Intel E8000 Wolfdale
Faster, more economical, cheaper…
Intels Conroe 65nm Core2Duo processors have been ruling the hardware market for long time. Now it's time for something new: the E8000 Wolfdale 45nm Core2Duo series. These are available in different versions: E8200, E8300, E8400 and E8500.
This new series is produced using a 45nm-process. This new technique makes it more economical than the proceeding Core2Duo processors based on the 65nm-process, and the extra spaces that opens up by scale reducing gives Intel the possibility to equip the processor itself with a lager L2 cache.
The new technology also reduces the heat production, making Intel capable of using a higher clock rate. The Intel E8500 finally reaches 3,0Ghz with a clock rate of 3,16Ghz, making it the best high-end processor of the series. The E8000 series is equipped with a faster 6mb L2 cache an works at a FBS frequency of 1333Mhz. Intel has been able to lower the power use a lot, making the new Core2Duo E8500 using only 65Watt, also lowering the pressure on the power supply and cooler. The 45nm-process also has a lower production cost. The last new feature that was added, is the SSE 4.1 instruction set, that helps increasing the speed of tasks such as video encoding. All standard properties of the proceeding Intel Core2Duo processors are also available in the new E8000 series: Socket 775, virtualization acceleration, execute disable bit (xD), 64-bit processing support and SSE-2/3 support.
The Intel E8500 has many advantages over its predecessors, the higher L2 cache ensures extra prestation in games, which should sound perfect for every gamer.
AMD CrossFire X
AMD's CrossFire has recently been renamed: CrossFire X. The changement of name also introduced some technical innovations, for example it should be possible to connect and combine up to four CrossFire X compatible video cards.
At the beginning of March, the drivers have been made available for users: the Catalyst 8.3 drivers can be used by XP and Vista users. AMD's CrossFire X enables the user to combine multiple video cards, but they have to be related: for example you can connect an AMD HD3870 X2 with a standard HD3870 or a HD3870 with a HD3850. The speed of the fastest video card will be adapted to that of the slower card in the formation, only the memory of the video cards will remain unchanged.
The difference in memory will cause the fastest video card to work more slowly, sometimes making it wait for the slower CrossFire video cards, but the user shouldn't notice this. AMD uses its CrossFire X to go ahead a step than nVidia, which currently only offers up to three video cards in SLi setting.
Intel Atom
Extremely small, very economical and still very considerable performance, that's the description for Intel's new Atom processor series. The Atom processor was developed for simple and cheap computers. The processor is also meant to be used in many different appliances. The Intel Atom is equipped with a new micro architecture, which causes it to have a lower power usage and also making it extremely small. The processors are compatible with the Core2Duo instruction set, making the CPU support multi-threading. This enables the processor to do multiple tasks at the same time, increasing its performance and speed.
All this is fitted on a chip of 25mm², making it Intel's smallest and most economical processor. The new chips use 2,5 to 6Watt, which is almost nothing compared to the 60Watt a standard Core2Duo processor uses. It's also capable of reaching a clock rate of 1,8Ghz, where the lowest Intel Atom processor has a clock rate of 500Mhz. The first Atom processor to be produced is the Intel Atom 230. It will be equipped with a clock rate of 1,6 Ghz, 512kb L2 cache and a FBS of 533 Mhz. With this new Intel Atom series, Intel tries to compete with VIA.
