How many brains does a PC need?
2008-07-04 21:09
San Francisco - Just how many
"brains" does your personal computer need, anyway?
Not that buying a PC was ever as easy as, say, buying a
toaster or an electric toothbrush, but the companies that make
the electronic brains, or microprocessors, for PCs today have
managed to make it even more complicated.
It used to be that Intel Corp, the biggest maker of chips
that are the central computing engines of PCs, and rival
Advanced Micro Devices Inc would sell to PC makers versions of
the same chip that run at faster speeds.
As far as consumers were concerned, Intel made Pentium
chips and AMD made Athlon chips.
Yet that hasn't been the case
for a while now, and in the last few years, the choices facing
consumers when they go to buy a PC have mushroomed.
With computer games becoming more mainstream and more
people making and editing digital pictures and home movies, PCs
can now boast microprocessors with two brains, four brains, and
soon, even more.
But does the average Joe really need such souped-up chips?
"It's an interesting question," said Tim Bajarin, a
long-time technology analyst and consultant with Creative
Strategies. "If the basic issue is productivity like web
browsing, word processing and e-mail, you don't need all that
much. A dual-core processor is good enough."
If only I had two brains
Duel-core processors have two brains instead of one. Intel
sells dual-core Pentium and Core processors, as well as
quad-core chips for more demanding PC uses such as editing
high-definition video of a family vacation or intensive games.
"When you actually break it down, the base processors like
1.3 to 1.6 gigahertz are more than enough," Bajarin said,
noting the basics are fine if you're watching a YouTube video
or a network TV show online, though the video quality won't be
anything like a regular TV, let alone high-definition TV.
AMD's website invites visitors to compare its different
microprocessor offerings: The AMD Phenom, Athlon and Turion
chips.
All of those come in varying clockspeeds, or how fast a
chip will perform the instructions or tasks it's given.
On Intel's website, once you navigate past seemingly simple
introductory pages, you find 11 different basic products from
which to choose, including the Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 with Viiv
technology, Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium dual-core, and
Celeron processor. And those are just the desktop versions.
Multi-core world
"The reason we got into a multi-core world was not because
we needed more and more cores to do the computing work, but
because Intel and AMD had run out of room to increase the
frequency on the processor," said Endpoint Technologies analyst
Roger Kay.
Before Intel and AMD started selling chips with two or more
cores, they had simply cranked up how quickly the transistors
- the tiny switches that make up semiconductors - could turn
on and off to process computing tasks.
But as chips ran at higher and higher frequencies, the
processors began using too much power and generating too much
heat inside cramped desktop and notebook PCs.
So now consumers choose from different dual- and quad-core
offerings (AMD even sells a processor that has three brains).
And prices for PCs from brand-name companies now range from
$300 to $4 000 and more for a high-end extreme gaming PC.
With that sort of variety, PC makers like Dell Inc and
Hewlett-Packard Co and the processor makers have responded by
placing all the different types and speeds of PCs into three
basic categories that you can think of as every day computing,
some performance and lots and lots of performance.
Computing power
"What you've got is basically good, better and best, but
the PC makers don't like you to call it that," Kay said.
For those who want to surf the web, watch online videos,
store music and photos, watch movies, do word processing and
e-mail and keep a home budget, a PC with a dual-core processor
from either AMD or Intel should do the trick, analysts said.
But consider spending more for a quad-core system if you
plan to edit HD video you've taken with your HD camcorder, have
a budding musician in the family who likes to mix digital music
tracks, or are into the latest hard-core video games that are
especially taxing on processors and video graphics chips.
"This particular question goes back almost to the beginning
of computing: You basically try to buy the most computing power
you can afford, with the understanding that you can expect
applications will continue to get better," Bajarin said.