What is a “core”?

Does it mean the computer’s made by Apple; hence ‘Apple core’?

No, but that’s a humorous idea nevertheless, even if slightly esoteric: -

A ‘core’ is a separate processor; therefore a single-cored processor is a single processor. A dual-cored processor is 2 processors in the same chip, and so on…

A processor is a vital part of the computer; it’s where the main calculations are carried out; the computer’s brain, if you like. You may often have heard it said that two heads are better than one, and 2 heads = 2 brains, 2 processors, 2 cores.

A processor core is not a computer in itself, though, any more than a brain is a human-being. As the human body requires many different organs to make it run properly and continue working; such as a nervous system, blood vessels, heart, – so in the same way a computer requires many different parts to keep it working; such as data buses, power rails, chipset.

At the time of writing, the number of cores generally available are: -

1 core. (Intel Atom (32-bit low-power processor currently used in many netbooks.))

2 cores. (AMD and Intel – various.)

3 cores. (AMD Phenom.(AMD’s previous generation of processors, mainly using 65nm fabrication.))

4 cores. (AMD and Intel – various.)

I believe that 6 and 8-cored-offerings are on the horizon from both AMD and Intel also.

What’s the advantage of having all these cores?

That depends on what software you’re running at the time, and what that software’s doing: -

Very basically; a single core can only perform 1 calculation at any given point in time. It works so fast that it may appear to be doing more than 1 thing at once; but even if it’s running 2 or more processes simultaneously, it’s only doing one calculation at a time: Therefore it’s doing a calculation for process A, and then it’s doing a calculation for process B, and then back to process A, and so on… ‘Introduce 2 cores, though, and core 1 can do all the calculations for process A, while at the same time core 2 can do all the calculations for process B; at least in theory. In practice it’s a little bit more complicated than that, though. – But that’s beyond the scope of this article.

Let’s not, at this point, forget hyperthreading: Hyperthreading is a technique introduced by Intel, ( -and later developed and adopted by AMD) in the very-early 21st Century, that makes each core of the processor appear to the operating system as 2 cores. This doesn’t mean that each core is as fast as 2 cores, or as effective, but each single core with hyperthreading will still be faster than a single core without hyperthreading.

If the program that you’re running is CPU-intensive; then it’ll benefit from running on a multi-cored processor by being able to utilise the processing-power of an entire core all to itself; whereas if it were run on a single-cored processor, it would slow the execution of other programs down, and they would likewise slow it down too.

But there are programs; particularly games, that are written in such a way that they utilise the processing power of more than one core in their execution. In fact, lately, entire operating systems are written to take advantage, in part at least, of the processing power of more than 1 core; such as Windows 7, for example. Writing such software can be rather complex and tedious; which is part of the reason why every single program in existence these days don’t all take advantage of all the cores of a multi-cored processor.

Great; so what are you recommending?

Personally I recommend a dual-core or more processor; depending upon what software you’ll be running. – In fact, unless you’re talking about a netbook made in 2009 or earlier, or a laptop made before 2008, you’ll be fairly hard-pushed to find anything still working that has a single-core processor fitted. – Maybe a 6-year-or-more-old desktop?

If you’re a gamer, or you use CAD software; both of which are extremely processor-intensive and designed to use more than 1 processor-core, then the more cores the better. – Also the more RAM the better too; which is where running a 64-bit operating system comes into its own.

If you’re a standard run-of-the-mill computer-user, then you should currently happily breeze through with a dual-core processor.

If you run Windows 7 64-bit, or a 64-bit Linux operating system, then I suggest doing so on a processor with 3 or more cores for optimum performance, although 2 cores will do the job fine also.

Mac users: Well Apple seem to be fairly proficient at ensuring that their latest computer products are good enough for anything that the users throw at them; so I’ll leave Macs out of the equation.

Is there anything you’d like to add to the above, or is there anything that you feel I missed? If so then please leave a comment.

I’ve scoured around the internet lately, and observed a few possible future trends emerging. In view of and based upon these, I feel that I am able to make a few predictions for 2010: –

1) Intel will continue to dominate the desktop processor market, despite the current legal action being taken against them by the FCC. Core i7, and more likely, Core i3 processors, will dominate the marketplace. AMD will make progress in 2010, but will nevertheless continue to fall short in comparison to its rival. The dominance of Intel’s chips will be largely due to the fact that each core supports hyperthreading, giving dual-core processors the ability to effectively appear as quad-core chips. AMD will also possibly introduce hyperthreading into their processor-lines during 2010.

2) Digital camera manufacturers will probably abandon the marketing of their products by the megapixel and adopt a marketing-strategy based upon the user-friendliness and ease of use of their product. There is already a good amount of processing-power inside most cameras, and, rather than continuing to utilise this to increase image-processing and resolution capabilities, the makers will concentrate more on usability.

3) Cloud-computing will continue to gain in popularity, but die-hards like Microsoft with their Office programs won’t be making any losses either.

4) Netbooks will begin to utilise dual-cored power-conscious processors in place of the not-so-hot single-cored Intel Atoms that are currently in use within them.

5) Solid-State-Drives will probably make a great leap in popularity during 2010; possibly even becoming mainstream and out-performing their spinning-disk counterparts. SSD prices look set to fall even further; and with 1 terabyte SSDs already in the pipeline, they could soon be the disk of choice for all builders and manufactures at little extra cost.

Do you agree? Do you have anything to add? Please comment.

There are two main things this week: -

Firstly I’m reigning back on free-content-creation; at least for the time-being: I’ve been writing and writing and writing; and the result of that is that the creation of new (pillar) content has begun taking over totally; leaving very little room for anything else. – That means that development and enhancement had, basically, gone out of the window.

Whilst it’s true that this blog has had rather a lot of work done on it with regard to design-enhancement of late; I found that this plus creating all that daily-or-more new-content was wearing me out: I worked two 36-hour-days in one week just to get the design bettered, on top of content-creation. I still have the dark-rings under my eyes to prove it too.

So until at least a couple of weeks into January 2010 I’ll be producing maybe considerably less free content than I have been recently doing. – Although having said that if the writing-bug takes over, as it does from time to time, there may be the odd sporadic burst of increased-output.

Shop via Kkomp.com – Beyond.

The thing is that I don’t want to be producing free-content at the expense of things that could make this blog-venture a self-financing or profitable exercise: My current project, which is already delayed due to various circumstances, is my shopping-arcade, which is hopefully going to be open- at least in a limited sense – for the post-Christmas-sale-period and hopefully from then onwards. – However I may well run into further snags and not be able to open until later into 2010. – I’ll have to see how things go on that before making any promises.

Whether this project is going to actually work as intended, or just look like a mini-mall in Times Square, is what I’m going to find out when I get it up and running. – However the project is underway, and more will be revealed as and when. I’m hoping that the next revelation will be its opening, but I know that if I rush it then it’ll just fail, crash, and burn – So I’m taking my time with it to bring value and a decent product which will give the customer a good experience to the table, rather than something that looks like it’s been bodged in a rush. – So maybe I’ll end up missing the deadline, but at the end of the day I’ll have something that’ll last. – Christmas 2010 is only 52 weeks away after Christmas 2009 anyway, and by that time I’ll be hoping to have become an established online affiliate-and-otherwise-retail-outlet, in addition to being a technology-information-and-reference-library. – Those are the current plans anyway.

I’m quite serious about the monetisation of this blog; as a self-financing or profitable blog is a blog that it going to last the test of time, rather than going under and vanishing or not being updated due to financial-pressures brought about by x-circumstance(s).

- There will still be free-content here then, as there is now, and some more. There will also be paid-for content of a higher-quality nature, and in a different type of format to that already available, such as maybe membership-site sections providing coursework on a paid-for basis, etc.

Moving on…

Moving on: The next main issue in the spotlight with regard to this blog recently is the move of the mailing-list; hereinafter known as the ‘Kkomp.com – Beyond community’ from FeedBlitz to AWeber. As you’ll no doubt have noticed; the mini-forms displayed to join the community have already been switched to AWeber ’s forms from FeedBlitz, and as a result all new entrants into the community, having confirmed their wish by clicking on the confirmation URL in the email sent by AWeber, will instantly go onto the AWeber list rather than the original FeedBlitz list.

As for those already on the original FeedBlitz list; well the FeedBlitz list is still operational and those concerned will continue to get the usual level of service that they’re used to for the time-being. When, in the near-future, I’ve ensured that the new AWeber system is configured properly and working optimally, I’ll be importing the FeedBlitz membership to AWeber, and they’ll probably receive a confirmation email from AWeber, before going onto the AWeber list, having thus clicked the confirmation URL.

Following on from that the FeedBlitz list will remain open, although I’m unsure how long for, but any new people joining the community will go onto the AWeber list from the outset.

IF anyone currently on the FeedBlitz list wishes to get onto the AWeber list in advance , then they are welcome to fill in the currently-displayed AWeber mini-forms now. – However they should expect glitches, etc, on the AWeber side, until I get the new list configured exactly as it should be and confirm that. – Therefore it may be an idea if people switching to AWeber in this way also remain on the FeedBlitz list for the time-being.

In short; everything is a little behind-schedule, but it’s all happening.

21 Days to Christmas

It’s 3 weeks that can’t go fast enough to me. I’ve been hearing about bleemin’ Christmas since the end of September. I find it sad that most of the Human Race dedicate at least 1/4 of their lives, or more in some cases, towards 1/365th of their life; which at the end of the day only brings them debt, poverty, a hangover, bellyache, and lots of other negative things which take up to a year to recover from. – How sad!

So it’s a sorry-time for consumers, in reality. As far as manufacturer’s, retailers and a lot of businesses are concerned, however, the massive amount of consumer-glut brings massive bonuses: So in a way the gullibility of the consumer partially-drives the world economy to a large extent. – That can’t be bad then: It’s a balance of yin and yang: From negativity comes positivity; from inertia springs productivity, and, as always, someone’s loss is someone else’s gain.

But wasn’t there meant to be some religious significance to Christmas?

From a Christian perspective, it can’t possibly, for a number of reasons which I won’t go into here, be the time of year that Jesus (Latin) (Hebrew=Yeshua.) was born. Also the 4 differing records available in the well-known Gospels are fairly dubious and contradict one another in a number of places. Even the other Gospels from the Nag Hammadi Library  cannot in any way unite the separate accounts, and in many ways further contradict one another. The fact is that they were written well after the events by people with their own differing political agendas and mostly in varying states of consciousness; courtesy of wine, myrrh, and whatever other potent concoctions were available at the time.

From a Pagan perspective, it’s the date of the Feast of Mithras; the Legend of Mithras as taught by the Roman all-male Cult of Mithras is in fact the source of most of the Biblical New Testament teachings, with Jesus substituted for Mithras in a lot of cases. There is no longer a Cult of Mithras, and there hasn’t been for well over 1000 years. (At least I’m unaware of there being any, although it was a very secret cult from its inception.)

Christmas is also very near the Yule sabbat, marking the return of the sun and rebirth of the Mother Goddess. – But that’s the 21st December, the darkest day with the least sun, rather than Christmas Day itself.

- So from whichever religious perspective you look at it, whether you see Jesus as the Son of God, a Witch, or just a political insurgent using religion to get his message across, as all political insurgents did at the time, it’s a blank, a farce, a dud: Something invented to fill a void in otherwise empty lives.

To me; living as I do in England, this time of year is just darkness, cold, short days and long nights. Barren and lifeless soil and bare trees and shrubs, devoid of any foliage and in a state of growth-suspense.

Next year I’ll be hoping to cash-in on the consumer-glut though, I hope, if things go according to plan. That, in itself, will hopefully pay for my heating and lighting bills; although as far as lighting economy is concerned you might like this article from a while back.

