2006 - The Year of Dual Core & Multi Core Processors

28/12/06

Well the year 2006 is coming to an end, and what a year it has been. The year of Dual Core Processors.
While most experts thought that the next revolution in the hardware world would be the switch to 64 bit processing, it seems that 64 bit processing is has gone nowhere.

64-bit technology is, I'm convinced, fairly stillborn. ….The problem is that 64-bit processors have been around for a while now, existing entirely as glorified 32-bit chips, and this year didn't do anything to change that. Windows Vista has been frequently delayed, and early reports of the 64-bit version haven't exactly been stellar, citing it as incrementally better than XP Professional x64. The consensus from beta testers has been that even if you can run it, run the 32-bit Vista instead. Ouch.

Now, Dual Core Processors or rather Multi Core Processors has taken off.
The past years have been all about Speed, who could put out the fastest clocked processor. 2006 has been about multi core processing. In January, Intel released its first Dual Core processors, the Core Duo. The Core Duo was basically two Pentium's 4 pasted together on the same die. But the Intel Core Duo was just the opening shot, the preview of what was to come.
In July, Intel came out with the Core 2 Duo Processor (not the most original or clever name out there, but it does the job). The Core 2 Duo had a complete new micro-architecture, 291 million transistors and was designed from the beginning to be a Dual Core Processor. Intel made the ultimate comeback as everyone has and continues to, rave about the Core 2 Duo Processor which, to put it simply, out performs anything else out there. Or as others have put it

The desktop Core 2 Duo is by all accounts an absolute monster. When I can achieve better than AMD top of the line performance from my $320 Intel processor, that's a huge deal. The desktop Core 2 Duo, code named Conroe, is so good and so efficient that notebook manufacturers were talking about putting them in desktop replacement notebooks around August of this year.

Intel, doesn't plan on letting AMD catch up and in Aug. released, ahead of schedule, the first Quad Core Processor. Similar to the Core Duo, the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 is basically to Core 2 Duo Processors glued together. But is also just the beginning of good things to come.
2006 has not only leaped ahead in processing power but was also good for the consumer. Thanks to the on going AMD Intel war, both companies have slashed their prices. The new processors are as cheap or cheaper then the top of line older processors , while they out perform them in nearly every aspect.
2006 was also a good year for the Apple lovers out there. Apple finally decided to leave the PowerPC Chip and switch over to Intel. Apple MacBook and MacBook Pro are now packaged with the Intel's Core 2 Duo Processor, which gives a 10% performance improvement over the Core Duo Processors, and are impressive powerful laptops. Besides that the Intel era of Apple, allows the Mac to run Windows along with OSX, the best of both worlds?
So, what is on store for the next year? It seems that multi core processing is the new buzz word in the hardware world. So we can expect more Quad Core processors form both Intel and AMD and (with shared cache and design architecture for all 4 cores) and then move on to 8 core processors and more. Our PCs are now becoming as powerful as last years super computers. Is there any limit? Do we need that much processing power? Most importantly, when will the software finally catch up to the hardware (and no, Windows Vista is not the answer).