U R AMD

burger asked:


Hi, im planning on getting a new laptop from dell ( a cheap one ) and am wondering about the processor, its a AMD Athlon 64 dual core Mobile Technology. Has anyone used one of these?? whats it like, ill just be using it for music, guitar pro, msn , and browsing the web. will this be fast enough??

ive got the choice of a AMD Turion 64 dual core Mobile Technology for a bit more, is it worth it???

AMDUnprocessed asked:

AMD Dell band together in “Austinville” to bring professional quality audio recording technology to the masses. This video underscores the synergies that led to Guitar Center’s recent announcement to carry AMD processor-based desktops and notebooks in their 215 retail outlets and online stores.

Pranay Rupani asked:


Inside the processor there has been an increased concentration of cores (number of CPU’s on a single chip). So the effect of more cores on a single chip mimics the physical presence of two or more processors requiring lesser energy because of the unique architecture and providing more efficiency. The latest processors have four cores, but manufacturers like Intel and AMD have released roadmaps for octal core processors stated for release in 2009 thereby setting the stage for 12, 16, and 20… processors on a single integrated circuit.

With all these cores in a tiny silver of silicon, networking and data transfer between the cores in the die (single integrated circuit) will need to have a quantum change. Unlike today’s processor architecture where running different programs and applications means that the processor switches rapidly between them, future designs with say a hundred cores will have separate cores dedicated to individual processes. This means that word processing would be taken care of by one core, graphics processing by another, running a game on the third and so on. In such a scenario, current bus transfers data rates (transfer of data from one part of the chip to the other) simply cannot keep up. Going by the current architecture the data transfer rate would be lagging behind so badly that it would mean that most of the cores would be starved of data, and instead of speeding up individual applications they would slow down considerably.

To get around the inter-chip networking bottlenecks, companies like Intel and Rambus have been working on prototypes of newer architectural models of chip design. Rambus has a model called Terabyte Bandwidth Initiative (TBI) and Intel’s programme is called Terascale Computing Research Program. Intel has released an eighty core chip that delivers super computer grade speeds on desktop computers. The finger-nail sized processor’s performance is 1.81 trillion floating point calculations per second at the speed of 5.7 gigahertz which is about three hundred times faster than the fastest processors available in the market today. Data transfer rates achieved by these models have peak rates of up to 2.92 terabits per second which is approximately 374 gigabytes per second, putting them in numbers fifteen hundred full length movies per second.

How is all this going to be possible? In Intel’s case each core has a 5-port message passing mesh network which is connected in a two dimensional mesh network with other cores that implement message passing- an efficient local area network on a chip. The cores will communicate with each better and a router will ensure that the right data goes to the right chip. Think of it like every chip knows what the other is doing and shares the workload because of the excellent communications network. This architecture is a lot more scalable than present day multi-core technologies in terms of speed and interconnectivity. The Rambus network differs in the sense that instead of sending one message per wire it has the capacity to send multiple messages per wire resulting in faster transfer. These technologies are stated to come in the market by 2010 according to the companies’ statements.

ProVFX Visual Effects and Editing School has been written by Pranay Rupani who is a Freelance Writer

Michael * asked:


I want an iBook G4. My only concern is right now im operating on an HP Pavillion dv6000 laptop with a AMD Turion64×2 processor. I want to know if id be downgrading.

thexena1 asked:


I’m looking for a new computer and need to know which is a better processor…

os geek asked:


For the past few years, in the processor field, the trend has been slowly shifting from a single high Hz CPU to multicore processors. Intel has Xeon dual core and has managed to paste two such chips to bring out what it calls quad core, AMD still has only Opteron dual-core CPUs and is likely to release native quad-core chip next year. There are other smaller players like Azul claiming to have much more cores in a CPU but the real players are only four of them, the remaining two being IBM and Sun Microsystems. IBM along with partners worked on designing Cell chip but it is a special-purpose processor, not for general computing. Sun surprised everyone last year with its eight-core Niagara processor also known as UltraSparc T1. It not only had eight cores in a single chip, but has the capability to run 4 simultaneous hardware threads in each of them giving an impression to the OS of running on a 32 CPU machine.

Sun is going to follow it with Niagara 2 which will have twice the number of threads in each core, thus a virtual 64 threads in eight cores! While Niagara has one floating point unit (FPU) shared by all 8 cores thus slowing down the floating point performance, Niagara 2 will have an FPU for each core. It’ll also run with a higher clock rate. So it will be a complete server-on-a-chip when it comes out next year. Seems to be the most interesting processor at present.