While we’re at it; let’s take a customary look back at the articles published since the last Public Newsletter, in reverse-chronological-order: -

German online retailer www.hpm-computer.de last week leaked details of Intel’s coming range of Core i3 processors. Although Intel forced the retailer to remove the offending info; it was too late: TechConnect Magazine managed to copy the information, and is still displaying it, including clock speeds and prices.

The Core i3 range are supposed to be a budget range of processors: With that in mind, a price-tag of between 104 and 253 Euro seems a bit steep; bearing in mind the current unfavourable exchange-rate.

So what do you get for your money? All 5 of the i3 offerings have an on-chip-built-in graphics processor, constructed using Intel’s new 32nm fabrication technology. The 32nm transistors will require less power in order to operate due to their decreasing size; which gives the Core i3 the edge in power-efficiency. The on-chip graphics-processor will mean that it won’t be necessary to have a graphics-processor on the motherboard itself; as is the case with the Core i5 family also.

The fastest of the bunch of 5 different models of the Core i3 will be Core i3 540; clocking in at 3.06 GHz.

(Why am I thinking P4? Maybe I’m paranoid, or maybe it’s that I distinctly remember that just after I purchased a first-generation P4 clocked at 2.8GHz, Intel released a 3.06GHz P4 with hyperthreading, back in 2002.)

The Core i3 dual-core range will also include hyperthreading; allowing the operating system to see them as quad-core processors.

Expect the price of DDR3 RAM to fall even further: These babies have a dual-channel DDR3-1333 memory controller, as well as 4 whole megabytes of L3 cache. 

– It’s about time DDR3 got cheaper: I’m now seeing 4GB of DDR3 1600 MHz for less than £100GBP, while 4GBs DDR2 800MHz is up to around £70GBP, from less than £60GBP when I bought 4GBs of it for my triple-cored Windows 7 box just before they released the RC, and another 4GBs shortly afterwards, for a tiny bit less still. ( – Supply and demand. )

I once said that I didn’t think they’d get fabrication technology much smaller than 35nm: That was only about a year ago and it seems that I’m already about to be proved wrong, if I haven’t already been so proved. How much smaller can they go? According to my quick off-the-cuff calculations they’re already at the thickness of three or so atoms. What next; quarks carrying energy inside atoms? – That would bring a whole new way of looking at electricity and electronics if it is feasible!

For those of you who aren’t familiar with David Risley, I’ll explain a few things about him briefly:-

He’s an internet marketer and problogger who lives in Tampa, Florida, and he’s been blogging since well before it was even called blogging. He now makes a living from the internet, and very comfortably supports a family which includes a wife and daughter, and a son on the way.

“- So what?” You ask. – Well, for one thing, David Risley is the reason that this blog exists: If he hadn’t encouraged me to start blogging in 2008 then kkomp.com – Beyond would never have started.

I’ve met and spoken to a number of other bloggers online and off, but, without meaning to take anything away from anyone else – as there are many other totally professional, competent, and experienced bloggers out there- many with a great personality too, I feel that David Risley is always a dominant authority in the blogosphere, and to me he stands out as one of the if not the, top leader in his profession. In fact he’s pretty-much my role-model.

“OK so you’ve got a schoolgirl-type-crush on him. – Big deal.”

No; it’s a completely different kind of admiration that I have for him: OK I admit that he’s handsome, etc, etc… But disregarding that totally as I do, I admire him for his professionalism, intellectuality, perseverance, determination, charisma, and, more than anything else, his dedication towards making every product that he creates give the customer that much more than anything before it has.

“All right I get your drift: Build him an altar why not. – I’m not here to join some guy I’ve never met’s fan-club.”

‘Fair comment; but the reason why I was telling you all that was because he’s promo-ing one of his products again, and I’m in on the promo too. – So I’ve put together the following video and stuck it up on You Tube; and since I made it I thought I may as well post it on my own blog too.

“- And this has what to do with technology and computers?”

‘Funny you should say that, actually, because David Risley is a tech-problogger as well as being an internet-marketing guru. Take a look at PC Mech; that’s his first blog, he still owns it.

- Anyway, enough of this. – Before long all the reading’s going to be sending you to sleep. – We can’t have that before you’ve watched this short video. – By short I mean less than 2 minutes. – Watch and enjoy: -

- Now that TinyURL that was mentioned all through the vid is http://tinyurl.com/yauyu5v. I chose to use TinyURL to shorten it as they give a preview for the security-conscious. If you’d like to preview the TinyURL’s destination before clicking on it then click here: http://tinyurl.com/preview/yauyu5v. – No I respect your caution: You never can be too careful these days.

Anyway that’s what’s on offer, and it’s all that it says and more: I have the product; in fact I’ve owned it close on a year now, and it gets the Shazza-stamp-of-approval, with merit.

I know that you’re possibly thinking “I’m a technician/engineer/hobby-tech-person/whatever, not bloody Sir Alan Sugar or Stella McCartney!”.

I never even considered that I’d be reading a blog, let alone running one, only two years back. I thought my destiny and living was in building computers…

Maybe you’re the next internet business and/or blogging sensation, waiting to come into bud? Who knows? Has the product got your name written on it? There’s only one way to find out.

That’s my piece said then: If you want to add anything then there’s the customary comment-box somewhere below on the page. – Do give some feedback if you like.

Let David Risley teach you the basics of a six-figure problogger business in only 3 days. The course includes 14 videos, and has a 92 page transcript, checklist, and audio podcasts of all modules included. Download my FREE 5-page .pdf report on 3-Day Money

‘First question: Will the 64-bit version of Windows 7 run on only 1 core?

Answer = Yes, but…

…But the single-core CPU has to be 64-bit capable.

That rather limits the field, as there aren’t many single-cored processors that are indeed 64-bit capable.

The ones that I know of are: -

On the AMD side there’s the Athlon 64 single-core; probably the best-known of all the 64-bit single-core processors.

The Athlon 64 is available in Socket 754, Socket 939, Socket 940, Socket AM2, and, surprisingly, even in Socket AM2+.

The problem with most if not all the Socket 754, 939, and 940 Athlon 64s, is that they won’t fit a board that is capable of running hardware compatible with Windows 7. Having said that; I’ve seen a Socket 939 motherboard built to run XP running Vista (Which has the same hardware requirements as Windows 7.) on an Athlon 64, but it ran rather jerkily and badly – and not many of the peripheral ports worked.

That leaves us with Socket AM2 and Socket AM2+. The thing with a socket AM2 motherboard, (Which boards are commonly, in most cases, hardware-compatible for use with Windows 7.) is that a processor-upgrade will allow you to run a dual-core Socket AM2 Athlon 64 X 2 processor, as most if not all socket AM2 boards are compatible with dual-core processor architecture. – Therefore there appears to be very little point in running a single-cored Athlon 64 processor on it. – But if you want to do so then there appears to be no reason why you can’t do just that.

In a similar vein, a socket AM2+ motherboard will definitely run a dual-core processor, and may also normally allow you to run a triple or quad-cored Socket AM2+ Phenom on it; ( As I do.) so once again there appears to be no reason to run a single-cored processor on it. – But, having said that, if you want to do so then there appears to be no reason why you can’t do just that.

Staying with AMD, we now come to the Sempron: The Athlon’s inferior relation. There aren’t many 64-bit Semprons around as far as I’m aware, but nevertheless there are indeed some. Sempron 64s are available in Socket 754, also possibly in Sockets 939 and AM2. – The same applies to these socket designations if they hold a 64-bit Sempron as with the Athlon 64 notes above. 

Moving on to Intel we have our last single-cored 64-bit-capable processor that I know of: That being the P4-600 series of processors: Intel’s eventual answer to the Athlon 64 series from AMD.

These processors, in my opinion, suck big time: They use an architecture based on the Prestcott design, and were Pentium 4 with a few bells and whistles. You’ll be extremely hard-pressed indeed to find a board that holds one of these processors that has hardware that will support Windows 7. – So in short we can forget that series, as well as Intel, for the purpose of this article.

At the end of the day, then, if you have a motherboard with a single-cored AMD Athlon 64 on it, and it’s a Socket AM2 or AM2+ designation, then there is a good chance that you can run Windows 7 on it as-is. – If, that is, you can’t be bothered to upgrade the processor to a dual-core.

Final summary: It’s just not worth running Windows 7 64-bit on a single-core processor, even though it’s possible to do so in a couple of cases. – Upgrade the processor instead, if your comp is a candidate and is that old. (Up to 6 years old at time of writing.) For an article on upgrading your Socket AM2 processor from single to dual-core, click this link.

‘Good question that “Yahooligan”: I think it deserves a post all of its own. I was looking at a list of recent visitors to my blog when I saw your Yahoo search enquiry. Don’t worry; I can’t personally identify you: I know you visited but I’ve no idea who you are. ‘Thanks all the same for leaving me a title to write about.

The answer is; in some cases yes, in other cases no. A very rough guide to some sort of an answer would be the question: -

How old is your computer? : -  More than 5 years old = Probably not. (1)

                                                          Less than 5 years old  = Maybe. (2)

                                                          Less than 3 years old  = Probably. (3)

That gives us some idea; but it has no more than a 75% chance of being the right answer, and even the 3 answers aren’t definite.

What I can say with a good degree of accuracy is that even if it’s possible to run Win 7 64-bit on a computer older than 5 years; it’s not really worth all of the hassle. Why not? Because at that age, hardware is getting past it, and it’s probably not going to see another 2 years in a good working condition. It might; but the odds are stacked against it doing so. – So if your old XP machine is that old then it’s best to consider buying new with Windows 7 pre-installed, or building a box and installing Win 7 on it.

If it’s less than 5 years old then what you really need to know is: Does it have a 64-bit-capable motherboard? – And does it have a 64-bit capable processor? If the answer is yes to both questions, then you can give installing Win 7 64-bit a try. If no to one or both questions then you’ll need to replace the motherboard, RAM, and processor, before you can install anything 64-bit. – That’s basically almost a total rebuild. Is it worth doing? You decide: It’s your box after all. The cost of doing so? If you’re lucky you can just do it for just under £100UKP using a cheap or secondhand dual-cored processor on a new motherboard; Intel Socket 775 or AMD Socket AM2.

How do you find out whether your processor and motherboard are 64-bit capable? You find the manufacturer’s mark and model number on both the mobo and CPU, (Look in Device Manager.) then you type them into the Google search-bar. (Google is your friend.) Read all the data you collect from the best links and see if there is any reference to them being 64-bit capable. If so in the case of both mobo and processor, then you’re in luck. If not; it’s time to buy/build a new computer.

If your computer is less than 3 years old then it would be safe to assume that it probably is 64-bit capable. Try installing a 64-bit operating system on it. If you haven’t bought your Windows 7 discs yet and don’t want to until you know for sure, try downloading a free 64-bit Ubuntu Linux distro from the internet, burning the ISO to disc, and dual-booting that with your existing OS, or test your box with a run of Linux 64-bit from the disc. If you find that you like Linux better than Windows then use Linux instead; it’s free after all. If you prefer Windows still then you can always uninstall Linux at any point in time.

If your old machine is older than 5 years old, it may just be possible to install Windows 7 32-bit. – In fact I know of someone who actually installed the 32-bit version on a non-upgraded computer of age 6 years and it ran with basic desktop selected. – So all may not be lost; although once again I do encourage people with computers that old to buy or build a new box to run 7 on, plus, of course, to run the 64-bit version on their new hardware.

I think that’s about all there is to say. – ‘Anybody else got anything they’d like to add to that?

What’s the future of computing? – What machine specs will we be running in 12 years time?

