multiprocessor server chips. That's nice. But what about the frontside bus (FSB)? Intel hopes to counter the FSB with lots and lots of cache. This will probably be the last series of chips based on the NetBurst microarchitecture. One thing about the new processors, though, they are "socket compatible with the currently shipping platform". 14 Sep 2006 14:16:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060914_xeon_7100.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060913_restructuring.html When profits fall shy of expectations, when market share is at a record low, then it's time to trim the fat. That's what Intel is doing these days. Intel is in the middle of selling non-core parts of its business. And laying off thousands. Wallstreet was disappointed that the numbers were not even greater. Intel's stock had risen on rumors of greater layoffs, and the stock took a dive when the news was announced that only 10,000 or so would lose their jobs. Intel needs its employees, however. Let's hope that in the pruning process, Intel doesn't cut too deep. 13 Sep 2006 13:06:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060913_restructuring.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=83 Just as the era of increasing the frequency came to an end, so the era of multicore will come to an end eventually. At that time the computing industry will have to turn to alternative methods of increasing performance if it is to keep up the rate of the past. There's only so much additional performance that can be squeezed out of IA-32 through microarchitectural innovations and other techniques. The EPIC architecture of Itanium and Itanium 2, however, was designed with limitations of frequency speed and transistor size in mind. Itanium 2 can execute up to 6 instructions for every clock cycle. And that's just the beginning. The architecture was designed to scale using microarchitectural innovations. Maybe when the size of transistors has become so small that they can shrink no more, and the number of cores can no longer be doubled, and the frequency can be pushed no further, maybe then the IT industry will turn to the Itanium design to continue its onward march in performance. 10 Sep 2006 10:39:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=83 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=82 A problem arises with multicore if your application is capable of processing just one programming thread at a time. However, if the work of a program can be divied up among more than 1 core, your application is then multithreaded, and your application should show some performance improvement, on multiple cores. It is more than a little disconcerting, however, that most of today's multithreaded applications only show very little improvment in going from two cores to four cores on today's mainstream PCs. One possibility is that the software needs to take better advantage of the multiple cores. In the previous era of frequency ramping, increasing the clock frequency yielded an automatic boost to performance. In the current era of multicore, the software will have to get involved. 7 Sep 2006 11:40:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=82 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=81 Shrinking the size of transistors frees up room to double the number of computing cores on CPUs. By doubling the cores, you potentially double the number of things that a CPU is able to do at any given time. By doubling the cores, you therefore theoretically double performance. That's a potential performance increase of a 100%. No amount of microarchitectural innovations, within the 32-bit Intel Architecture (IA-32) at any rate, can yield anywhere near this much added performance. It is for this reason that: "Multi-core processors are the wave of the future" (p. 4). 5 Sep 2006 20:00:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=81 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=80 Performance in the previous era of computing was primarily about increasing the CPU clock. The problem was that, as the CPU clock was increased, power consumption and the heat that it generated became more and more of a problem. The problem became so bad that the rate of increasing the frequency of the CPU had to stop. "Frequency ramping will continue into the future, but at a much slower rate" (p. 3). 3 Sep 2006 12:34:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=80 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=79 Microarchitectural innovations, within current 32-bit Intel Architecture (IA-32) microarchitectures, can improve performance. However, microarchitectural innovations, and other techniques that have been used in the past, in and of themselves are not enough to keep pace with Moore's law of doubling processor power every 18 months. 2 Sep 2006 10:52:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=79 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=78 The line between the high-end server segment and mainstream computing has been blurred somewhat by the introduction of 64-bit extensions. The introduction of 64-bit to mainstream computing is a good example of the cross-pollination that can occur between the high end and the lower end. If technologies trickle down from the high to the low end, it is also true that Itanium 2 borrows technologies from the mainstream. Of these technologies, by far the most important is multicore. 