If we talk about computer processors, we will surely be talking about one of the two main companies that lead the market for processors, Intel and AMD, without a doubt the war to see who monopolizes the most market is based on innovations in processor technology, Knowing what these technologies are and what they consist of, as well as the name of the processors that implement them, will help us choose which processor is best for our personal computer, that is the purpose of this article.
Currently there are two main brands that dominate the market for processors, INTEL and AMD, Intel Corporation is a multinational company that manufactures microprocessors and specialized integrated circuits, such as auxiliary integrated circuits for computer motherboards and other electronic devices, the latter It has the backing of a renowned company called Microsoft, which until now accounts for the majority of the processor market, approximately 80%.
AMD (Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.) on the other hand is a company with a much lower profile than INTEL (Integrated Electronics), however it has been pushing hard, being Microsoft's main competition in what corresponds to microprocessors. The company was born a year after Intel did, making it the world's second-largest microprocessor manufacturer, and one of the leading manufacturers of chipsets and other semiconductor devices.
The fight between INTEL and AMD to capture the market is very competitive. Both companies implement almost the same technologies, when one of the two companies launches a new technology in processors, the other almost immediately launches its own version.
An example of the above is the case of dual-core technology. The first to launch this technology was AMD and later INTEL released its own version. But we will deal with that later.
Currently there is a wide variety of processor models, INTEL leads the sales market and offers consumers the following products:
- Intel® Core ™ 2 Quad processor Q6600 Intel® Core ™ 2 Extreme processor Intel® Core ™ 2 Quad processor Intel® Core ™ 2 Duo processor Intel® Pentium® processor Extreme Edition Intel® Pentium® DP processor Intel® Pentium® 4 Extreme Edition processor supporting Hyper- technology Threading Intel® Celeron® M processor Intel® Pentium® M 780 processor Intel® Pentium® M processor Intel® Celeron® D processor Celeron® M 450 processor
On the other hand, among the products that AMD offers today are:
- AMD Athlon ™ 64 FX processor AMD Athlon ™ 64 X2 dual-core desktop processor AMD Athlon ™ 64 desktop processorMobile AMD Turion ™ 64 technology Mobile AMD Turion ™ 64 X2 dual-core technology Dual-Core AMD64 Dual-Core AMD Opteron
These products mentioned above are the ones that are currently waging a war for who dominates the processor market, however, to understand this war between Intel and AMD, below we will see what each of the most recent technologies implemented in processors.
Hyper Threading Technology (HT)
Before the appearance of dual-core technologies in the processors that currently exist, Intel designed a technology called HT (hyper Threading), which consisted of a single core in the processor, I want to emphasize that, they were not two cores as is normally It is confusing, it was only simulating two logical microprocessors within a single physical one (the user is made to believe by the operating system that he has two microprocessors when in reality he has only one microprocessor mounted), in short, this technology allows to process the threads or threads in parallel within a single processor, increasing the use of processor execution units, making better use of processor resources and therefore improving the speed of applications.It is said that the user theoretically gets a 20 to 30 percent improvement in said speed.
HT technology has been widely criticized, it is said that it does not represent a great advance in terms of saving resources. In addition, to take advantage of this technology, the applications that are run must have been programmed to use multiple threads, otherwise, parallelism in the execution of the application will not be possible.
Dual core technology
Undoubtedly something that has revolutionized processors is the so-called dual-core technology, which is nothing more than having two execution cores on the same chip, optimizing performance significantly, note the difference with HT technology, in this case you have two real cores, not just a simulation.
Although there are many details that characterize this new micro-architecture, there are two clear features that have guided its design: energy saving and performance. These two characteristics seem to be emerging as the two key aspects that are guiding the fight between Intel and AMD.
As Antonino Albarrán, Intel Iberia's chief technology officer points out, “we have two objectives: to achieve maximum performance and to be as efficient as possible in terms of energy savings, which means that the performance per watt must be the highest possible, with low consumption and low dissipation ”.
For environments that require multiple tasks, two cores offer more physical resources, allowing operating systems to prioritize and manage tasks from multiple applications simultaneously and, consequently, maximize performance.
The first to implement this technology in a real way was the company AMD, which released the “X2” series of processors. In 2003, AMD developed the first real dual-core processor called Athlon 64 X2, then it was followed by: AMD Turion ™ 64 X2, Dual Core AMD Opteron. In this aspect, AMD was ahead of INTEL, it must be remembered that Intel had launched HT technology a year before, however this time it was not until 2006 that Intel released the family of processors known as "core ", Which now had a real dual core, such as AMD, which later evolved to" Core 2 ", the better known Core 2 Duo, followed by core 2 extreme, among others. It is worth mentioning that in a desperate attempt to compete with AMD's "X2" processors,Intel released a series of processors known as Pentium D, which were nothing more than two Pentium 4 cores united in the same processor, technically they were not dual-core processors because they could only communicate with each other through the bus, and the only thing that held them together was a connection between the North Bridge and memory. If you had wondered why Pentium D processors are slower than AMD's X2, there you have the answer.and the only thing that held them together was a connection between the North Bridge and memory. If you had wondered why Pentium D processors are slower than AMD's X2, there you have the answer.and the only thing that held them together was a connection between the North Bridge and memory. If you had wondered why Pentium D processors are slower than AMD's X2, there you have the answer.