That’s rather difficult to answer, as developments in technology that will have occurred then haven’t happened yet. If I knew all the answers I’d probably be a leading research and development coordinator on some astronomically-high salary equal to the income of top pro-bloggers.

Based upon what I know, though, combined with my vision of where things are going, I’ll take a stab at making a few projections.

In 2020 I would imagine that 3 new versions of windows have been produced since Windows 7; one of them probably that year. I’ll even hazard a logical guess and predict that it’ll be named, aptly, Windows 2020.

Recently I’ve talked about some fairly decent components in both the budget and performance range on this blog. In this article I’ll mention a few more in the budget range, as well as some others, and I’ll be doing so with a view to including them in the construction of a budget PC.

The cost of computer hardware has plummeted recently; and whereas a few years ago it might have cost over £500GBP to build a half-decent machine, these days it can be done for a fraction of the cost. In fact I’m going to show you how you can build a decent budget PC, decent by today’s standards that is, for less than half of that cost.

This PC will be reasonably cheap as PCs go; but I don’t want us to end up with a piece of crap that’s slower than a 386-powered machine, or anywhere near that, at the end of the day; so I’ll be utilising components that are well-priced but have a bit of oomph behind them.

I don’t intend to talk you through the process of actually building this box in this article; that’s your pleasure to do all by yourself: I’m just here as your personal shopping assistant, to guide you to getting the best value for a little money.

Choosing the Processor

Let’s start with a processor and build around that: Normally I’d go for an AMD processor to incorporate in a budget-build; but that doesn’t necessarily have to be the way it is: There are a number of well-priced Intel processors on the market at the moment, as well as some budget Intel-socketed boards. We’ll go on to choose a motherboard in a while: First, let’s find a reasonable Intel processor: -

I like the look of the Pentium Dual-Core E5200. – Don’t let the name put you off there. – The Pentium Dual Core range are more akin to the Core 2 Duo range than their single-cored predecessor-namesakes. – The main difference between a Core 2 Duo and a Pentium Dual Core is that the latter has less L2 cache. – But we can live with that to keep the price down. The Pentium Dual Core E5200 is a fast chip, nearly as fast, in fact, as the Core 2 Duo E7200, but just over half the cost at only around £46GBP. Being of the E5000 series, it is manufactured using a 45nm process, so it’ll not be power-hungry. It’s a Socket LGA775 CPU, so that’ll make it easier to find an inexpensive-but-not-ancient board to run it on. – Let’s use that chip in the build.

Picking the Motherboard

Now we’ll need a motherboard to run it on. There are so many to choose from; many are far too expensive for what we’re after though; so let’s have a look at the cheaper end of the LGA775 marketplace:

We want something basic. – Not too basic though, and something that has decent performance. I’m now looking at a couple of Micro Star International’s boards. – I have to say that I’ve never been overkeen on MSI boards, and one of them I’m looking at is probably a bit too basic anyway. I want to keep the cost below or at £100 GBP for the processor/motherboard combination. – Aha! I do like the look of this one: It’s an Asus P5QL/EPU. I used to use Asus boards almost exclusively until I changed to Gigabyte, because Gigabyte were slightly better in my opinion – however this board has what we’re looking for by all accounts: -

It’s a socket LGA775 board that’ll accommodate pretty much any 2 or 4-core chip from Intel with that socket designation. It has 2 PCI ports and 2 PCIe x 1 ports; which should be everything needed for any expansion cards on this budget-build. There’s no RAID controller; but since we’re only looking at adding a single SATA hard-drive; who cares? – Even though it has 6 SATA ports; which could be useful if adding extra drives at a later date. It has no onboard graphics capability; but a cheap and cheerful 256MB  graphics card, which we’ll choose later, will put paid to that. It uses Intel’s P43/ICH10 chipset; which isn’t a bad piece of kit either. The BIOS has overclocking features; but to keep things simple we’ll stick to stock speeds; as the cooling might not be quite up to the overclocking requirements possibly anyway?

On the back panel  there’s a PS2 port to connect a keyboard to – but nothing for a mouse, so we’ll need a USB mouse, which we can run from any one of the six USB ports. 7.1 surround-sound and optical S/PDIF are featured; but nothing else.  – No worries: If FireWire or something is required at any point; we can always utilise the PCI or PCIe x 1 slots and fit an expansion card.

This board will support 1,066MHz DDR2, as well as a 1,600MHz FSB. All this for just £56 GBP makes a total, thusfar, of around £100. – Excellent! Get it from http://www.digital-fusion.co.uk if you want to be sure of the price.

Just in Case

Now we’ll need a case: You choose; it’s your budget machine, so decide how you’d like it to look. I’ll suggest, though, the Casecom Black Midi Tower Case – With 450W PSU 20+4pin with 1x SATA which is available from Ebuyer.com for £26 GBP. Yes, this is the case that I built my Phenom-powered 8GB RAM 64-bit Win 7 box with. – From experience I can say that for a budget box it’s not bad at all. It does utilise a cheap Casecom 450 watt PSU though; so don’t expect much more than 300 watts continuously from it. It powered a triple-cored 65nm Phenom + a 250MB graphics card, along with 2 SATA drives though, and is still working well after 6 months, so it should be good enough for our budget dual-core machine with 45nm technology and running a single SATA drive.

I’m going to assume that you bought that; and therefore the total cost thusfar is around £126GBP Inc VAT.

RAM it in

All-righty: We have a PSU, a case, a mobo, and a CPU – all for £126; now we need some RAM. Let’s use DDR2, 1,066MHz, since our board can run it. I like buying RAM from ebuyer.com; because they sometimes run out of what I have ordered, and give me something far better than I ordered, or better-looking but with the same specs, for the same price… Well it’s happened twice so far. – I’m not complaining.

(I know: Everybody bulk order DDR2 1,066MHz; then I’ll order before they manage to put up an “Out of Stock” notice…)

I see a nice Kingston 2GB kit; (2×1GB sticks) DDR2 1066mhz Hyperx Memory Cl5(5-5-5-15). – And it’s only £31GBP. That’s going to fill both RAM slots on our board; and make a memory upgrade a little more expensive should it be undertaken: However we’re looking at running Windows 7 (RC) Home Premium 64-bit on this PC; and Windows 7 64-bit will work quite happily on 2GB RAM. (Alternatively we could always run Linux on it.) We could use a load more RAM if we wanted; but this is a budget machine; so it would just add to the cost. For now let’s just KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid – that is, before you start getting any ideas.

‘Nice work: I make the total cost so far only £157GBP Inc VAT. Moving on…

Getting the Graphics Going

As we saw earlier; this motherboard has no graphics capability, so we’ll need a PCIe graphics card: Ebuyer again; and I’m going to suggest the same card that I used in my last personal build; that being the Gigabyte nVidia 7200GS 256MB GDDR2 VGA DVI TV out PCI-E Graphics Card at, currently, £20.03 GBP. Yes, there is something slightly better available from ATI; that being the Sapphire HD 4550 512MB DDR3 VGA DVI HDMI HDCP PCI-E Graphics Card including Low Profile bracket. – But it’s over £16GBP more expensive. Whichever of the 2 you get; the overall cost of the machine minus the hard-drive, including sundries such as a case-fan, leads and adapters, etc, should be less than £200GBP; unless you splash out on fancy accessories, which seems a bit pointless on a budget PC.

I’m going to assume that you decided on the nVidia card; making a total spend so far of £177.03GBP.

Driving up the Cost With a Hard-Drive

There’s no way that you’re going to get a decent brand-new hard-drive for under £23 at this point in time; so it’s a foregone conclusion that this machine’s going to cost us more than £200. It’s still cheap, though; particularly bearing in mind that this is a well-specced box for the investment.

Let’s find a hard-drive: What we’re looking for is something that won’t fill up quickly and will last a while. – Up to 5 years. 500GB capacity seems a good size for a budget machine; so let’s have a look at what’s available: -

This one looks good: Seagate ST3500418AS 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache – OEM.

Seagate have been making drives for years; and most of their products, apart from their Chinese-made products a couple of years ago, are top-rate. This one has a 3-year-warranty on it, as well as Seagate’s reputation, so it’s well worth the £35.97.

In Conclusion…

That brings us us to a total cost so far of £213.00 Inc VAT. With sundries added that’ll probably come to a grand total of £225 Inc VAT. – Not a bad price to pay for a perfectly good machine that has pretty much everything that the average user would ever need.

You have all the parts for: –

A dual-cored Intel processor-driven machine, capable of running a 64-bit operating-system, with 2GBs DDR2 1066MB RAM in dual-channel configuration, 256 MB graphics capability with VGA, DVI, or TV out, 7.1 surround sound, 500GB quality SATA hard-drive – All for £225GBP Inc VAT.

If you intend to build this machine for yourself then happy building! Personally I haven’t built it yet; but I’ll probably do so if someone asks me to build them a cheap PC. (For a profit, of course.) Do let me know what you think and how you get on if you embark on the project.

People who aren’t building it but have suggestions/criticisms etc; please do comment below.

For those constructors wanting to build a top-end performance box that won’t set them back a small fortune, the Intel Core i7 920 is a good place to start from: With 4 cores capable of processing eight threads simultaneously, due to the re-introduction of hyperthreading technology, last seen with the Pentium 4, Intel’s budget i7 chip scores well in all performance trials. At only £200 UKP inc VAT, the baby of the bunch, although still rather costly, provides the punch that any top-of-the-range system would currently ever need.

As with all the other i7 family, manufactured using a 45nm process, it has a 256KB Level 2 cache, as well as a further 8.192 MBs of level 3 cache which is shared between the cores. This amount of L3 cache improves performance by reducing the need to access system RAM. At a little less than half the price of the next one up in the i7 bunch, the 2.66Ghz 920 is only marginally slower than the 940.

The i7 processors use a technology called Quick Path Interconnect. This replaces the usual front-side-bus with a memory controller integrated into the chip itself, reducing bottlenecks where both the processor and also other components make system requests on a single bus.

With the advent of the Core i5 on the horizon, in fact some already in production, some may think it prudent to wait a while and see how the new range’s price will compare, as well as to hope for a price reduction in the i7 family’s costs. For the time being, however, if a new hi-performance box is a must in the now, the socket LGA1366 i7 920 is a good choice that won’t set you back financially as much as the other family members.

If it’s extreme overclockability you’re looking for, then it’s going to cost you a little over £500 extra for a 3.2 GHz Core i7 965 Extreme Edition with its unlocked multipliers.

When it comes to the matter of system memory; the Core i7 chips can only utilise DDR3 RAM, which doesn’t help towards the overall cost either at time of going to press; but for the extra performance many will think that the financial sacrifice is well worth the investment.

Have you built a new system using an i7 chip? Did you use a 920, or did you shell out a load more dosh for the extra overclockability?

As you may know, or may have gathered by now; I’m a computer builder and an AMD fan. Yes I’m aware that Intel are the market leaders in chip design and that they produce some extremely top-class processors that are pretty much unbeatable at the time they’re released. – There are 2 negatives with new top-end processor technologies, though: -

The first is that the new designs/technologies haven’t been tried, tested, and trusted. Intel geeks will ask;

“So what? If you’re truly a geek you’ll be the first to try out anything new.”

I disagree – You see if I try out any new device I want to make sure that it works well and in the way that I want it to work.

I don’t play computer games; so having the latest and fastest multi-processor chip and the biggest and hottest graphics processor would do absolutely nothing for me. – On top of that there’s the fact that anything that’s a brand new concept is going to cost a fortune, and may initially be full of bugs.