1 Sep 2006 20:03:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=78 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=77 You can't say that IBM and Sun do not support operating systems other than their own on their high-end servers. They do. However, the large majority of high-end IBM and Sun installations use their own operating systems. Intel, on the other hand, is not the primary provider of OS software for Itanium 2. It's not even a provider. All in all, there are currently over 10 operating systems that will run on Itanium 2. "Itanium 2-based servers are the only 64-bit servers on the market that support 10 different operating systems" (p. 3). 30 Aug 2006 10:55:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=77 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=76 Intel claims that Itanium 2 brings standards-based computing to the high end server segment, as opposed to the proprietary designs of RISC machines and mainframes. Intel's critics, on the other hand, say that Intel overemphasizes the industry-standard nature of Itanium 2. Whatever your feelings about this topic may be, it is difficult to deny that the platform offers greater choice. 25 Aug 2006 11:12:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=76 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=75 Never in computing can one say that one size fits all. The IBM and Sun approach is just another spin on the one stop shop preference. The Itanium 2 platform is more akin to a best-of-breed approach. The one stop shop approach, however, has dominated the high end server space for so long that it is perhaps only natural for a reaction to set in against this approach in this space. 24 Aug 2006 11:12:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=75 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=74 Intel recently released the Itanium 2 9000 family of processors, formerly codenamed Montecito. The Itanium 2 platform has evolved into an industry-standard alternative for the high end. At stake in Itanium 2's progress is roughly $25 billion each year. 23 Aug 2006 11:00:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=74 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=72 The Core 2 and Xeon 5100 families of processors belong to the Core microarchitecture. 19 Aug 2006 20:22:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=72 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=66 It is well known that processors of the Core microarchitecture are energy efficient and high performing. However, a third feature that is often overlooked is that Core is supposed to be scalable as well. It is "low power, high-performing, and scaleable". 18 Aug 2006 10:47:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=66 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=65 So, by now we should be accustomed to the idea that performance is a function of clock speed and the instructions per clock (IPC) cycle that a processor executes. However, if performance is one side of a two-sided coin, then the other side of the coin is power consumption. What good is performance if power requirements go through the ceiling? 16 Aug 2006 14:20:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/blog/?p=65 http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060628_motherboards.html Intel motherboards based on the 965 series of chipsets are on tap for July, August, and September. The DG965SS will be "the first Intel branded motherboard released". Viiv 1.5 makes its debut with some of the new boards and chipsets. So does vPro. Viiv and vPro are two of Intel's product platforms. Like Centrino is to notebooks, so Viiv is for entertainment PCs, and vPro for business computers. Viiv 1.5 should arrive with the first wave of new chipsets: "Also launching the last week of July is Intel’s Digital Home Bridge Creek platform which will also be named Viiv 1.5". 28 Jun 2006 14:20:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060628_motherboards.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060626_Xeon_5100.html Intel releases the Xeon 5100 series of server processors today. The chips are "the first to take advantage of Intel’s Core microarchitecture". The Xeon 5100s are part of the Bensley server platform, which has been around for a while. Those who run Bensley systems can simply replace their processors with the new Xeons, upgrade the BIOS, and they should be good. The new chips are thus “drop-in compatible”. 26 Jun 2006 14:20:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060626_Xeon_5100.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060625_woodcrest.html It's the eve of the big launch. Tomorrow, Intel is to launch its next generation Core microarchitecture, with the Xeon 5100 series. The codename of the Xeon 5100 series is Woodcrest. It is the server counterpart of Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme, and of Intel's new microarchitecture. 25 Jun 2006 14:20:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060625_woodcrest.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060623_core_2_solo.html When Intel announced the official names of its next generation mobile and desktop chips--Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme--there was no mention of Core 2 Solo, causing many technical articles on the Internet to be rewritten. As it turns out Core 2 Solo is alive and well, though we do not have its official name yet. The codename is Conroe-L, however. It's a single core Conroe. Conroe was the codename for what is now desktop Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme. 23 Jun 2006 12:16:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060623_core_2_solo.