More about Niagara 1 at :

Acehardware http://www.aceshardware.com/read_news.jsp?id=80000603

about Niagara 2 :

Official Sun doc: http://www.opensparc.net/publications/presentations/niagara-2-a-highly-threaded-server-on-a-chip.html

and

News.com

http://news.com.com/Suns+Niagara+2+doubles+down+with+twice+the+threads/210-41006_3-6108880.html

Cell processor info at

Offician IBM link : http://www.research.ibm.com/cell

article source : http://osgeek.blogspot.com/2006/12/trends-in-cpu-design_11.html

Olly Fallon asked:


Many people now opt to build their own computer so that they are more in control of the specifications they want and save more than just a few pounds. There are a multitude of DIY’s found all over the Internet, and yes, it is possible to build one yourself! But before doing so, you must choose the right components for your computer. Here are some of the very basic components you need to get:

Computer Case

Computer cases now come in a variety of designs and colours. Some now even come with a panel window where you can see the inside parts through. What is important when buying a case is that the size of the case should support the size of the motherboard. A mid-tower case is highly recommended as it has enough room for all the hardware.

Power Supply

The power supply must provide you at least 300 watts and fit right into the computer case you choose. If you are one of those who extreme users or gamers, you may want to buy a bigger power supply to feed additional cooling, USB devices and case lighting.

Processor

The processor is the most important choice you need to make in setting up your own computer. You have to know exactly what kind and how fast you need. There are a variety of options from AMD and Intel, for example: AMD Athlon, AMD Sempron, AMD Duron, Intel Celeron, Intel Core Duo, among others. If you only use the computer to surf the web, do word processing, gaming and some graphics editing, the 1.8 GHz – 2.0 GHz might be enough. Extreme gaming, 3D rendering and video editing would need at least a 2.4GHz processor.

CPU Cooler

Processors usually come with a fan and a heat sink. But it is best to get a cooler that is more efficient and quieter than the one included in the package. Remember to get a thermal compound to put onto the CPU core.

Motherboard

Choose a motherboard that matches your processor’s socket type and supports the same bus speed as the CPU.

RAM

Similarly, choose a RAM that is compatible with the motherboard’s bus speed. Get at least 512MB of RAM.

Hard Disk Drive (HDD)

The HDD is your permanent storage for system files, applications, documents, games and so on. Get the largest hard drive capacity that you can afford. If you are on a tight budget, you can get at least a 60GB. Most motherboards have IDE slots for hard drives. Newer ones also have SATA connectors for SATA HDDs, which are quite faster than IDE HDDs.

Graphics Card

If you use the computer for regular office work, you can get a motherboard with a built-in video card. If you use it for gaming, you might want to buy a separate video card. Video cards usually use an AGP slot or a PCI Express slot on the motherboard.

Sound Card

Most motherboards have built-in sound cards which generally have good quality. If you use sound mixing or audio/video editing, you can get at least a 24-bit sound card for better quality.

CD/DVD

Of optical drives, it is best to seek for a DVD/CD-RW combo or a DVD±RW; the latter is a better choice. DVDs have larger capacity to allow you to store more music and movie files and back-up data. If you do not expect to burn disks, you can opt for a CD-R or a DVD-R drive.

Sandra Prior asked:


The PC playground is full of components, all vying for the title of the most important part of your rig. Everybody has a different opinion; for some it’s the processor, all that maths squeezed into a tiny bit of silicon; for others it’s the graphics card, boards designed specifically to throw pixels about your panel like plates at a Greek wedding. But where would either of those supermodels of the component world be without a compatible motherboard backing them up? Nowhere. And that’s where your PC will end up without a decent power supply keeping the whole lot juiced to the gunnels.

If you make a really bad choice of PSU, your entire rig may end up a smoldering heap at the e-waste recycling point of your local Pikitup. Cascade effects from faulty, or even from just under-powering supplies, can have unpleasant repercussions on the rest of the components making their home in your PC.

Repercussions such as turning your precious $1 000 pixel-pusher into so much molten slag…

Choosing the PSU is then an important part of the PC-building experience, so in this article we’ll make that choice a bit easier for you. Will you need a monolithic supply to keep that multi-GPU, desktop giant in check? Or can you make do with something a little more conservative?