That brings me on to the second point – That being price: What is the point of trying out some new device when I have to pay thousands for it? I’d rather wait a month – If I particularly like the device, for whatever reason. – and only pay hundreds for it; by which time it might also have a new version out in which any gremlins that found their way into the first line have been ironed out. Result = better product for less. Alternatively I could wait a while longer until the product is being produced en-masse and pay even less for it.

Three months ago I built my triple-core Phenom powered box and installed Windows 7 (Beta, then RC.) on it. I could have built almost exactly the same box a year earlier for a greater financial outlay using a buggy Phenom. As it was, had I waited another month until May 2009, the processor would have cost £10 less and the motherboard would have cost me £20 less. – All in all the entire thing lost over £5 value while I was waiting for delivery of the parts and then building it! Personally I’m not into throwing £5 notes away as a rule.

You may or may not agree with my angle on it all. Your personal opinion is, of course, completely up to you, and I have no intention nor right to try to change that opinion. – The purpose of this post, however, is to alert you to some amazing deals that are currently out on some of the tried and tested technologies at this moment, in addition to a few of the newer products on today’s market in the realm of computers and computer construction: -

If, like me, you’re a computer builder and/or someone who likes to upgrade their existing box(es) from time to time, then you’ll always try to keep abreast of the current products, their latest developments, product news, and where you can get some great deals on existing and new technologies. – Both tried and tested, as well as recently released.

I’ve been browsing around lately through some of the online retailers; both my usual suppliers as well as others, and overall I think that some of the best deals available right now can be found at dabs.com.

dabs.com currently have some amazing deals on Phenom processors, in addition to which their flat-screen TV sets are going through a recession-busting price-knockdown too.

I mean things such as an LG Electronics 37LH7000 Full HD 100mhz Freeview set for under £700 inc VAT for example, some great deals on processors, Crucial RAM, even whole pre-built computers! Seeing is believing; so hurry along and see for yourself. Now is an amazing time to grab a bargain at dabs.com; but hurry while current offers last!

Click on this link and your browser will take you straight there. Happy shopping.

I still build desktop computers – and I love building desktop computers. Some people say that the desktop computer is dying out. I don’t agree. Whilst I do agree that, to a certain extent, desktops are becoming somewhat less popular, in favour of laptops and netbooks, I believe that desktops will always have their place for years to come, if not forever.

- So, to the question posed in the title; what do I think are the minimum specifications required for a desktop computer these days? That’s another multi-pronged question. You see it depends on two major factors; one with a sub-factor: -

1) Is the user intending to run a 32-bit or a 64-bit operating system on their desktop?

2)a) Is the user planning to really utilise their machine for all its intended and possible purposes, or b) is the user intending just to use it for email, instant messaging, and general office work?

With the advent of Windows 7 firmly fixed on the horizon and in full view, the need for the latest and greatest hardware in order to run the latest Microsoft operating system is somewhat negated. Windows 7 is a lot less resource-hungry than Vista, as well as being a far better-designed operating system. Nevertheless the hardware that one must by necessity use with it should be in the main Vista compatible; which means a few of the older PCs still working will not be able to run Windows 7.

(I have a friend whose husband has an old computer that I had a hand in upgrading, in that I supplied some secondhand hardware for its renovation. Nevertheless, despite now having 2GB DDR RAM, and other bits, fitted, it doesn’t like Windows 7, even though it now runs XP totally satisfactorily.)

If the user is planning to upgrade to Windows 7; or to run the Windows 7 RC up until either the RTM version appears, or until it starts to reboot every 2 hours on March 1st 2010, then the above should be taken into consideration. I do, however, suggest that anyone who buys or builds a new computer should run a 64-bit operating system on it. All modern processors produced today are 64-bit capable, and it seems a shame to waste available resources and at the same time limit the machine’s capabilities by running a 32-bit operating system.

However, that brings me to question 1 above: If I’m building a computer for a customer I give them what they want, rather than what I think they should have. Whilst it’s true that I do advise the customer; and I can be quite persuasive at times (Ex-salesperson.), at the end of the day it’s the customer’s money and the customer’s choice.

So if they are positive that they are never going to run a 64-bit operating system, despite their processor and the rest of their hardware being fully capable of doing so, then that’s a good excuse to skimp on the RAM: If ‘intending just to use it for email, instant messaging, and general office work only, with a 32-bit operating system, then 2GB 667MHz DDR2 RAM should be easily enough; whether they’re running XP or Windows 7.

If the customer insists on running Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate edition; whether or not it’s just to try and look “cool”, then the processor will need to have certain features: -

Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate edition have a feature called XP Mode: XP Mode requires your computer to have at least 2GB RAM, which we were intending to fit anyway, as well as to be running a processor that has Chip-Level Virtualisation built into its architecture: In other words you’ll need an AMD processor that supports AMD-V, or an Intel processor that supports Intel VT. – This will need to be taken into account.

Otherwise, just for for email, instant messaging, and general office work only, an AMD Athlon 64 x 2 would appear to be just the job as a processor in this case.

In an identical case where the user intends to run a 64-bit operating system; 4GB 667MHz DDR2 RAM would be an idea; just to give it that bit extra oomph, considering the extra 2GB will only add around £20 to the price at today’s prices.

Then we come to 2)b) The user who wants to do everything possible with their PC:-

A 32-bit operating system is going to be a limitation in this case; so 64-bit is decided by default. Since it’s 64-bit; stick as much of the fastest RAM possible in as the motherboard allows why not? Use a motherboard that will take an Intel Core i7 processor running as much DDR3 as possible.

In the main, 4GB is the most that Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit uses under normal circumstances, but with the price of RAM as low as it is, and even DDR3 is dropping in price slowly, whack a good few gigs in why not? – Even if it’s just to prove that a 64-bit system can see it.

(I have a box running 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate RC with 8GB DDR2 800MHz RAM in it. I’ve only managed to get it to use 5GB under pressure as yet.)

Now to the graphics card: Graphics cards these days shouldn’t be less than 250MB in my opinion. – That’s not just because Windows 7 requires that much for the Aero Interface; it’s because of the demands made on the graphics at some point by almost everything these days. – So a 250MB card as a minimum, 500MB if you prefer, 1GB+/ quad SLI, whatever, if you or your customer are a gamer; depending on whether the machine’s for you or to sell on.

Just a minute… Wait, wait, wait: We have a minimum-spec office or OAP’s machine here, and a gamers’ box too. What if the customer/user isn’t an OAP/office worker or a gamer?

Well for me, for instance: I run a blog. I need at least 2 working computers; just in case 1 goes down. I’m doing most of my work on a dual-core AMD-powered machine with a 32-bit XP operating system and 2GB DDR2 667MHz RAM. The other box I’ve already mentioned. It has an AMD Phenom triple-cored CPU, 250MB graphics, and I’ll be using it later in the year with Windows 7 Home Premium RTM as my main box, while the XP box becomes the spare. Yes I’ll keep XP on it until 2014, and if it’s still working/not been dismantled/sold by then I’ll install Windows 7 on it and relegate it to the bedroom. I would imagine that Windows 7’s successor will at least be in beta by then.

To attempt to conclude, then: Anything from an AMD Athlon 64 x 2 upwards, depending upon discretion, is currently acceptable for a processor in my opinion. Single-cored processors are out. I will never ever use another single-cored processor if I can possibly avoid doing so. DDR2 (667MHz) upwards is OK for RAM, once again using discretion. Graphics should never be anything under 250MB.

I use that as a guide at present; although next year (2010) it might be a complete new ball-game? Who knows?

I will say again, though, as a final point, there’s no reason, unless you have a rather old computer, not to run a 64-bit version of the Windows 7 operating system. I positively encourage everyone to do so if they can. It’s time we ushered in the 64-bit computing age. 32-bit is becoming lame and is old-hat. – Maybe that would be a good name for a retro 32-bit Linux distro: Old Hat? The mind boggles…

- A little helpful advice; prior to the release of Windows 7, which may save you some money: -

XP mode in Windows 7 is a free download of virtual PC software that emulates the XP hardware/software environment

There is a problem with XP Mode; several in fact: -

First, if you don’t have the Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate edition, then XP Mode just won’t work: It’s Microsoft’s way of getting you to pay more.

At this point you might be asking ”Why would I want XP Mode anyway?”: -

XP Mode will allow you to run a virtual Windows XP session, either or on the Win7 desktop or in a separate window. XP Mode is aimed people who have programs that ran fine on Windows XP, but won’t work on Vista or Windows 7 because of, mainly, the new system architecture, both software and hardware, and improved security associated with these operating systems.

- So if, say, you’re a business who wants to use Windows 7, but you regularly use programs that will only work in XP, and you don’t want to have to shell out for loads of new software on top of the operating system’s volume licence, you buy Enterprise Edition and use XP Mode where necessary. – I think that was the general idea.

BUT – What if you’re a home user and you’ve bought your shiny new machine complete with a preinstalled Home Premium version of Windows 7? You might be starting out in an online business, perhaps, and have software that you used to run on XP which makes Windows 7 cough and croak, or 7 simply refuses to run it in the first place. Oh dear; you’re screwed.

Oh; and just to rain even heavier on your fireworks, in the case that you did go out and buy Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate Edition, there’s something else that you should know:

There are also hardware requirements associated with XP Mode.

XP Mode requires your computer to have at least 2GB RAM, as well as to be running a processor that has Chip-Level Virtualisation built into its architecture: In other words you’ll need an AMD processor that supports AMD-V, or an Intel processor that supports Intel VT. Celeron, Pentium, and Sempron processors are a no-go due to this. Also, even if your processor does have this feature, it may not have been activated, so check your BIOS to make sure.

- Or perhaps maybe not: You see there may nevertheless be a way to scrub round it using a free download from Sun Microsystems called Virtual Box. Virtual box is exactly what it says on the tin; or should that read “exactly what it says on the box”? – It’s a virtual box that runs inside a physical box, and it allows you to run multiple operating systems on a single physical computer without having to dual-boot or partition the drive. You can in fact have both operating systems running at the same time, and you can switch between virtual operating systems too; whether they be Windows, Linux, …I’m not sure about OSX; possibly not. –?

- So in the case of our fictional business person above, we download and install Sun Virtual Box, and we then load XP Professional within the virtual environment.

Yes I’ve done it myself. Yes it worked without any problems on my 3-core AMD Phenom-powered box with 4GB DDR2 800MHz RAM installed at the time, running the 64-bit Windows 7 RC. (Incidentally I installed the 32-bit version of XP Pro inside the VM.) Do check that your box meets the minimum requirements before installing Virtual Box.

In conclusion, then, the way to avoid shelling out extra for a version of Windows 7 with XP Mode is to use something that’s free instead of XP Mode: -

Open Source – 1

Microsoft Proprietary – 0

Now I give no guarantees that this will work perfectly and flawlessly every time; so don’t try to sue me if it goes tits-up. Normally, however, it should, as far as I can see, provide a reasonable alternative to XP Mode. – What do you say? Over to you: Please comment.

In 2003; AMD introduced the first 64-bit processor targeted at the average consumer, the single-cored Athlon 64, onto the market. Six years later, and now virtually all processors produced at the present moment are 64-bit capable. Also most processors used these days have 2 or more cores, enabling approximately 1.7 times or more of the functionality of a single-cored CPU.

