FrontSide What’s New from the World of Tech
The 2009 CPU Forecast ExtremeTech’s Loyd Case lays out what AMD and Intel processors you can expect to see in new PCs this year. Choosing a processor is an exercise in predicting the future. The CPU in your computer should last long enough to be able to run the latest software smoothly a few years down the road—but which technologies will survive? In the processor game, Intel has advanced much more rapidly than has AMD—and 2009 looks to be more of the same. Although both companies are poised to introduce new product lines, Intel’s offerings have a substantially new microarchitecture, while AMD is only now making the move to the 45nm (nanometer)
manufacturing process—which Intel has been using for nearly a year. Intel’s new process will result in processors with lower power consumption, higher clock speeds, and more transistors per CPU die. But don’t count AMD out just yet. Moving to 45nm should make AMD somewhat more competitive, especially in the midrange and low-end desktop market. AMD’s Phenom processor line had some advantage in certain types of server applications, particularly those that benefited from low latency memory access.
What may end up drowning out AMD’s accomplishments in 2009 is the buzz surrounding Intel’s much-hyped processor line—Nehalem. Also known as the Core i7 series, these quad-core desktop processors come in 2.66-, 2.93-, and 3.20-GHz flavors and tout advances such as DDR3 memory support, four cores on a single die, a new QPI (QuickPath Interconnect) system bus, and the new X58 chipset for high-end performance. Core i7 will be found mostly in high-end systems, but later this year, Intel will roll out the mainstream LynnJANUARY 2009 PC MAGAZINE 17
