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Guide to the latest desktop processors
By CNET Editorial
03/12/2008 URL: http://asia.cnet.com/buyingguides/processors/0,3800017537,62048981,00.htm  An overview and the usual suspectsProcessors are getting ever faster and more powerful, with multi-core chips taking computing performance to new heights. We look back at how the tiny silicon wafer has made such a profound impact on the personal computer. Match the right processor to your computing needsFind out what type of user you are and which processor out there is right for your desktop needs in our at-a-glance table. Basic anatomy of a computerBefore we delve into performance, here's an idea of the processor's role and how everything works together in that beige box. Need for speed: How fast is fast?For performance hounds who like more hard figures, we look at the latest and fastest processor right now in the market as a yardstick for speed. Clash of the titans: 2009 and beyondWith both Intel and AMD vying to launch the fastest and greatest, performance professors are coming head-to-head in an epic battle. Get a feel of where this is heading. Processor milestones: Then to nowStill interested? For those who like their history, here's an evolution of the processor.
 Everything that happens inside your PC has to interact with the processor (note red arrow). However, there's a bewildering number of processors out there for all kinds of budgets.
Right now, the superior chip technology comes from Intel, in the form of its new Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors. Thanks to recent price cuts, AMD's competing Athlon 64 X2 chips also offer strong performance for the dollar. In mainstream PCs, as long as you have a Core 2 Duo or an Athlon 64 X2, that's about all you need to look for.
Match the right processor to your computing needs
It's easy to get out of hand with splurging on the processor with the fastest clock speed. Both Intel and AMD charge a premium for their top-of-the-line CPUs. But for most general purpose users, we recommend scaling back a notch or two. You'll save a pocketful of change, while probably getting better bang for the buck with more memory.
For power users such as hardcore gamers, video editors and digital photographers, the sky's the limit when it comes to top-notch performance, limited only by the size of your wallet. We'll help you navigate the many choices you have in this area with the table below.
Basic anatomy of a computer  A simple chip diagram adapted from Intel. All these parts are connected by a bus or data pathway between your processor, screen, disk, and everything else. PCI, or peripheral component interconnection, is the bus most used on modern PCs and even Macintoshes as well. Physically, the bus is what you plug your controller cards into, such as the video card, the disk controller, sound card. The processor, sometimes called the CPU or Central Processing Unit, "talks" to the other components over the bus. The only subsystem that the processor has really fast, direct access to is the memory. In order for programs to run, they have to be in the memory. So when your computer reads a program or data off a disk, what happens is the processor uses the bus to send a disk read request to your disk controller. After the request is carried out, the disk controller uses the bus to signal the processor that it has read the data and put it in a certain location in memory. The processor can read that data directly off the memory. Your keyboard and screen also communicate with the processor via the bus, but in simpler ways. Other terms to know: Chipset: Refers to a group of integrated circuits or chips designed to work together.
Need for speed: How fast is fast?  The Intel Core i7 processor claims to hold the title of the "highest performing processor on the planet", but how well does it live up to its reputation? Officially launched on November 17, 2008, the Core i7 processors were talked about and discussed for months before they were made available to the market. The successor to the Intel Core 2 family, the Core i7 family consists of three quad-core x86-64 processor models--the Core i7-920, Core i7-940 and Core i7-965 Extreme Edition. There are server and mobile product versions to be announced and released later. The Core i7 processors help speed up popular activities such as video editing, immersive games and other Internet and computer activities by as much as 40 percent, according to Intel. All this without increasing power consumption, and hence making them "green" and more efficient to run. Technologies at work: -Intel Hyper-Threading: Using Intel's Hyper-Threading technology, the Core i7 processors are able to run twice the number of threads per core, which results in better performance for applications which makes use of multiple threads to compute.How well does the Intel Core i7 perform? Here's what CNET Labs found out. Using the SPECint_rate_base2006 benchmark tests, the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition holds a new world record of 117, the first time ever for any single processor to exceed a score of 100 points. The SPECint_base_rate2006 benchmark test is used by the computing industry to measure performance of a computer. This is achieved by running multiple copies of the benchmark simultaneously with the number of copies set to the number of logical hardware cores seen by the operating system. Simply put, the test sets a consistent and reliable gauge on which to measure processor performance.  Intel believes it has the fastest processor on the planet, speeding up video editing, immersive games and other popular Internet and computer activities by up to 40 percent without increasing power consumption. To put the performance of the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition in perspective, CNET Labs compared it with the year-old Core 2 Extreme QX9650. The Core i7 boasts a faster clock speed and an L3 cache shared by the four cores that's four times larger than that of the older chip. With the integrated RAM controller on Core i7 replacing the need for a front side bus, the platforms are quite different from each other, but the performance results (click here) speak for themselves. In summary: The Core i7 chip is faster than the QX9650 on every test, but the CineBench multicore test results were especially impressive where Intel's new CPU demonstrated a considerable performance advantage. This type of computing power would be greatly attractive to hardcore gamers and digital media editors.