Meanwhile, leaving the minority operating systems, such as Linux, and Mac osX – which only runs well on an Apple computer anyway, aside; between 2001 and almost up to the present day the market leader of operating systems, namely Microsoft Windows, has in reality been fairly stagnant. Despite the release of Windows Vista in January 2007, which in many ways went down like a lead balloon from the offing, most people have been using Windows XP since 2001. (Myself included.(Well, since January 2002 to be exact. – I stayed with Windows 98SE until I managed to afford a new computer. – Things were a bit tighter then.) Back in the days when XP was launched, everyone was using a single-cored processor that was only 32-bit capable. In those days 250 megabytes of RAM was considered a vast amount, a 60GB hard-drive had a massive amount of space on it, the Intel Pentium 4 was the latest cutting-edge CPU, (The new machine I bought in 2002 had a first-generation P4 2.8GHz processor installed.) 32MB graphics were considered the norm, and 64MB were considered leading-edge… Nobody but the extreme-geeks wanted 64-bit operating systems; and therefore most of the XP CDs sold were 32-bit. 32-bit became the norm, became known. It was taught that computers went from 4-bits in the 1960s and 70s, (Commodore Pet) to 8-bits (16-colours!) in the 1980s, to 16-bits (DOS) and then to 32-bits (Windows 95 et al.) in the 1990s. – And from there a general feeling amongst the less-computer-literate that this was the ultimate destiny, that technology had no need to progress further than that. Windows 98SE became replaced by the excuse for an operating system known as Windows ME, and shortly afterwards by Windows 2000, which combined the advances made in ME with the lessons learned from ME: The limited and insecure FAT32 file-system which Microsoft had previously hailed as the way ahead, was falling out of favour, and customers had the choice now of using either FAT32 or the far superior NTFS disk-formats. Not far down the road came XP; which built on the lessons learned from 2000, and XP and 2000 were the in-thing. Many people stuck to using 98SE and ME, in addition to those using 2000 and XP.

Support for 98SE and ME was eventually discontinued; but to this day some die-hards still use those operating systems, despite their now being a massive security-risk both in terms of the user and of the rest of the internet-community as a whole. XP became the principle operating system, even holding out extremely well against the newer Windows Vista, which flopped from launch. – This caused consternation among many of the Microsoft faithful; many of whom switched to Linux and Apple’s Mac in protest.

Despite all this; the remaining Microsoft community – which only shrank in size by a few percent due to defectors to Linux and Mac – stayed in the 32-bit frame of mind. A few took up 64-bit computing with Vista after SP1. Even fewer took up 64-bit computing with XP after SP2 and 3.

Meanwhile; Apples Mac community; its numbers swelled with Vista detractors, was already completely 64-bit. Linux distros appeared utilising the 64-bit potential of modern machines also. Microsoft people either didn’t appear to know or care about 64-bit computing: 32-bit computing appeared good enough so why change? There was and still remains a danger of getting stuck in a rut.

What’s the big deal about 64-bit computing then? Why should I want to use a 64-bit operating system as opposed to a 32-bit operating system?

Let me ask you this: (I know a question in answer to a question may be considered lame; but bear with me here.) Why would you want to use a 32-bit operating system as opposed to a 16-bit operating system? Because 32-bit has more capabilities, right? – Like 32 million colours as opposed to 256 colours…

No I’m not saying that there’s several trillion colours in 64-bit…. Well there may in fact be so; but it’s a bit pointless to use that as a reason to upgrade, as the human eye only sees just over 24 million different colours. The main thing about 64-bit operating systems is that they enable your computer to work with more memory. (RAM) – Vastly more in fact: These days applications are demanding more and more RAM and other system resources to be in use on your computer in order to run them. – But there’s a limit to how much RAM you can use per system. If you’re running a 32-bit operating system you can use up to around 3.5 gigabytes of RAM. In 2001 that must have seemed like a colossal amount of memory. These days 2 gigabytes is standard. – On a computer with a 32-bit operating system that is.

I’m typing this on a computer that I built in December 2008. This computer has 2 GB RAM, an AMD Athlon 64 x 2 dual-core 64-bit capable processor… Yet as with most such computers belonging to most people, it’s currently running a 32-bit XP Professional operating system.

The computer next to it, which I built in April 2009, has 4GB RAM – and today I bought another 4 GB RAM which I intend to fit soon. It has an AMD Phenom triple-cored 64-bit-enabled processor and is currently running Windows 7 RC 64-bit.

My point is that this year a new Windows operating system is going to be launched. – But this is no Vista: This one’s Windows 7. It works almost flawlessly and neither I nor several of my online acquaintances can find anything to complain about with regard to it. – And this is before it’s even been fully released! – OK ‘straight to the point: Which is that 32-bit is so 1990s and 2000s. Next year we’ll be entering the 2010s and, as usual, technology will be moving on at its standard fast-pace.

Windows 7 will be available in both 32 and 64-bit versions. If you have a 64-bit capable computer and buy and/or load 32-bit Windows 7 you won’t be doing yourself any favours. When Windows 95 was released it was possible to run a 16-bit operating system on a 32-bit computer designed to run Windows 95. – Try running one of today’s apps in a 16-bit environment though. It wouldn’t run. Even if it did run; the machines that were around when 16-bit was the in-thing would hardly be capable of running a single app that’s used today. (I tried running XP Home on a computer powered by a Pentium 1 processor. (1996/7 IIRC.) It was 32-bit capable so it ran: Badly and tediously slowly. It took 1/2 hour to boot…)

In a few years your 32-bit operating system won’t be capable of running the applications of the time properly and in multiples, because they’ll need more memory than is able to be utilised by a 32-bit operating system. Remember; a 32-bit operating system can only see about 3.5 gigabytes at one time. A 64-bit operating system can see and use over 16 million terabytes of RAM though. That should be all you need for a few years yet.

Do yourself a favour: When you move up to Windows 7; get a 64-bit version of the operating system (Provided that your system is 64-bit capable.(Most systems built in the last 2 years are 64-bit capable. If unsure ask your retailer or an experienced geek.)) It’s time everyone snapped out of this 32-bit mentality; it’s so yesterday. – It’s like choosing to drive a Reliant Robin in favour of a Porsche.

Let’s all break the mould and go 64-bit. I intend to do so; and it’s in everyone’s best interests to do likewise.

Do you agree?

This is another article on Windows 7: It’s Windows 7 week this week; and since I’ve installed the RC (Release Candidate) of Windows 7 (64-bit) this week, the fact that it is is rather appropriate. – Not forgetting, of course, that Microsoft have officially released the RC to the public this week also.

Below is a listing of all the .msc files in the RC. What are .msc files? According to fileinfo.com, this: -

File Type
Microsoft Management Console Snap-in Control File

Category
System Files

Common?
No

File Description
Additional control added to the Microsoft Management Console in Windows

You’ll notice from the date affixed to the listing that these .msc files were also present in the various beta builds; from build 7000 upwards.

.msc files in Windows are generally useful, as they have a function similar to .com and .exe files: For instance; devmgmt.msc is the device manager, and eventvwr.msc is the event viewer. These files reside in the System 32 subfolder of the Windows folder. The same thing is true of Vista and XP to a certain extent; other than a few of the files might have a slightly different nomenclature in some regards, depending upon the operating system in question.

(Please excuse DS Clock for getting in the shot.)

What I noticed was new in the RC version, and that wasn’t included in the original beta, was the .com (Command) files listed below. As you will note from the listing below; .com files are MS-DOS application files: The 16-bit equivalent of a 32 or 64-bit .exe file. Despite whatever counter-claims may arise; Microsoft are still using DOS in at least part of their operating systems. This may not be a bad thing. – And then again it might? – But no biggie. These files are a throwback to before the days of Windows 95; (Probably revised somewhat since then.) but are still useful to this day.

I don’t intend to teach you DOS at this point. Either you know it or you don’t. If you know DOS then so much the better: You’ll instantly understand what these files are for and what they do. If you don’t know DOS then there’s little point learning it anyway these days. – But if you want to learn it anyway, then there are many online tutorials available. Google is your friend.

However; more than this, Microsoft have added a shedload of .exe files, as well as a gargantuan collection of .dll’s. It’s the .exe files that particularly interest me, and I have to admit that I haven’t even screen-captured all the listings, let alone browsed through them all identifying and comparing them to those of previous operating systems.

(If you’re expecting me to do so and report the results in the next article then I’ll inform you here that it took me many months to do that with XP, during which Vista appeared, and was looked at and ignored by me – along with most of the corporate world including Intel. – In other words I most likely won’t so you’re out of luck. – But no doubt someone will: The internet’s a big place, and with somewhere around 1/4 billion blogs out there it’s unlikely that it won’t happen.)

The first screen of them, and there are many, is pictured below.: -

- And if you think that’s a vast amount, having looked for yourself; wait until you see the number of .dll’s they’ve added. – That’s well beyond the scope of this article.

What drew my attention to these files in the first place was that I transferred some files and settings over from my 32-bit XP setup on the networked computer next door.(As in; the next computer in that row of computers.) Having transferred all of my personal profile over from XP to 7, I noticed that the thing that stuck out like a sore thumb, and that was missing, was the sound recorder icon that I created in XP.

I looked in 64-bit 7’s System 32 folder for a similar file or icon to the sndrec32.exe found in 32-bit XP, and discovered that there isn’t one. There’s an equivalent to sndvol32.exe, the volume controls, named SndVol.exe, but there’s no SndRec.exe, nor is there any equivalent file as far as I can tell.

This is going to cause problems for me if Microsoft don’t include it in the RTM version: I use the sndrec32.exe function in 32-bit XP via a desktop shortcut to call up the sound recorder, on which I record voice tracks, then use software to mix with music tracks, combine and clean them up, convert to mp3 format, and use the finished product. In fact the intro music for this blog was produced in just that manner. Without the presence of the sound recorder I am a bit stuffed, as are other bloggers who also record in this way.

I don’t know if it’s included in the 32-bit version? I strongly suspect not.

…And I’ve just found out, via Twitter, from Rich Menga of PC Mech.com that I suspected right: It isn’t.

Here’s my last-minute appeal. I do know that Microsoft’s Windows 7 Team read this blog from time to time; especially if I write something on Windows 7. (Logically.) – So I ask those geeks in that team to please include an equivalent to sndrec32.exe in the RTM build.

If it isn’t included I’m sure I’ll get by. – But I see no reason why it can’t be so included. (Having said that; I’m not on the development team, so what do I know?) If it isn’t included it’ll be a big pain in the ass at first. – Like the absence of the Address Bar was when I first installed Service Pack 3 to my Win XP Pro 32-bit installations. – But I carried on regardless, and eventually scrubbed round it and almost forgot about the Address Bar in the end.

- But; dear Microsoft, I appeal to you and beseech thee not to cause me any further pain, and to please include a sound recorder file in the System32 folder of the RTM of Windows 7. (It’s like a bloody prayer this. (“Oh great God of the Sacred Redmond, it is with humility and sworn devotion that we come before thee…”) I just hope it has better results than prayer.) I also speak for those others who cannot live without the sound recorder and would like it reinstated.

- In the name of Bill Gates who gave up his position for us so that Microsoft could move ever onward.

Amen.

“Blasphemer…!”

“Oh rock of ages; don’t you crumble or be leaning still.

Ah, magic moonshine now: A little people magick if you will.”

- Queen 1972.

Ah – Egg on face time: There is a sound recorder exe file in System32. It’s called SoundRecorder.exe Why is it so difficult to find? I partially blame Microsoft for renaming it to something unexpected, and also myself for not looking hard enough.

It appears to only recognise a USB microphone though. All attempts to get it to recognise an analogue mic plugged into the sound card appear futile. I did only try with a single analogue microphone though – So there may be a chance that the one I used was faulty (?)

My thanks to my internet stalker Synapse Syndrome commenting under his gay alter-ego of “Sarah Palin” (aka Syphilis Syndrone.) for this information. Unfortunately I won’t publish his comment as it is rude and obnoxious, plus I’ve banned him from publication already due to the rude and ignorant crassness of his rhetoric, as seen in his previous comments prior to the instatement of the ban. No doubt he investigated the case extremely carefully over the course of a number of days before discovering it, so that he could write a comment full of insults and ridicule. – That was a total waste of time on his part in writing it; but it’s good to know that I have my detractors serving at my feet.