Performance Power

At the top-end of the power-hungry PC spectrum are the gaming behemoths that AMD and NVIDIA have created through their quest for multi-GPU goodness. While CPU manufacturers have recently changed tack from simply upping clockspeeds to taking into account the power consumption of their respective processors, the graphics arena has doggedly stuck to the quest for speed. As such, power draw for the latest CPUs has stayed constant over the last few generations compared to their thirstier GPU brethren.

In the graphics market, the sky’s the limit power-wise – the latest 9800GX2 from NVIDIA alone runs at nearly 200W. According to some sources the GTX280 just around the corner could well be around 40W higher. Stick two of those babies in SLI and not only will you be light in the wallet, but you’re going to be taxing the hell out of any PSU you plug these graphics monsters into. And who could forget about the prancing triple-SLI show-pony? With three 8800 Ultra graphic cards sitting in a row that’s 525W sucked into the GPUs alone.

AMD’s offerings are a little more forgiving, simply by virtue of being less high-end components. CrossFire X with a host of 3850s in unison can be run quite happily on a 625W PSU. If you’re after the fastest 3D-gaming around though, you should spare a thought for the power draw of the incredibly thirsty top end cards.

Extra Draw

When choosing your PSU it’s also vital to take into account the possible power draw from the rest of your performance components. Your CPU is going to take anything between 35W and 130W, while the motherboard can drain up to 50W itself. A couple of sticks of DDR2 will run you around 15W, and your drives (optical and hard drive) hit about 30W each. It soon adds up, especially when you add 5-10W for each PCI card and 5W per USB device.

Just hitting the mark though isn’t good enough. If you think your 450W PSU can cope with the 400-odd Watts that you’ve calculated, then think again. Your setup will thirst for more at some stage and running out of power to the inner workings of your gaming rig doesn’t just mean it won’t boot, it might mean it won’t ever boot again. Your PC may struggle on with just enough juice for a while, but any fluctuations in the output of the PSU could seriously affect the delicate sensibilities of your machine. If your rig’s only receiving the bare minimum power then eventually something’s going to give.

PSU Puzzle

Aside from load, there are other differentiating factors between PSUs; the most obvious being the choice between conventional and modular cabling. The modular PSU came about as a response to the new plugs that performance PCs needed, such as SATA and PCI-E power. While conventionally cabled designs now end up resembling Cthulhu with the amount of wires protruding from their maws, modular supplies provide the option of having the bare minimum of wires necessary to power your rig. The upshot of this is that the insides of your case can be far clearer, improving the airflow over key components such as the graphics card, motherboard, CPU and RAM.

The downside is that modular cables can suffer from increased electrical resistance, causing voltage losses. This can have something to do with the quality of the cable itself and how many times it has been plugged into the socket, but the voltage you lose with the modular design is still fairly insignificant. Another thing to look for in choosing which PSU is right for you is the rail count. Originally, all PC power supplies had only a single 12V rail delivering the necessary voltage but, due to the increased 12V demand brought on by more powerful processors and graphics cards, supplies with more than one 12V rail have been introduced. Spreading the power draw evenly over multiple rails for the more thirsty components provides stability to the platform as a whole, limiting the chances of overloading a particular part of the PSU.

For safety’s sake a multiple rail PSU is preferable if you’re going to be drawing significant amounts of electricity through it; a multiple-CPU set-up being the perfect example.

Efficiency or Ecology?

Despite these differentiating factors, many people will still look at a new PSU in terms of wattage capabilities alone. In these more ecologically aware times of ours, however, the wattage rating is not the final word on power-brick selection. Efficiency has become a buzzword and is a key battle-ground both in terms of competitiveness and keeping new PCs as ‘green’ as possible.

It isn’t possible to achieve a 100% efficiency rating. Due to the nature of the beast, some loses are inevitable. Most current units, especially those from larger manufacturers, will adhere to the 80+ standard, whether they’re fully logo’d up or not.

It’s also worth noting how economical a PSU is when there’s little draw on the unit. If you’re leaving a machine on overnight, for whatever reason then even a powerful gaming machine with a high wattage PSU needs to be efficient while it’s slowly ticking over.

Efficiency isn’t just important from an energy/money/planet saving perspective either, as most of the wasted energy from a PSU manifests itself as heat. If the supply is no good at dissipating this wasted heat then this will lead to a temperature rise within your PC; and we all know that hotter components ain’t happier components.

So, the more efficient your PSU, the less cooling you’ll need in your PC, the less money you’ll have to spend on your energy bills and the fewer polar bears will find themselves confusingly washed up in the Outer Hebrides.

