rosewg's blog

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

The Latest Processors

AMD Athlon 64 FX-57, Intel Pentium D 820, Pentium 4 670


Pentium 4 670

It's a logical successor to the Pentium 4 6xx series, one of its closest representatives is the previously reviewed Pentium 4 660. Thus, there is nothing special about it: the same core architecture (Prescott-2M) as in the Pentium 4 660, the same bus clock (800MHz in terms of bandwidth) and the L2 Cache size (2MB), but its clock has grown by another 200 MHz (i.e. up to 3.8 GHz). Judging from the latest (available in Internet) Intel's plans, the Pentium 4 670 must be the last processor in this line, as the 4GHz CPU based on Prescott-2M disappeared from the roadmap of this company last year. However, as Stephen King put it, "sometimes they come back"...

Pentium D 820

It's the lowest CPU in the series of multi-core desktop "non-extreme" processors from Intel. The key difference between the Pentium D and the Pentium XE, as we have already written, is that unlike the latter, Pentium D has two physical cores, but it doesn't support Hyper-Threading. Besides, the Pentium D 820 operates at the lowest clock among the entire series of Prescott-like CPUs: 2.8 GHz. There is nothing new in other respects: it's just a Pentium XE, but without Hyper-Threading. The main peculiarity of the Pentium D series is more than democratic prices (especially considering dual cores): according to the official data from the manufacturer, wholesale prices for Pentium D 820/830/840 currently amount to $241/316/530. For comparison: the wholesale price for the Pentium 4 670 is $851, Athlon 64 FX-57 — $1031. So, Pentium D 820 can quite set up for the title of a "people's dual core processor" (for quite well-off people, though).

Athlon 64 FX-57

The renowned successor to Athlon 64 FX-55 acquired a new 90nm San Diego core (its differences from Venice are minimal) with an improved memory controller and SSE3 support. Besides, the clock has grown by another 200 MHz to reach 2.8 GHz. It's the first Athlon 64 FX manufactured by the 90nm process technology supporting SSE3. It's an indirect sign that this process technology is streamlined to manufacture flagship processors offering the highest performance. From the users' point of view, the new Athlon 64 FX is no different from the previous model: it is installed into the same CPU socket as the previous Athlon 64 FX-55 and makes no additional requirements to a motherboard.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Computer Architecture

What have I learned in this subject?

Computer Architecture is the science and art of selecting and interconnecting hardware components to create computers that meet functional, performance and cost goals. Computer architecture is not about using computers to design buildings.

This subject is the prerequisite of my CS 122 last semester which is the Computer Hardware Installation. In this subject I now understand the purpose of what we have done in the previous course. I learned how the preformance, cost, function of a computer affects its manufacturing process and its parts. The technology trends that change every now and then has a lot to do with the computer's stand in the market. The manufacturers of the computer's hardware like its processor, memory, the input/output always competing to made the best for the buyers.