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060622_fab.html Intel has officially put into production its third 65nm fab and first in Europe. "Intel is currently producing more than half its PC and server microprocessors using this industry-leading process technology". 22 Jun 2006 12:16:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060622_fab.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060621_roadmap.html It's been three generations of chipsets (the 915/925, 945/955, and 975) that Intel has lost its performance lead in desktop CPUs. It's ok to have a losing season once in a while, but don't put them back to back. Times have changed, however, and Intel has a new winner on its hand. Maybe it's a combination of the long drought in performance leadership and quality of the new chip, but the result is "one of the most hyped and anticipated processor launches". 21 Jun 2006 12:16:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060621_roadmap.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060615_dueling_cpus.html It seems that all one cares about these days in a CPU is performance. Case in point, AMD's new Socket AM2. Socket AM2 represents a marvelous feat of engineering. AMD was able to add virtualization, and lower the power envelope, both at the same time. That being said, nobody seems to care much. The reason is that the chips do not perform all that much better than their predecessors. 15 Jun 2006 12:16:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060615_dueling_cpus.html http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060611_computex.html Motherboards based on Intel, NVIDIA, and ATI core logic were on display at Computex this past week. Other trends were visible as well, such as the power needs of next generation graphics processors. 11 Jun 2006 18:33:00 PST http://www.askaboutcomputers.com/060611_computex.html http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060608_benchmarks.html At the last IDF in the spring, Intel took the rare step of allowing certain attendees to benchmark their pre-release silicon. In the meantime, others have been benching the Core microarchitecture and Core 2, as well. One of the ones doing the benchmarking at the last IDF was AnandTech. AnandTech recently got its hands on additional Intel silicon, for an additional round of benchmarking. At Computex, Anandtech staff were "faced with the choice of testing Conroe or sleeping". 09 Jun 2006 08:03:00 PST http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060608_benchmarks.html http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060602_winhec.html Ah, WinHEC 2006. But how to condense 128 sessions across 12 tracks, and three keynotes, into one synopsis? And What does Microsoft know about hardware anyway? They are a software company. Continue to find out. 02 Jun 2006 08:00:00 PST http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060602_winhec.html http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060514_core_2.html Maybe it was just a coincidence, maybe not, but Intel chose the week of the Electronic Entertainment Expo to announce the official name of Conroe and Merom, the codenames for its soon-to-be-released next generation desktop and mobile processors. 14 May 2006 08:00:00 PST http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060514_core_2.html http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/macbook_pro_060507.html One prominent analyst of PC hardware uses, of all things, as his primary notebook, a Mac! That should raise some eyebrows, and cause a few converts. "The PowerBook G4 was the best notebook I had ever owned". 07 May 2006 08:00:00 PST http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/macbook_pro_060507.html http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/encryption.html Maybe computers can never be 100% secure with reasonable certainty ... Computer encryption, however, is different. With encryption, one's data either is safe, or it's not. Encryption is all, or it's nothing. There is very little middle ground where something is just less secure or more secure. Encryption, done right, is so strong that it can protect content from the most powerful governments in the world. It is "security that may protect against military agencies for years to come" (Bruce Schneier, Applied Cryptography, p. xix). 29 Apr 2006 08:00:00 PST http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/encryption.html http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/ip_addresses.html One reader had a question about IP addresses: If someone were to use two different email accounts or two different email addresses from the same computer, could both emails be traced back to the person's IP address and identity? The person wondered what would be revealed, the person's name or service provider, and how could the information be tracked back to an individual's name. 10 Apr 2006 08:00:00 PST http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/ip_addresses.html http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060402.html Ever since the advent of the iPod, when Apple stopped using Seagate one inch hard drives and started using NAND flash memory instead to store music and video on the devices, some financial analysts have predicted the demise of the hard drive industry and it being replaced by NAND flash. This didn't make any sense any time soon. For one, NAND flash hard drives were not on the published roadmaps of core logic chipset manufacturers. The type of interface, the throughput rates, and the number of ports for hard drives all have to have support from the chipset. 