2008 Tech Preview - CPUs
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CPU
The keyword for the CPU market in 2008 will be “Quad.” Quad core CPUs will be in the main stream by the end of 2008. AMD will release their Phenom X4 processors at the very end of 2007 or beginning of 2008. They will also release a tri-core. So I speculate this is due to bad yields of four working cores, though the official reason is AMD thinks there will be a market for three-cored CPUs. It should prove to be interesting if the unused core will be unlockable or if it really is bad.
Intel already has quad core CPUs available, but they are bringing out the big guns in 2008. Gear up for 12 MB cache -- and early indications show a CPU easily overclockable to 4GHZ on stock cooling air. The Phenom will be better than the Athlon, but we will see how well it will stack up against Intel’s answer.
Chipsets and Motherboards
The big change for 2008 appears to be an update to the PCI and PCI-Express slots. To start off with, we will see 3 and 4 SLI and Crossfire. Motherboards will start removing PCI slots in favor of additional PCI-Express slots. I’m hoping we finally see the death of PCI slots so that everything becomes PCI-Express only. Hopefully we see the death of any motherboards that still have legacy ports, like the serial. My personal hopes are for the floppy to finally die, but it looks like it will survive.
We will get a new generation of high-end motherboards for these multi GPU motherboards. nVidia will have their 780i and 790i and Intel will release their x48 chipset. All isn’t well so far for these new chipsets. The 780i is having problems with Intel’s new CPUs. The x48 isn’t much more than a high-binned x38 and will cost over 70 percent more. Hopefully these issues will be ironed out and manufacturers can get some solid boards out to the public.
Next: Memory >>
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