100th Post !!!

100th post.... woot !!

MacBook Pro: Windows Benchmarks

Now that the race to get Windows XP dual booted on a Mac is over, benchmarks of course will follow. GearLog seems to be the first out of the gatew. They took the results of their study, benchmarking Windows Media Encoding, Photoshop Scripts and compared it to an PCMag benchmark of native Windows Core Duo laptops. From the looks of it, the MacBook is a tiny bit faster than an equivalent Acer offering in the photoshop test, and a little bit slower when it comes to Windows Media Encoding. Interesting stuff, check out the links above.

AMD v Intel Follow-Up

InfoWorld is running a quick and dirty Op-Ed article (click here) about the new AMD v Intel CPU news. This doesn't even touch on the lawsuit between the two.

Portable Graphics Machines Weigh In

Desktop replacements have been around for a while now. Laptops with the power of a desktop. However the graphics have always scared away hard core gamers, 3D modlers and any other users of heavily graphics intesive software. This is all slated to change with the upcoming release of nVidia SLI enabled laptops. These behomoths will sport dual nVidia 7xxx series GPUs and massive screens.

Pictures are starting to surface around the net of these machines. Bit-Tech has an article about the Rock Xtreme SLI which sports an AMD Turion ML-42, a 19" screen (1680x1050 resolution) and dual GeForce Go 7800 GTX. VoodooPC also has an offering that they are saying will ship in 45 days that sports similar specs.

These 10 lbs (low end) machines will be the beginning of the end for desktop PCs as we know it. It has long been thought that the longer laptops are around the more people will migrate to using them as their primary PCs. Once we can get the same power out of a portable machine, the demand for desktop machines will begin to fade. It is already evident in the growth the portable market has seen over the last year.

Check out more here and here.

Intel: 2007 Will Be the end for ATX

Bit-tech is reporting that Intel will drop specifications for the long used ATX platform in favor of the quieter (and more expensive) BTX, said Peter Brandenburger speaking at a small form-factor tech session. BTX employs an In-Line cooling scheme that pull air across the CPU first, then across the rest of the components. The powersupply is also shifted to a position away from the CPU, separating the two warmest components of the system.

This is great for people interested in smaller systems. Form-factors Pico-BTX and Nano-BTX are going to allow for very small systems using desktop type processors (Like Conroe when it comes out).

This also comes as somewhat of a blow to AMD, who, to this point has decided that ATX is fine for them and they see no reason to change. We will see how Intel's plans go over with enthusiasts and case manufacturers.

Article here.

Should AMD be Running from Conroe?

Today Intel allowed visitors at the Spring Intel Developer Forum: 2006 to view their upcoming Desktop offering, code named 'Conroe'. Reports put the new chips far ahead of current Athlon chips in both performance and power consumption. With the buildup we have been seeing, all of us have been anxious to see where Conroe will go, and how it will stack up to the K8 architecture.

From what is being reported, a side-by-side benchmark was setup using an AMD FX-60 overclocked to 2.8GHz and a Conroe 2.66GHz. The FX-60 used 1GB of DDR-400 RAM, while the Intel used 1 GB of DDR2-667 memory. Each system had a Pair of X1900XT cards in a Crossfire setup. From what Anandtech is reporting the stats are heavily in favor of Intel, with a performance lead of around 40%.

However, in my opinion they are comparing apples and oranges here. First, this Intel CPU is still 6 months (at least) from seeing day light. Comparing it against the end of the 939/940 line, and not against the AM2 socket CPUs that will be available in the 3Q of 2006 doesn't make sense to me. As I have mentioned previously, the DDR2-667 conversion won't produce much of a speed boost for the Athlon line but the DDR2-800 switch should, and that is due late summer this year. Another change in the Athlon line should be the 65nm switch along with the use of SOI (Silicon-On-Insulator) wafers. According AMD and IBM, co-developers of SOI technology, it is supposed to increase transistor performance by up to 40%. However all this is just speculation at this point. AMD has not released their roadmap, and I don't see them tipping their hand anytime soon.

Intel appears to have gotten with the program though. After trailing all of 2005, they finally appear to be getting their footing back. The gigahertz wars are over, clock speed doesn't matter like it used to. NetBurst is out and Intel Core Microarchitechture (ICM) is in. The future looks good for the worlds largest chip maker. But with AM2 and Rev F going head on with these new chips, the CPU market appears to be positioned for enormous technological growth this year. All we can do as consumers is sit back and watch the fireworks.

Anandtech has info here, and Tom's has info from IDF here.

Socket AM2, AMD's New Socket (Updated)

Socket AM2, AMD's first socket that will hold processors capable of using DDR2 memory will hit the market in April or May of this year. They may seem to be a ways behind, but the delay comes from AMD's use of an onboard memory controller which allows Athlon and Opteron CPUs to take advantage of massive memory bandwidth channels. Instead of just reworking the Northbridge like Intel, they have to redesign part of the CPU to change the memory. Using this architecture frees up the front side bus from memory traffic and speeds up the entire system.

From the looks of it AM2 will resemble Socket 939 and 940 in looks, but the pin spacing will be different to prevent the insertion of a CPU into an incompatible motherboard. The cooling fan retention system will also change. From Socket 754 to Socket 940, AMD cooling elements have been interchangeable, however with AM2 the clip will be different, requiring a new CPU fan. This won't be a problem for anyone but the gamers who have a lot of money invested in their overclocking and cooling solutions.

The change from DDR to DDR2 at this point seems to be purely a technology step rather than a performance move. According to hardware gurus Anandtech and Tom's Hardware, benchmarks put the DDR 400 and the DDR2 667 at pretty much the same performance level. However with the upcoming increase to DDR2 800, the new CPUs should start to separate themselves from their older 939/940 cousins.

With this, and the news coming from Intel It will be a very interesting year for CPUs, with the race heating up to levels we have never seen before. The DDR2 upgrade should help AMD keep its technology lead well into 2007. Most analysts predict it will last much longer than that though.

Anandtech has a good run down of the differences here.

Tom's Hardware has some info here too.

Mac Mini Core Solo Reviewed

To continue the surge in Intel based Mac reviews, Ars is running a review of the single core Intel Mac Mini. Not only does it hold more memory but from the benchmarks, it appears to beat its older G4 brother in just about everyway.

Read more here.

MacBook Pro Reviewed

Jocqui Cheng over at ArsTechnica has reviewed the new generation of Apple laptops, the MacBook Pro. Here general feeling is that the machine is quite nice, but there are some negatives. Check it out, she does quite a thourough battery of tests.

Click here to see it.