02 Apr 2006 08:00:00 PST http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060402.html http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060327.html At the last Intel Developer Forum (IDF), Intel announced that it "will ship three new [server] processors in 2006". One of these server chips has in fact already shipped. 27 Mar 2006 08:00:00 PST http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060327.html http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060319.html 2005 was a good year for Intel. Nevertheless, their year ended on a whimper. Intel failed to hit its financial numbers for the fourth quarter, thanks largely to data that came in during the month of December. To make matters worse, Intel was forced to update its financial estimates for the first quarter of 2006 and revise its numbers downwards. Justin Rattner, Chief Technology Officer for Intel, in his opening keynote at Intel Developer Forum (IDF), mentioned that the company has been under enormous competitive pressure. That pressure comes from a nimble little company named AMD. 19 Mar 2006 08:00:00 PST http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060319.html http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060305.html Intel released its mid-quarter update on Friday, after which time a quiet period descends, until until financial results are released for the quarter. 'Effective with this announcement, Intel has begun its 'Quiet Period.' ... The company plans to provide a new Business Outlook when it reports first-quarter financial results on April 19, 2006'. There also seems to be a quiet period on Intel technology before Intel Developer Forum (IDF) next week, a calm before the storm so to speak. 05 Mar 2006 08:00:00 PST http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060305.html http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060225.html A display technology that merits consideration when purchasing a HDTV is LCoS, or Liquid Crystal on Silicon, a competing display technology to Plasma, LCD, DLP, and CRT TVs. LCoS got off to a slow start. Intel was going to manufacture LCoS panels but abandoned the project. Some companies have gone bankrupt working on the technology. Others have dropped the technology or not prioritized with it. Nevertheless it appears that the day for LCoS has come and that it has unseated CRT technology as the standard by which other displays are judged. 25 Feb 2006 08:00:00 PST http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060225.html http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060218.html Microsoft is hard at work fixing a driver bug that affects laptop computers and battery life every time a USB 2 device is connected to a laptop running Windows XP with Service Pack 2. Many notebooks ship with integrated USB 2 devices, so these computers are immediately affected. Laptops can lose over an hour of battery life. 18 Feb 2006 08:00:00 PST http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060218.html http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060211.html Apple currently markets both IBM PowerPC G5 iMacs and Intel Core Duo iMacs, both with similar configurations. This duality affords a rare opportunity to compare IBM and Intel processors. "Thankfully, Apple has two iMacs, one based on the Core Duo and one based on the G5, that are virtually identical, thus facilitating our comparison". 11 Feb 2006 08:00:00 PST http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060211.html http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060204.html Intel late last month announced an important milestone on the road to high-volume production of microprocessors based on Intel's 45nm (nanometer) manufacturing process technology. To put this achievement in perspective, keep in mind that products based on 65nm are brand new. "It is a key first step in the march toward high–volume manufacturing". 04 Feb 2006 08:00:00 PST http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060204.html http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060128_bad_axe.html Intel's new motherboard for high performance PCs is now available. While Intel's 975x chipset has been out for several months, and competing motherboards based on the 975x from other companies have come to market, this is Intel's first motherboard that makes use of the chipset. 28 Jan 2006 08:00:00 PST http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060128_bad_axe.html http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060127_vista_hardware.html ExtremeTech recently speced out four systems for running Windows Vista, Microsoft's upcoming operating system, which is due in the second half of the year. Specifics for such systems will vary, but ExtremeTech was able to distill a few guiding principles from the specifics. Older systems will still run Windows Vista. The question is, what hardware does one need to get the most out of one's investment in the new operating system. 27 Jan 2006 08:00:00 PST http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060127_vista_hardware.html http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060121_embedded.html ExtremeTech has run only its second piece on embedded processors in its history that I am aware of. Embedded processors are a topic that it does not normally cover. You have to draw a line somewhere, and I guess ExtremeTech draws it at embedded. But why the exception this time? 21 Jan 2006 08:00:00 PST http://www.AskAboutComputers.com/060121_embedded.html