Clash of the titans: 2009 and beyond  Click for larger image. (Credit: Chip Architect) Following current industry trends, AMD is now moving its chips to 45-nanometer process technology from the older 65-nanometer process. The next family of AMD processors is codenamed "Shanghai" and, according to official statements, is not based on a new architecture but essentially a refresh of AMD's Barcelona Opteron chip. AMD claims Shanghai is 35 percent faster than Barcelona without using more energy. While the new chipset is initially aimed at servers with multiple sockets, AMD plans to bring Shanghai's 45nm processor technology to the desktop PC market in the first quarter of 2009 using the Phenom II branding. The new range will combine 45nm AMD Phenom II X4 quad-core processors with AMD 700 Series chipsets and ATI Radeon HD 4000 series graphics. Details of the Phenom II desktop processors have already been leaked on the Internet, of which at least two are due to be launched in January 2009. These will include the quad-core Phenom II X4 920 and Phenom II X4 940, rated at 2.8GHz and 3.0GHz, respectively. Going head-to-head: Nehalem vs. Shanghai Interestingly, industry watchers are expecting some confusion among consumers, since both Intel and AMD's top-end processors will share the "920" and "940" model numbers (e.g. Core i7-940 for Intel and Phenom II X4 940 for AMD). To shed some light on the relative processing power of the different chipsets, CPU enthusiasts were quick to put them to the test straightaway by using the Core i7-920 (2.66GHz) desktop processor and 45nm "Shanghai" Opteron 2.7GHz processor (meant for server systems). Testers from AnandTech used the same test, the LINPACK benchmarks, which has become the industry standard benchmark for High Performance Computing (HPC) and measures a system's floating point computing power. Generally, the Core i7 posted better overall scores. What's interesting though is that while Intel's Hyperthreading technology gave the Core i7 a big boost when it came to multi-threaded applications, it slowed the LINPACK test inversely by 10 percent. It should be noted again that both processors are optimized for different computing environments and workloads, and you should wait for AMD to release its desktop equivalents before making direct comparisons.
Processor milestones: Then to now   1979: The chip that started it all
The Intel 8088 was the first chip to be used in PCs. This was not the best available CPU then. Intel's 8086 was, in fact, more powerful and had been released earlier. However, the 8088 was picked for economic reasons since its 8-bit data bus required less costly motherboards than the 16-bit 8086. Not only that, PCs then were designed for 8-bit use.
A pivotal sale of the 8088 to IBM's new personal computer division made the chip a success, propelling Intel into the ranks of the Fortune 500. Together with the Intel 8086, the 8088 would later introduce the x86 architecture to the world, which was considered to be the most commercially successful instruction set architecture in the history of personal computing. It has been implemented in processors from Intel to Cyrix, AMD, VIA, and many others since then.  1993: Rise of the Pentium and Athlon processors
This was a seminal year when Intel raised the PC to a new level with the release of its flagship Pentium processor. The first Pentium processor ran at a rapid 60MHz, had 3.3 million transistors, and performed 100 million instructions per second (MIPS). It was to be the first of four types of Pentium processors developed by Intel.
In 1997, the Pentium 2 emerged and was designed to run from 233MHz to 450MHz. About the same time, the Celeron processor was also unveiled. While both processors were identical, the Celeron had a smaller cache and slower bus speed that was targeted at budget/value PCs. By 1999, AMD stepped up with its Athlon processor at the time that Intel launched its 600MHz Pentium 3 processor. The Athlon showed superior in every benchmark against the Pentium III, running programs as well and with twice the bus speed of the Pentium 3. The Athlon also utilized a dual bus even though the clock speed (MHz rating) was the same as the Pentium III and Celeron. AMD, like Intel, also rolled out a lower-cost processor, the AMD Duron. In comparison, the Duron was cheaper and had a 200MHz bus, while the Celeron ran at a mere 66MHz. With the success of Athlon, AMD changed its processor architecture and in 2001 introduced a new line of Athlon processors: The Athlon XP. While still an Athlon processor, the major difference with the Athlon XP was that it did not use conventional MHz rating to depict its speed as AMD reckoned a MHz rating would undermine its true performance. It was half as cheap as the Pentium 4 which debuted a year earlier accompanied by a low-end Celeron processor (sometimes referred to as Celeron 4).  2005: Moving to multi-core designs
When it became apparent that keeping up with Moore's Law was becoming a bigger challenge due to the physical limitations of the technology, the industry looked for other ways to improve performance. One architecture rose to the forefront--the multi-core processor.
Simply put, a multi-core processor is a single chip containing more than one microprocessor core, which multiplies the potential performance with the number of cores. Some components, such as bus interface and second level cache, may be shared between cores. Because the cores are physically very close, they interface at much faster clock rates compared to discrete multiprocessor systems, improving overall system performance. The dual-core PC era began in April 2005 when Intel released the Pentium Extreme Edition 840 processor, a 3.2GHz, 90nm chip. Following this pricey Extreme Edition chip was "dual-core for the mainstream" in the form of the Pentium D 800 series. Intel's second-generation dual-core chips, the Pentium D 900 series, were released in early 2006 and saw the company move to the 65-nanometer process. During this time, AMD was garnering rave reviews with its dual-core, 90nm Athlon 64 X2 line, thanks in large part to its integrated memory controller. While Intel's chips still needed to shuttle data via the slower front-side bus to communicate with system memory, AMD's chips featured a memory controller on the die that operated at the same frequency as the processor itself. It wasn't until Intel introduced its Core technology in July 2006 that users were able to fully grasp the benefits of dual-core processing. The architecture behind Core 2 Duo chips not only brought about leaps in performance but also improved efficiency. While they didn't include an on-die memory controller, the chips did introduce a host of architectural improvements, most significantly a unified cache structure. Instead of a separate allotment of L2 cache dedicated to each of the two cores as was the case with Intel's previous dual-core chips and AMD's Athlon 64 X2 CPUs, Core 2 Duo chips had one large pool to pull from, which provides greater flexibility in allowing each core to access more cache as needed.
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