Next Generation Computer Systems
The change will come soon. Technology has continued to evolve at breakneck speed. The speed at which technology evolves is due in part to increasing market demands. Everyone wants more powerful systems that are highly reliable and can run faster. Hardware and software manufacturers are working together to bring the next generation of computer systems to a whole new level.
It all starts from the CPU (Central Processing Unit). The CPU is like the heart of the system. Without a powerful “heart”, other components cannot fulfill their full potential. Intel recently announced the release of the Core i7 processors. This family of processors is radically different from previous generations. They are all quad-core processors, and each core has two threads. That means that the CPU will appear in the operating system as 8 processors. Talk about power!
With more powerful processors, other components of the computer system have more processing power to use. An enthusiast will surely ask, “But what about memory?” The memory of a computer system is another critical component that affects the overall speed of the system. If memory is not upgraded, there will be a bottleneck and even the fastest CPU will become ineffective.
Core processors support triple channel DDR3 memory. Memory manufacturers like Gingle have announced triple channel DDR3 memory kit releases that are fully compatible with Intel Core i7 processors. Additionally, to improve memory performance, Intel has decided to mount the memory controllers directly on the processor matrix. A high-speed link is available if another processor wants to access the information from the memory controllers on another core. This means that instead of the processor having to retrieve information from external memory controllers, the processors now have direct access to the instructions. This improves performance dramatically.
Tests by reputable tech websites have shown improvements in all areas: graphics processing, CPU processing, and increased reliability when overclocking.
Of course, given the raw power offered by the new Core i7 processors, a better architecture should be available to allow for faster communication between the different components. For this reason, Core i7 processors can only be used on motherboards with the X58 chipset. In other words, whoever wants to upgrade to the new Core i7 processors will have to give up their old motherboards.
X58 motherboards are compatible with Intel Quickpath Interconnect. This is Intel’s way of establishing faster communications between the various components.
The new motherboards also feature support for high-speed hard drives. Both internal and external disk drives can run up to 3GB / s.
Seagate recently announced the release of the second generation Savvio 15K.2 hard drive, 2.53. This next generation hard drive can run at 15,000 RPM (twice the speed of traditional hard drives) and can save up to 70% in terms of power consumption. For server farms that use many hard drives, the energy savings can amount to something substantial.
Everything seems to be pointing in the right direction: faster systems, greater reliability, and more cost savings. Enthusiasts have a lot to be happy about.