| Latest Processors |
Intel and AMD | Latest Processors
Is almost impossible to talk about the lastest processors of Intel and AMD, as the two giants of the industry are releasing almost every week better models and generations of processors. CPU, Microprocessor and Processor are three of the most common names to refer to the chips that give life to the processes. Let's talk about the latest models of both companies. Cutting-edge technologies While the nominal working frequency (MHz) has historically been the benchmark for comparing processors, is currently nothing more than one more property. There are new factors that operate together as a new data processing technology and have nothing to do with the speed or frequency of the processor. Indeed, the engineers realized that to reach high frequencies more energy is required. Some Intel Pentium 4 averaged 150 Watts of power at about 3 GHz. Other models, even more. The hardware platform for server used more than one physical processor for several years, which means the operating system could make multiple tasks, independently of each other as were located in different cores. This led to AMD and Intel consider to include more than one core on a single chip that forms the heart of the microprocessor. Multicore was born there. Following the original concept behind this technology, more than one core (chip) are included in one package and then devices are 2, 3, 4 and 6 physical cores. The truth is that by increasing the number of physical cores, it was possible to decrease the working frequency of the chips, reducing energy consumption and the temperature generated. These cores share the system interface and system memory. To this we add some hardware virtualization technologies that allow the operating system display the dual physical cores, to allow the distribution of tasks more efficiently, assume that the performance is doubled, but is enhanced twenty percent for the overall performance of a system. Integrated Memory Controller The traditional pattern of a PC that allowed a single core to communicate internally RAM included the cache memory in the processor chip. It worked for certain situations controlled by the operating system, but when it tries to access to source data, the system uses the system memory (RAM) where you can read and write. It runs the operating system, programs and the files he user was using at the moment. The processor receives the instructions to read or write in the memory as indicated by the operating system, which must be physically accessible to the system RAM and this schedule used a parallel connection called FSB (Front Side Bus), which from the original Pentium ledt to be 64-bit or 64 conductors connected to the processor chip of the motherboard conventionally called NorthBridge. This chip has a memory device called controller, who is responsible for synchronizing access to system RAM to allow reading and writing. The more speed (MHz) is the FSB the faster you can access system RAM, which means that our system will be faster. But the FSB was always slower than the processor's clock, ie a 3 GHz Pentium 4's clock could have a FSB of 800 Mhz. This creates the effect of "bottleneck" causing the system performance to depend on system RAM. One of the advances that microprocessors have today is to incorporate the memory controller, so it connects to the system RAM modules directly via a serial high-speed connection, such as Hyper Transport (AMD) or QuickPath (Intel ). This ensures high-speed access avoiding arbitration of the transmission of data through the Northbridge, which means that it is possible to use efficiently DD3 RAM with very high frequencies over 1000 MHz.
Well, this technical talk is over. Summarizing the progress and understanding help us to select the next-generation processors. In the next issue: the latest releases from AMD and Intel. ( 1 Vote ) |
Another interesting aspect is the ability of some models to run 64-bit software. While it is not something so significant nowadays, EM64T and AMD64 technology from AMD and Intel respectively, provide this capability and allow those 64-bit applications developed to be executed. The main beneficiaries of this model were the applications for games and multimedia applications. 