The first thing people who need a new computer think of is going to a large retailer such as PC World in the UK to buy a “cloned” machine costing anything from £200 upwards, depending upon its capabilities. I myself used to rely upon such retailers at one point. – But the problem with such retailers is that they sell you what they want you to have to a certain extent. In the case of PC World stores in the UK in particular; their profit comes not so much from the sale of the computer itself, nor from the associated peripherals with inflated price-tags that you might opt to buy whilst in-store, but from the sale of invisible extras such as extended warranties.

Such products are sold to the customer to give them a sense of security; such that in the event of a breakdown of any kind during the lifetime of the warranty, the repair costs are covered and usually a technician visits the customer’s home and either repairs the unit on the spot; or takes it away for a day or two and returns it working in time.

That in itself isn’t a bad thing at all: However I personally will never buy such a warranty. Here’s why: -

Usually the retailer pushes an extended warranty onto the customer at point-of-sale, warning of the possible costs of not being covered by it, whilst advising of the peace-of-mind that such a warranty will give. The problem I’ve found with these is that, firstly the 5-year-extended-warranty can cost almost as much as the machine itself, and also, after 5 years, and in a lot of cases, you realise that you’ve paid a lot for very little other than cover, aka “peace-of-mind” in actuality.

Two examples, on a personal note that happened to me, are: –

In 1999, before I started building my own machines, I bought a computer from a catalogue along with a 5-year extended warranty that cost over half as much again. By 2002 the machine was an ancient relic, and the only thing that had gone wrong with it was the floppy-drive, which I’d had replaced under warranty.

At that time I’d just bought a new computer with an Intel Pentium 4, 2.8GHz, processor. The old machine had a 400MHz CPU and was far too slow for most things at the time; so I sold it for peanuts. The salesman at PC World where I’d bought the new computer from managed to nag me into buying another 5-year extended warranty. I’d managed to negotiate a deal that I’d do so on the proviso that he included a free XP Professional upgrade disk so that I could upgrade from XP Home that was preinstalled.

A problem occurred in 2003 when a CD exploded in the CD-RW drive. I called the repair-man out under the extended warranty and he fixed it. That machine started noticeably showing its age around 2005, and just after Christmas that year I lost it to a power-spike while flashing the BIOS. I might have been able to get it fixed under the warranty; although the custom-built MSI motherboard inside it was no longer in production. However I decided that it was time to buy new again. I never bought an extended warranty again though; even though I only bought one more computer after that. I’ve had 6 since; 1 of which I built for myself this year, 1 in December last year, and the other 4 between 2006 and 2008 inclusive.

Now the point is this: I paid over £300 for the first extended-warranty; and I got a new floppy-drive for my money.

I paid nearly £400 for the second extended-warranty, and for that price I got a new CD-RW drive.

Now correct me if I am wrong; but isn’t £700 a bit steep for a CD-RW drive and a floppy-drive?

Yes I’m aware that some people call out the repair-man when their screen gets dirty, the fuse blows in the mains-plug, or they scratch their case: That’s why it’s so bloody expensive; because people abuse it. – Also that type of people get a reputation, and the powers that be become unhappy about sending technicians out to them, even in real emergencies. Why should I pay for time-wasters? I’m “covered”, true, but I’ve not needed that cover much. So what am I actually paying for apart from assholes who abuse the system?

In reality, by taking out an extended warranty, I’m paying to perpetuate my own ignorance. I have a choice: -

1) Pay too much for the peace of mind of knowing that if anything goes wrong I can have someone come out and put the problem right for me within 24 hours. Result = I learn nothing, I gain no experience.

Overall result = I pay a lot to go nowhere and stay ignorant.

2) Learn how to do it all myself, so that if something does go wrong I can put it right myself at the price of the replacement component.

Overall result = I add to my knowledge and skills, and only pay for parts. Result = I learn and grow as an individual at a vastly reduced cost.

I chose option 2. I now build my own computers, do my own repairs, and pay only for the parts I use. – Rather than allowing a retailer to make a vast profit at my expense, not knowing anything about the insides of a computer myself, and paying for a sales-gimmick that doesn’t actually exist in any quantifiable form as such; namely “peace-of-mind”.

(Another thing there is that your computer may be covered by your home contents insurance in the UK; depending upon what type of home contents insurance you have. – So there’s possibly no point in buying an extended warranty anyway in some cases. – It may be just a total waste of money.)

So under what circumstances should you buy an extended warranty? If your home contents insurance doesn’t cover repairs to your computer; plus also either you don’t have time to do computer repairs or learn how to do them, or you’d simply rather stay ignorant and let the world do everything for you. – Or, of course, if you’re learning about computer repairs/hardware, but don’t feel that your standard of competency is up to it yet. Or, finally, if you’re just lazy, have more money than sense, know how to do it or not, and simply can’t be bothered with doing it yourself.

Other than that; to my mind, extended warranties are a waste of money. What’s your take on it?

In November last year I wrote a guest article on PCMech.com called “Why Your Power Supply Choice is so Important”. With today’s power-hungry top-spec gaming rigs, a lot of them custom-built by supergeek-gamers/power-users (In more than one sense of the phrase.), probably using Intel Core i7 Extreme processors, and multiple juice-guzzling nVidia and/or ATI graphics-cards; the requirement to have a top-class, noiseless, and reliable PSU which is able to deliver all the massive power needs on demand is paramount.

Fortunately there are a number of them around; and the Zalman ZM1000-HP 1000W Power Supply is one of the best of them.

This video is fairly self-explanatory; which not only aids the presentation, but also saves me a bit of typing. There’s just one point that the narrator makes in the early part of the video, though, that I have issues with: -

He says:

“…To understand that you need to know what rails are: Rails are basically well-regulated transformers which convert domestic voltages into voltages which your computer system can use…”

Bzzzzzzzzzzt! With due respect to the author; no: That’s not correct: -

Rails are the final voltage output lines – from those well regulated transformer[/rectifier] units[/circuits] that convert [the domestic supply from AC to DC current at] voltages[/wattages] that your computer system can use.

What I’m saying here is that (power) rails aren’t the power supply unit itself; any more than train-track rails are the railway station. The electricity flows from the regulated transformer/power units along the power rails, in the same way as a train runs along a train-track after coming out of the railway-station.

This may appear to some to be just a minor issue; but I thought it prudent to correct that terminology-error before proceeding further.

…And another point that I’ve only just noticed on April 2nd is that he talks about a combined power of 80 Amps

Bzzzzzzt! : Incorrect use of terminology: Electrical power is measured in Watts; not Amps. He should have said a combined currentof 80 amps. – Amps being a measurement of electrical current: So; just to be ultra-pedantic; that means that the total power output available from all +12 volt rails is 80 amps X 12 volts = 960 watts Max: That’s quite something! However; having said that, since the whole unit is rated at 1000 watts; that won’t leave a lot on the 3.3 and 5 volt rails: Only 40 watts remains; which at 3.3 volts leaves only 12.123 amps available for the CPU without consideration of the 5 volt rail.

Therefore; whilst the +12 volt rails are designed to be loaded to a maximum of 80 amps without damage ocurring; the actual available load will be somewhat less than that with respect to the loading on the 5 and 3.3 volt lines.
If the processor (and motherboard, combined) were using 65 watts of power that would be 19.7 amps accounted for at 3.3 volts. (For the sake of simplicity and clarity I’m ignoring the 5 volt supply in these calculations.) If we were to relate that loss to the 12v lines thus: –

12v / 3.3v = 3.64 ¬ 19.7/3.64 = 5.4121 amps away from the previous figure of 80 amps leaves 74.5879 amps; which translates into 74.5879 X 12 = a fraction over 895 watts in total available on the 12 volt rails. – That’s still one heck of a shedload of power; but not as much as the narrator makes it out to be.

Having cleared up that little matter; on with the video: -

- So if you’re building a top-spec gaming-box; forget buying cheap: This PSU isn’t – BUT it’s an excellent buy, and, as you may see, it does its job very well.

I’ve written a few articles over time about AMD’s (so-far-unsuccessful) struggles to stay up to Intel’s market position as the number one processor-builder: But that’s been mainly from a commercial perspective. In this article I’d like to look at the current quality of product and how it would affect you as a desktop-computer-builder.

The type of computer you’re building makes all the difference:

Intel have overflowing coffers, are in cahoots with Microsoft, and, in the case of most people, one of the first things they think of when the word “computer” is mentioned is “Intel”. Some people conclude that, since Intel have the reputation, the position, and the money, then they must be the best and their processors are far better than AMDs.

In some ways you’d be right there; but only in a limited context. Four years ago (2005) it was AMD who were at the forefront of technology; while Intel were lagging well behind with their single-core Pentium 4.

Things have come a long way since then, and at a surprisingly quick pace too: We now have quad-core processors from both Intel and AMD, and 12-core chips loom not far away on the horizon.

Today, however, the situation is that many tech people are recommending Intel chips for everything: “Windows was originally designed to run on Intel processors.” That may be the case; but it may have escaped the attention of some that we’re no longer using the original version of Windows; neither is everyone using Windows. (OK; Macs will probably always use Intel chips from this point forward, granted. I don’t build Macs. I leave that to Psystar.)

The truth of the matter, in a nutshell, is at this point in time, that if you’re looking to build a performance PC than you should always use an Intel processor. For anything else; why waste money on a more-expensive Intel CPU and motherboard when a cheaper AMD setup will fare just as well for everyday general computing purposes?

OK there have been a few exceptions to this rule lately, granted: the early AMD Phenoms (Quad-core.) sucked badly, and produced enough heat to cook your dinner with. The current series of Phenoms, the latest release, are competitive with most of Intel’s offerings though. In the dual-core market the AMD and the Intel ranges of late have been much the same performance-wise other than in the realms of overclocking potential, at least as far as general-usage-computing  is concerned.

So if you’re an ultra-geek and you want to always stay up to date with technology’s leading performance with a highly-overclocked top-spec gaming machine capable of playing all the latest and near-future releases from the games industry, always use an Intel CPU. If you’re a general geek who just likes messing around with anything and everything technical then sure; build the odd box with whatever takes your fancy if you can afford it. If you’re building a machine for just general household or office usage then in my view it really isn’t’ worth going to the added expense of using Intel: use AMD. the processor and also the motherboard will be cheaper and yet will do the job just as well.

I currently run 2 boxes; both have an AMD Athlon 64 x 2 processor running at 2.2 GHz stock speed. I have 2GB of DDR2 RAM in each, and a 250MB graphics card in one, a 500MB card in the other. (The one I’m writing this on.) I have a Gigabyte motherboard in this one + a Hitachi hard-drive, the other uses an Asus motherboard with a Hitachi and a Seagate hard-drive. I have thus far had no major problems with either machine, and have been able to do everything I wanted with either. I don’t overclock or play the latest games, (In fact I hardly ever play any games.) and the machines are just right for me.

I’m thinking of building a third machine to run Windows 7  beta on. If i do then that’ll most likely use the latest AMD Phenom quad-core CPU, or I might just stay with an Athlon 64 x 2 dual-core chip. i don’t want to performance-test Windows 7, just see if and how well it works for general computing on a new machine. – So I don’t need a powerful top-spec overclocked machine to do it on. – I’ll use an AMD processor and save money. What’s your opinion; AMD or Intel? For what and why?

Until now; AMD’s farcical Phenom chip has been far outshone by pretty much anything and everything produced by Intel; The first Phenoms consumed power like a fish takes in water, as well as being affected by a Translation Lookaside Buffer bug. Although I’m an AMD advocate; the Phenom story so far has been a bit of a joke.

