Most Significant Hardware Of 2006

[The Coder]

Nice recap of the technology this year: Top 10 Hardware of 2006

I was surprised and pleased to see Core 2 Duo take the #1 spot. I have always seen that processor as one of the most significant microprocessors of all time. Anyone not opting for this CPU is really missing a piece of history, not to mention a great CPU. Next year I hope to have one and maybe a few other things that made the list.

[Richard-BKK]

I not see the dual core processors as a significant breakthrough in technology, it is just two of what we already had on one piece of silicon.

That said it hardly qualifies as new technology and surely not as a top breakthrough for the year 2006. If we want to put a processor on the list of significant achievements it would be the IBM Cell Processor which can be seen as a processor with 7x PowerPC core's running at 3.2Ghz.

Compared that to what Intel put on the market;

Intel has now 2 cores integrated in one piece of silicon, or 4 cores on 2 pieces of silicon for the latest quad core.

On around the same processor size, IBM did put 7 cores in one piece of silicon, 6 doing actual processor work and 1 core acting as traffic police.

I have one of the latest Intel Processors, if I start the computer I can hear the sounds of cooling fans spinning up. The sound get less after some time, but still can hear it. If I compare that to Sony Playstation 3, which has 7 cores in one piece of silicon running at a whoopy speed of 3.2Ghz I can hardly hear any sounds....And if I hear something I elief i is my Blueray drive speedng over the disk to find a new track....

[friend2]

I haven't upgraded my hardware in a while, so when it's time, a duo/quad core would

be nice.

From what I understand, the great benefit comes when you multitask.

For instance, you could have the antivirus and firewall bogging on one of the cores, while you work on the other.

Hence it should all go much faster.

Any opinions on this would be nice, especially from those of you who already got it.

many years ago, (when I was into Mac's), there was this addon card with it's own cpu you could install (dirt expensive), that basically let you run separate tasks/appz on it.

If a dual core works as well as that did, I WANNA HAVE !

Don't really know how this duo stuff works with Windows on it.

One great application to run from one of the cores would be VMware.

You could then basically have 2 systems running side by side with no noticeable difference in speed from a single core cpu.

As I said, I haven't tried it yet, but it would be great if it works like that.

Edited December 16, 2006 by friend2

[The Coder]

I not see the dual core processors as a significant breakthrough in technology, it is just two of what we already had on one piece of silicon.

You might have missed the award was for a particular chip, not for dual cores which are not even new for 2006. Yes, dual cores is just an evolutionary step which in the beginning was more hype than substance. So too are 64-bit chips. So are cool running chips that draws low power and run quieter. And so are ever lower prices. But the Core 2 Duo is the first to put everything you could dream of today into one chip at a price even the stingiest can afford. That's the brilliance of it. It obsoleted everything AMD and Intel had made up to then. The 4 core stuff today from both companies are still embreonic; AMD's 4x4 is a joke and Intel's Quad made the worst hardware of 2006 list. I doubt many people really stop to see the brilliance of the Core 2 Duo. I was surprised it even made the list even though I would have put it at the top myself.

It's comparitive to the first DX10 cards. They are out in 2006, but have monstrous power draw, are hugely expensive, and show only marginal benefits at this time. Once they perfect it, the price comes down, and graphics shine on the new engines, then maybe it could get 2007's top spot. It's hard to hit a home run the first time around, though it can be done such as the iPod.

[phazey]

many years ago, (when I was into Mac's), there was this addon card with it's own cpu you could install (dirt expensive), that basically let you run separate tasks/appz on it.

If a dual core works as well as that did, I WANNA HAVE !

Don't really know how this duo stuff works with Windows on it.

One great application to run from one of the cores would be VMware.

You could then basically have 2 systems running side by side with no noticeable difference in speed from a single core cpu.

As I said, I haven't tried it yet, but it would be great if it works like that.

Do you mean these ?

[Tywais]

One great application to run from one of the cores would be VMware.

You could then basically have 2 systems running side by side with no noticeable difference in speed from a single core cpu.

As I said, I haven't tried it yet, but it would be great if it works like that.

I have AMD Dual Core system for several months now (needed the performance quickly and couldn't wait for core duo) and the performance is very good. I also run VMware with a variety of Linux distributions in it and a WinXP appliance for test purposes (slipstream evaluation) and runs quite well in the enviornment. I assume the core dual (Intel) will perform at least as well. A lot is dictated by the amount and type of memory you have and the video card as well as the CPU.

[Crushdepth]

From what I understand, the great benefit comes when you multitask.

For instance, you could have the antivirus and firewall bogging on one of the cores, while you work on the other.

Hence it should all go much faster.

Any opinions on this would be nice, especially from those of you who already got it.

I've noticed a huge boost on 3d games like Battlefield 2142, but I've been disappointed with some applications like InDesign CS2 which is running like a dog (so slowly I suspect there is something wrong with it as nothing else is getting bogged down).

My entirely subjective impression is that highly demanding applications that multi-thread (eg BF 2142) do very well on the duo, but applications that don't have a less spectacular gain. I am pathological about not leaving a zillion apps open at once, so not sure about the multitasking.

However, it's hard to know how much the processor contributed to the gain relative to other components. I got a whole new system so in addition to the processor there is twice as much (2 gigs) and faster RAM, a nice motherboard and a howling 512MB graphics card (which undoubtedly boosts the gaming experience as the previous card sucked).

Anyway, overall very very happy.

[friend2]

Do you mean these ?

No, the card I had before was for Macintosh (I ran it on a Quadra)

Beatiful machine that was

It had an interface where I could virtually jump between the systems, and run different applications,

each running on it's own cpu.(but software from same harddrive)

The speed benefit was obvious.

For instance, I put one of those tedious rendering tasks on the addon card (3d stuff), and went ahead with my other work on the main machine.

A similar interface, or one that I can delegate "what runs where" would be nice in the duo core.

Don't know if there's any such optionality that comes with it ?

Offcourse, plenty of ram and a nice graphics card are a must have, if you are gonna

be able to use this technology to it's full potential.

Edited December 17, 2006 by friend2

[Tywais]

A similar interface, or one that I can delegate "what runs where" would be nice in the duo core.

Don't know if there's any such optionality that comes with it ?

In the task manager (dual core) you can right click on a process (application) and select the 'affinity' so it can auto-allocate both CPUs (balance) or run entirely on CPU1 or CPU2.

[friend2]

Cool, I guess I have to buy one system, to find out for myself about all the "nitty gritty".

[francois]

hi'

I didn't upgrade yet ... still with a prescott 3.2 running @ 3.8, I'am quite impress by the speed of some machine I have seen,

but beside the fact that you can OC these chips easily, even on air cooling, for me, the best improvement is the advance in memory chips, very soon some ddr2 @ 1333mhz ...

the future arrives faster that we can think

francois

ps; anyway, next upgrade planned, will be a core2duo 6600, and some geil or gskill 2x1mb ... may be soon, price are going down

a bit already

Edited December 18, 2006 by francois