Roberto Sedycias asked:


Since it became commercially available back in the early eighties, notebooks called the attention of computer users because of its small size and portability. Not much of a commercial success back then, it only took a short time before the computer industry improved this item, up to a point that is now considered to be one of the best selling computer consumer products.

For one who intends to buy a budget notebook, he may have some difficulties in picking the right one, since there are several notebook manufactures offering so many models. Budget notebooks are in a class by itself with basic features but capable of delivering full solutions for computer related tasks.

For an easy guide to budget notebooks, check the following major manufactures:

SONY

Sony VAIO notebooks are fashioned products targeted to consumers who demand flexibility and power without compromise. It is expected to find features such as 15.4“ WXGA, duo core processor and 100 gb hard disk. Although not the cheapest of budget notebooks, it compensates the higher price by offering more technological features.

Most common features one can expect from Sony budget notebooks: 1 – Intel Core Duo Processor T2250 1.72 Ghz; 2 – Windows Vista; 3 – 1 gb DDR2 ram; 4 – Widescreen XGA display type; 5 – Intel graphics media accelerator 950; 6 – 100 gb SATA hard disk 5400 rpm; 7 – CD-RW/DVD rom; 8 – wireless lan 802.11 a/b/g; 9 – Modem and Lan port 10/100; 10 – USB connectivity; 11 – It weighs around 6.5 pounds; 12 – Lithium ion battery up to 5.5 hours; 13 – One year limited warranty. Price starts from U$ 929.00 and up according with optional accessories.

DELL

With features such as 15.4“ WXGA, duo core processor and ATI Radeon Xpress graphics, Dell budget notebooks offer a flexible combination of power, mobile productivity and entertainment at a good price.

Most common features one can expect out of these notebooks are: 1 – AMD Turion 62 X2 1.8 ghz/1mb cache processor; 2 – Windows Vista; 3 – 512 mb ram; 4 – Widescreen XGA display type; 5 – ATI Radeon Xpress 256 mb video graphics chipset; 6 – Up to 80 gb hard disk; 7 – CD-RW/DVD rom; 8 – It weighs around 6 pounds; 9 – 9-cell lithium ion battery; 10 – One year limited warranty. Price starts from U$ 549.00 and up according with optional accessories.

TOSHIBA

All Toshiba budget notebooks feature an 15.4“ diagonal WXGA display, DVD optical drive which reads and writes up to 11 formats, high speed wireless lan (802.11 b/g) for easy connection in networks.

Most common features one can expect out of these notebooks are: 1 – Intel Celeron processor with 1+ Ghz; 2 – Windows Vista; 3 – 512 mb ram; 4 – Widescreen XGA display type; 5 – Radeon Xpress 200M video graphics chipset; 6 – 60 gb hard disk; 7 – CD-RW/DVD rom; 8 – wireless lan but no Bluetooth connectivity; 9 – Modem and Lan port 10/100 mbps; 10 – USB and firewire connectivity; 11 – It weighs around 5 pounds; 12 – 4-cell lithium ion battery; 13 – Tv-out s-video; 14 – One year parts and labor warranty. Price starts from U$ 599.00 and up according with optional accessories.

HP

HP Budget notebooks with features such as 15.4“ display screen, AMD Sempron 3500+ and a sophisticated black resin finish, offer an attractive mix of style, mobility and performance.

Expected features one can find in this HP notebook category: 1 – AMD Sempron 3500+; 2 – Windows Vista; 3 – 15.4“ WXGA Widescreen; 3 – 512 mb ddr2; 4 – CD-RW/DVD rom; 4 – Wireless connectivity 802.11b/g wlan; 5 – It weighs around 7 pounds; 6 – Nvidia video graphics chipset with 256 mb; 7 – 6-cell lithium ion battery; 8 – USB, lan and modem port; 9 – Integrated stereo speakers; 10 – 60 gb SATA hard disk; 11 – Tv-out s-video; 12 – One year warranty in parts and labor. Price starts from U$ 569.00 and up according with optional accessories.

A while ago portable electronics devices were a luxury at an expensive price. Nowadays it became an affordable must have kind of product for lots of people. Notebooks are in this category for sure! And basic notebooks are the best option for those who are in a tight budget. So, if portability is a must for your personal or professional computer related tasks, waste no more time. Get yourself a budget notebook!

Roberto Sedycias

IT Consultant for PoloMercantil

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