This is AMD’s third attempt at the Phenom; and it looks like third time lucky, as the new Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition looks like something at least half-decent: It’s had a large revamp in the architectural department; notably as regards the 45nm transistors and an extra 4 MB of level 3 cache; bringing the total up to 6MB.

Using smaller transistors has greatly reduced the heat output of the new chips; with the result that they can work at a higher frequency than their predecessors. Now running at stock speeds of 3GHz, the new processors still use less power.

Another bonus is that the Phenom II is pin-compatible with the original Phenom, works with DDR2 RAM, and will directly replace its ancestor in a socket AM2+ motherboard capable of running a 125W CPU. – A BIOS update may well be required nevertheless.

This may be where the Phenom has the edge over Intel’s offerings. Upgrading to the Intel Core i7 CPU range entails buying and fitting not just a new processor; but also a new motherboard, cooler, and new, more expensive DDR3 memory too.

AMD are  launching the 3GHz 940 Black Edition along with the 2.8GHz Phenom II X4 920.

Maybe AMD are at last catching up with Intel? What’s your take on it?

Today, multi-core processors are quite the norm. In fact you’ll not see any new desktop computers, and very few laptops, on sale that have only single-core processors any longer. Why? Well multi-cored processors have just so many performance advantages over their single-cored counterparts that it would take far too much space to list them all here.

There are still quite a few computers out there, however, that are still running a single-core processor. If you own one of them you may have considered upgrading; but are a little unsure or hesitant about it.

Unless you’re fairly experienced and know what’s what you’re right to be such. In most cases there’ll be more work involved than simply removing the old processor and fitting a new one.

I’m not intending to do a "where is the processor located" paragraph. If you don’t know where your processor is located then I advise you to allow someone who knows what they’re doing to do the upgrade for you. I won’t be held responsible for someone pretending to know what they’re doing messing it up either: Get someone that you know is experienced with computer construction to help. Joe Bloggs from down the road may say they’re experienced with computers simply because they talk to their friends on Instant Messenger; but in reality they don’t have any more idea of what they’re doing than a seamstress has of rocket science. I’ll include some of the basics as a reminder, though.

There are a number of things you’ll need to do in preparation. The main thing is to find out all about your existing hardware first. The reason for that will become clear further on.

If you have an older computer with a single-core processor then you’ll probably need to upgrade the motherboard as well as the CPU to go multi-core. If it’s a particularly old computer then I’d suggest simply buying a new one with a multi-cored processor fitted from the word go.

What about upgrading your existing processor on your existing motherboard? It’s a possibility; but you’d have to take into account things such as motherboard’s capability, as well as its processor socket:

For instance; an AMD socket AM2 CPU will fit into a socket AM2+ motherboard; but not vice-versa: Therefore if your existing processor is, for example, a socket AM2 Athlon 64 single-cored device, which you want to upgrade; then, providing that your motherboard is capable of running a dual-cored CPU, (CPU=processor.) you’ll have no problems in replacing your existing CPU with a socket AM2 Athlon 64×2 dual-cored processor, providing that the motherboard’s chipset is capable of supporting the operating frequency of the new component. You’ll probably need to run a maintenance-reinstall of your operating system though; as a system configured for a single-cored processor probably won’t instantly recognize that the new processor has 2 cores, and will only run 1 of the cores unless it’s reconfigured.

Further to the above; if you want to upgrade from a single-core Athlon 64 to a quad-core Phenom, which is socket AM2+, you’ll need to upgrade the motherboard as well as the CPU, as a socket AM2+ CPU simply won’t fit into an AM2 socket. Also the motherboard with an AM2 socket probably won’t be capable of supporting more than a dual-core CPU.

That’s just one example. There will be many more similar situations cropping up, not only with AMD processors, where you’ll need to do some planning and forward thinking before even embarking upon your project.

Like I said; there’s a lot to consider; in addition to simply swapping the processor. If in doubt I suggest a motherboard and processor upgrade would be the best option, and do remember that certain motherboards go with certain processors: You can’t run an Intel socket 774 CPU on an AMD socket AM2 motherboard, for instance. (Also, don’t forget to install, and upgrade after getting the thing running, if possible, the new motherboard’s drivers.)

In my opinion, the best thing to do would be a total-rebuild (Strip everything out of the case and renew it with new and compatible parts, or ditch your old machine and build a new one.); after which you can install any really important files that you want to keep to your new hard-drive from a backup you took of your old system.

I can’t tell you exactly how to do it in every situation without writing a large and detailed e-book on the subject: That’s not something I intend doing at this moment in time. This guide simply informs you of some of the pitfalls and of some of the things you should consider first, before embarking on the project.

For your further convenience I’ll make a checklist of a number of the things you should take into account before attempting to upgrade a processor on an existing motherboard:

———————————————————————————————

CHECKLIST

Should you Upgrade the Processor on your Existing Motherboard?

If your motherboard is 5 years old or more then no.

If your motherboard was manufactured in the last 3 years than maybe; depending upon the following:

Is your motherboard’s processor socket the same as the socket designation of the processor that you want to replace your existing one with?

OR, in some rare circumstances:

Will the new part fit into and be fully accommodated by the existing motherboard’s processor socket?

If NO to both of the above you’ll need to replace the motherboard.

IF YES to either of the above:

Is your existing motherboard capable of running a multi-cored processor with the number of cores which the intended replacement has?

If NO to the above you’ll need to replace the motherboard.

If YES:

Is your existing motherboard capable of handling any increased power consumption due to the upgrade?

If NO to the above you’ll need to replace the motherboard.

If YES:

Are you aware that you’ll probably need to run a maintenance reinstall of the operating system? Are you able and clued up with doing this? Do you realise that there may be further problems associated with this operation that require a detailed knowledge of computer hardware, operation, and techniques?

If NO; I suggest seeking further expert advice before anything else.

IF YES, and you are satisfied that you’d be able to handle any ensuing situation, or are willing to take that risk, then proceed.

End of Checklist.

———————————————————————————————

*If you’re a geek then rebuilding a computer, even if it’s your first time, will be a great learning curve for you. Try not to mess it up. (I have ruined a computer before whilst learning, years ago,; so it does happen.)

If you do upgrade your processor from a single to a multi-core component, if it’s possible, you’ll notice a marked performance improvement. I suggest adding some more memory at the same time to make that improvement even greater.

Maybe you’ve already upgraded your processor from a single-core to a multi-cored component? What’s your experience of this? Don’t be afraid to comment. I know comments appear to be a bit sparse at present; but it would be good to break the mould.

Not long ago, processor speeds just seemed to get faster and faster. In the last 10 years we’ve seen CPU speeds go up from around 233MHz to over 2.3 GHz: A tenfold increase in just ten years. – But suddenly they stopped getting faster. Why?

There are two combined main reasons: The first being market-forces.

Everybody continually demands more processing power from their processor; therefore chips became faster, as processors that were able to operate at greater speeds were developed; able to process the same amount of data more quickly. Due to a combination of the limited speed of the frequency of operation of the motherboard, plus design constraints that we will look at shortly, there was only so far that this could go. Secondly two brains are better than one. When you’ve gone as high as it’s realistically possible to go; they way to further increase capacity is to build outwards, or duplicate the structure as an annexe of the original.

That’s what chipmakers did: Around 2005; AMD, having developed a commercially-available 64-bit processor, then fabricated it as 2 of those processors on a single die. The Athlon 64 x 2 was born. (The computer I’m writing this article on now has one of these processors.) Intel stapled 2 dual-core dies together in a single package and produced a quad-core processor. At the time of writing 6 and 8-core processors are looming on the horizon.

But they’re still no longer getting any faster. Why?

CPU speed of operation is limited by frequency. Also, when you get up to a certain frequency,  greater heat is produced; regardless of the size of individual transistors: Heat that is generated by the frequency of operation itself to a certain extent. 

Go above a certain amount of gigahertz and you’re getting too close to microwave frequencies. At these extremely high frequencies a combination of things start to happen:

The frequency that individual components, such as the processor and the chipset, communicate with each other at, is around 200MHz: That’s the case with all computers. You may have a 3.2 GHz processor in circuit; but 3.2 GHz is the frequency within the processor itself only. If the processor were to try to communicate with other components at that frequency; the signal would never make it to the other components:

The higher the frequency the smaller the antenna needed to radiate that frequency. That’s the reason why the highest frequencies outside of any chip on the motherboard are limited: If they were any higher, the connective tracks on or between the layers of the motherboard would radiate the power away as radio-waves before it ever reached the next component. If the in-chip frequencies became too high then even the connections inside the chip would act as antennae and the chip itself would cease to function, regardless of the design of the transistors themselves.

Secondly; what happens when you put a dinner into a microwave oven? It cooks, yes?: What’s happening is that the high-frequency microwaves of several gigahertz are bombarding the food and exciting the (water) molecules to vibrate sympathetically, causing them to heat up. (I think the frequency used is around 5 point something gigahertz.)

When you’re talking gigahertz; the higher the frequency (The more gigahertz.) the greater the heat generated. Also the higher the frequency the smaller the components necessary to run at that frequency. Small things tend to burn up quicker than larger things. Go figure. The cost of fabricating a chip small enough to function at higher energy microwave frequencies, as well as the cooling system it would require, doesn’t even bear thinking about: It’s just totally impractical.

So once you’re getting above around 4+GHz frequency you’re starting to fight a losing battle. Logically if you can’t go upwards you go outwards. Think outside the box like AMD did: Add another core operating at an identical frequency on the same die and you theoretically and loosely have twice the frequency without having to have twice the frequency, if you catch my drift?

(In actual fact it’s not quite that simple: The overall performance gain works out at somewhere just above 1.7 times rather than double; but I’m not going to type a load of complex calculus-laden quantum-linear algorithms here to prove a point, even if I could remember them.)

So what of the future? 48-core processors? I think, making a logical guess, that that’s about the theoretical upper-limit using today’s technology: But things can only get better. All of this is talking from the viewpoint of today’s technologies of course: If it were possible to isolate the transmission of gigahertz-frequency waves and amplify and send them by means of a chain of nano-electronic relays over greater distances on an active-conductor, then basically the sky’s the limit as far as the number of processors in a package is concerned; once one accounts for the excessive cooling required for such a device… The mind boggles.

Someone leave a comment on their theoretical predictions based upon factual or theoretically-possible engineering concepts. I’d be fascinated to delve further into the realms of possibility, even from the mind of someone better-informed than myself. I’d love to hear your ideas.

Click Here To Get The Cash
Sucking System ($47 value) for FREE!

When AMD have setbacks then it’s usually not a good sign for the chipmaker that’s currently struggling to stay anywhere near Intel and not lose any more ground to them. The news today is that AMD appear to have a setback, in that they’ve shelved development of the 45nm-based Fusion processor, putting its release date back to 2011, if they actually do develop it at all, from the original release schedule of 2010.

There are several ways of looking at this: The main one being ‘better late and working than early and a fiasco’, a fiasco as occurred with the initial release of the Phenom, which subsequently allowed Intel to surge ahead and lengthen their lead.

Right now, AMD are seemingly the underdogs by a huge margin: Intel are rolling in money and surging ahead, while AMD are in debt and still playing catchup after their Phenom farce: A development marketed with best intentions using a new core architecture technology that emptied their coffers whilst on development and when the release date came there was just that one bug that needed to be ironed out. Naturally, when Intel replied by stapling 2 dual-core dies together, upping the architecture, and selling it at an increased price compared to AMD’s offering, everybody bought Intel’s product without any bugs in it. AMD were left behind to pick up the pieces and try to fathom out what went wrong while Intel; loaded with the proceeds from their victory, developed better, faster, offerings.

AMD’s senior vice president Randy Allen said at today’s launch of AMD’s 45nm Shanghai-cored Opteron processor that it was "the best server processor on the planet". – A side swipe at Intel who had said that their new Core i7 is the ‘fastest processor on the planet’.

Fusion was originally scheduled for 2009, but now appears to have effectively been cancelled according to some commentators. If that is the case than that is a setback; because if Intel produce 32nm processors in 2009 then AMD have their work cut out for them and won’t be able to catch up until at least 2011 by all analyses.

AMD aren’t finished yet though; so don’t go writing them off just yet as they live to fight another day. Do you agree?

This symbol is causing some controversy and has sparked a furious row between Microsoft and HP in addition to causing the software giant to be sued by customers in the USA. It’s also kicked off some internal bickering within Microsoft itself.

‘See it’s turning out that the claim is exactly what it says on the tin: "Designed for Windows XP". Although the systems concerned will run Vista, they’ll only run Vista Home Basic.

The future? I predict that Microsoft are going to lose this case and get another hefty fine plus maybe a compensation order. How about your opinion and prediction? What do you think?

Chipmaker, Advanced Micro Devices, has launched its first 45nm ‘Shanghai’ Opteron chips for servers and workstations.

It also has a forthcoming range of desktop processors built on 45nm technology codenamed "Deneb". Both of these ranges are constructed using a process called "immersion lithography". AMD claim that this fabrication technique will lead to ‘dramatic performance and performance-per-watt gains.’

The new Opterons will have an increased clock speed due to this fabrication process; rising from 2.3 GHz with the current Barcelona-cored Opterons, to 2.7 GHz with the Shanghai-cored chips. The current Phenom range, which run at up to 2.6GHz, may also benefit from this upward-clocking in their next incarnation.

The new Shanghai-cores also benefit from increased cache-size, as well as from HyperTransport 3.0, which increases bandwidth considerably. Let’s hope they vastly outperform the Intel competition as well as the previous/current Phenom CPUs, or AMD is going to have a hard time on its hands and will probably end up cutting retail prices to offer a cheaper though lesser alternative to the Intel  developments.

AMD also plan to introduce a new six-cored range of chips called "Istanbul" sometime next year (2009). As for Deneb; AMD will probably be launching them before the end of 2008.

The Question is can AMD ever get ahead of Intel again? Can they even catch up; and if so is this their chance? What’s your opinion?

Chipmaking giant Intel isn’t happy about AMD’s recent decision to spin off its fabrication business as a separate company. Initially the move by AMD seemed to be a rather good decision in terms of finance and growth; but now Intel are kicking up and saying that they have "serious" questions regarding AMD’s strategy.

The problems centre around a licence agreement that AMD has with Intel in which AMD pays Intel royalties for something called a "patent cross-licensing agreement"> This agreement allows AMD to produce x86 chips, which Intel holds the patent for. AMD intends to open up its fabrication plant to other companies beside itself – Therefore Intel claims that AMD is violating this agreement. Intel is nevertheless intent on protecting its intellectual property rights.

Intel have asked AMD to make details of the agreement public; something that AMD haven’t done: Therefore Intel’s representatives aren’t yet fully able to discuss the full details of the gripe that they have with AMD, so further details aren’t exactly forthcoming and are sketchy at best.

Following AMD’s announcement that it’s creating the Foundry Company, IBM have seen opportunity there and have jumped at the chance to embrace the move; in which AMD intend to share their existing and future fabrication facilities with other companies.

The plot thickens and the argument continues pending further developments.

What’s your view of this malarkey? Do you agree that Intel have a good case and should stand up against AMD to defend their patent? Do you think that Intel should be more flexible and allow AMD to pursue their objective as an act of good faith? Give your opinion in the appropriate comment space below.

Intel’s 7400-series Xeons: Up to six 45nm cores + up to 16MB of Level 3 cache!

Intel has at last launched its six-core range of Dunnington CPUs amidst leaked rumours that have been rife since earlier in the year. An added extra for server technology is that a server motherboard can combine up to 16 of these chips in a single machine; giving a total of 96 cores in one box!

On the lower end of the range is the Xeon L7455 with 6 cores clocked at 2.13GHz and 12MB of Level 3 cache. Each of the 45nm cores amazingly only uses around 11 watts of power; a fact that is sure to please environmentalists.

Top of the pile is the Xeon X7460 with 6 cores clocked at a nippy 2.66GHz each. It also has 16MB of Level 3 cache, and a TDP of 130W -  As a result it can get rather warm; but is nevertheless relatively efficient. Five other 7400-series Xeons have also been released; bringing the total to date to 7. These are listed below:-

CPU           TDP           Cores           Speed           L3 cache

X7460             130W                  6                  2.66GHz                16MB

E7450              90W                   6                  2.4GHz                  12MB

E7440              90W                   4                  2.4GHz                  16MB

E7430              90W                   4                  2.13GHz                12MB

E7420              90W                   4                  2.13GHz                  8MB

L7455              65W                   6                 2.13GHz                 12MB

L7445              50W                   4                 2.13GHz                 12MB

Overall this entire range of chips demonstrate excellent increased power efficiency; which, combined with their relatively standard clock-speeds should give good overall performance.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the kkomp.com RSS feed.

“Please give us an o/s that works when you release Windows 7. We, your customers, don’t mind waiting a little longer for a product that has no bugs and no massive security vulnerabilities – Although we would like you to bring it out ahead of schedule ready for Xmas 2009 if possible.”

“You see, Microsoft, you’ve announced a new operating system and we want it; but we want it to be better than XP: You haven’t come up with anything better than XP yet; and Vista was a joke. Even your bosom buddies at Intel won’t switch to Vista – Put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

“Are you actually aware that KACE found that 50 percent of people who responded to their survey last November won’t upgrade to Vista? Worse still for you, Microsoft, is that in their recent survey that figure has gone up 20percent of the whole to 60 percent!

http://www.kace.com/about/releases/systems-management-appliance/computer-management-software-alternative/07_23_08.php

 SP1 only made most things Vista work properly; but even then still not quite as well as XP.”

Whoever is running the mess that you’ve turned Microsoft into should get a medal from Apple: Thanks to Vista, Mac sales have risen dramatically. People are switching to Linux despite all its bad press: They use Vista and say “I’m downloading Ubuntu; it can’t be worse than this!”"

“Yes I know that you’ve sold 180 million licenses. How many of those downgraded to XP I wonder? …And the choice was use Vista or have a computer without an operating system: Even Vista is better than no operating system.”

“Yes I appreciate the fact that Bill’s taken a back seat and now all the top execs want a piece of the pie; yes I know they all want to take Microsoft individually in a particular direction and are all pulling against each other; but Bill should have forseen that. He probably did; but just wanted out, having made enough money to buy a small country for his retirement.”

“So come on Microsoft; get your act together and give us something good: We’re not asking for miracles; we just want something better and more suited to today’s climate than before. I realise you’ve made boobs like this in the past, such as ME; but at least ME didn’t force the user to get new hardware to run an operating system that wasn’t as good as the last one.”

“You know all about bootstrapping – If you’ve forgotten ask Bill for a reminder – So it’s time for you to pull yourselves up by your bootstraps and smell the coffee again: I don’t mean have a tea-break either. It’s down to you to carry on without Bill at the helm. Can you do that? I’m watching that space.”

Kind Regards from Sharron. x

“P.S. You shot yourselves in the foot when you stopped all the big companies from selling XP. You hoped it would force people to change to Vista; but people didn’t want Vista; they wanted a change to something better, so they had 2 choices: Mac or Linux.

If Windows 7 isn’t a gem of an operating system that works first time and is better than XP then I’m buying a Mac.”

Another thing is that Intel will soon be facing antitrust charges for allegedly using unlawful methods to keep ahead of AMD in the marketplace. European regulators could bring the charges forward according to the Wall Street Journal.

“We are continuing to cooperate and really don’t know what the commission will do,” Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloytold the Journal. “We believe we operate within the law.”

Intel was accused by the Europen Comission of illegal practices last year; selling chips below cost and offering huge rebates to customers.

The company is also facing a formal investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission.

Intel has already been fined over £12 million by the Korean Fair Trade Commission. Intel are set to appeal; but all this litigation can’t be all that good for the chipmaker.

Technology continues to advance at a fast pace: Ten years ago a 233MHz single-core processor which wasted as much energy in heat as it used for work was the considered norm. Floppy-drives were still the thing, and CD-ROM drives were fitted to computers as standard: CD-Rs were on the horizon. PCI graphics cards were in vogue, and AGP slots were being introduced on the latest motherboards. Microsoft were developing Direct X 7 and Windows 98  was becoming the most popular OS: We’ve certainly come a long way since then.

Processors have advanced in leaps and bounds since; with Intel pioneering Hyperthreading technology in the later models of the Pentium 4 range, AMD introducing the rise of dual-core processor technology with their Athlon 64s, then Intel rising as market leaders again by bettering AMD’s dual-core performance, followed by stapling two dual-core wafers together in a single package to produce the first quad-core processors… Despite the lag by software writers in utilising multi-core technology there are currently plans for eight, twelve, and sixteen-core processors; largely thanks to miniaturisation of the transistor from work pioneered by Intel since the 1990s: 32 nanometer transistors are now being built, 28 nanometer transistor production is on the horizon, and scientists have even succeeded in building a transistor with a single atom if obscure reports are to be believed.

So let’s look forward a few years: We see millions of single or dual-atom transistors being packed into advanced-level processor cores; 64 to a wafer, making up a unit only slightly larger than an Athlon 64×2 chip and with a few more pins. With advances in core architecture, core-interfacing, and cache-data-interfacing technologies these latest chips provide quite a punch in processing power and performance. Software is being written to allow from 2 to 128 core operation, and things have, in a way, hit the buffers: Transistors are as small as they can get; marginal performance gains are still being made by using new semiconductor-doping techniques to slightly improve the switching-speed of the millions of tiny transistor-arrays within each core, constructed across double gallium-arsenide molecules doped onto the silicon wafers; but other than that it’s a virtual stalemate: There’s no point in stapling wafers together, as since the component-miniaturisation limit has been reached, that’ll just lead to big packages which waste room on the motherboard – So where to go from there?

In this future-world there’s always the chance of multi-chip motherboards being manufactured: Motherboards with sockets for up to eight of these packages, but motherboard miniaturisation has almost reached critical mass too. Well when you’ve expanded outwards as far as you can the only way is up – Literally: Wafer upon wafer. The problem now is cooling. These latest packages, despite the huge technological advances, still produce as much heat as the old Athlon 64×2 chips did; and that’s with only a single wafer. Stacking wafers without an advanced cooling system would lead to conflagration and component failure.

The answer: Liquid cooling using high-pressure non-inflammable isobutane-based refrigerant running at low-velocity through tiny flattened spaces between wafers and in coolant-tubes between cache-interfaces within a solid-state cube-shaped chip with connection-pins on all but two sides: One of the unused sides is a tiny TFT monitor displaying real-time performance-statistics for the “cube-chip”; This monitor can be viewed in magnification from the side of the outer-casing on a small screen by means of lens-imaging technology. The other side lacking electrical connections has connections for the refrigerant pipes from the tiny compressor/refrigerator pump installed inside the case. inside the “cube-chip is a miniature power-plant which converts a proportion of the waste-heat into electricity which it uses to help power itself; thus saving energy from any external source once the chip has reached its thermal-equilibrium.

In this way a matrix of 64 x 64 2.8GHz hyperthreaded processor-cores can be utilised with a single motherboard; giving a total of 4096 cores in a single unit no bigger than 6cm cubed…And then someone manages to stick two of them together, then four…