Multi-core technology
At present, it is not only common to handle two-core processors, but we find them up to 4-core. Not satisfied with the previous two cores in one processor, Intel and AMD have waged a war over who gets the processor with more cores.
“The multi-core architecture has a single processor package that contains two or more 'execution cores', or computing engines, and, with appropriate software, allows multiple threads of software to run completely in parallel. For the operating system, each of the execution cores appears as an independent processor, with all associated execution resources. "
By providing improved performance and more efficient simultaneous multitasking, multi-core processors will deliver improved computing in both home and business environments.
The first quad-core processor is the Core 2 Quad, launched by the Intel company in 2007, which turned out to be nothing more than two core 2 duo glued together in the Pentium D style, communicating through the bus, then it followed. the Core 2 Extreme quad-core. As expected, AMD did not want to lose the processor war and responded with the processor called AMD Opteron ™ Quad-Core, which unlike Intel's core 2 quad has a direct connection between the processor cores, however AMD is for releasing the "AMD Phenom" processor at the end of this year 2007 or the beginning of next 2008, which is said to be the first true quad-core PC processor, will be seen.
To give us an idea of how things are in this multi-core thing, it is said that Intel researchers are working on an 80-core processor, which would get a performance of teraflops, consuming only 62 watts.
To be honest I don't know what AMD is working on to compete with that, but rest assured that it is already working on something good, there will be what else AMD and INTEL surprise us with in the next year.
Choosing the processor
Having mentioned the technologies offered by the two leading companies in the processor market, the time has come to decide which processor is best for us.
AMD speed and INTEL speed?
Many of the times the user gets confused regarding the speeds in Ghz of the AMD and INTEL processor, and it is that an AMD processor at 1 Ghz does things faster than an INTEL with a speed of 1 Ghz, do not be confused, what in one processor it takes 3 cycles to be done in the other it takes 2, that is, let's not get confused when they tell us that the INTEL has higher speed than the AMD just because we see that one says 2.8 Ghz and another 1.8 Ghz, 1 Ghz in Intel it is not equal to 1 Ghz in AMD, that is very clear.
How will you use your PC?
It must be said first of all that the newest is not always what is best for us, why have the best microprocessor on the market if all we need is a microprocessor that supports the word processor, spreadsheets, create slide shows and so on, that is, if what you require can be done with a processor from two or three years ago, then what you need is nothing more than a PC with a Pentium 3 processor or a 1.4 Ghz Athlon.
Now if what you are looking for is to play the most demanding games, or watch movies on your PC, maybe it has nothing to do with the processor what you are looking for, let's not forget that there are also other components of the PC, such as motherboard, video card, RAM, hard disk, etc., although it would also be advisable to have a dual-core processor from now on, regardless of the INTEL or AMD brand.
The money factor
There is something else that must be taken into account when choosing our processor, "the economic feasibility", and that is that we have to invest well our little or a lot of money that we have, "balance our PC", many times the People wonder why FIFA 2007 is not on my PC if I buy the latest on the market, thinking that because their PC was worth so much it should perform so much, in these cases what we have to do is balance our PC, if our goal is to play the fashionable games, we should invest more in the RAM and the video card, and invest less in the processor.
Characteristics to consider in a processor
- Gross speed is measured in Ghz. Bits in which it works, either from 32 bits to 64 bits. Bandwidth of the data bus, there are several types: 533Mhz, 800Mhz, 1000Mhz, 1066Mhz. Memory controller: Brand processors INTEL does not have it integrated, while AMD brand processors do have it integrated. Latencies: It is the response time of the memory, it is lower in an AMD, even though it does not use such fast memories, the answer is. Memories that it requires to function. A processor such as an Opteron from the company AMD has very strict requirements, but an Athlon64 does not, the same on the Intel side, whenever it is necessary to buy a processor it is recommended that this information be verified, in order to be able to buy the motherboard correct as well as correct memory.
Conclusions
The market for microprocessors is getting longer, as I said, today the paradigm when choosing the microprocessor for our PC is to choose between two companies Intel or AMD, if our needs are demanding, I would recommend that no one buy a processor that does not implement multicore technology, be it 2 or more cores, from AMD or INTEL, of course as I said: "only if we really need them."
Although Intel has dominated the processor market during all this time, experts say that this year AMD is going to have a very significant rise, it is said that AMD comes with many innovative projects, which is something that has always characterized this business.
The war between AMD and INTEL is in view of all users, only one election is necessary, a processor which will have their vote of confidence, the majority will choose INTEL, and you, which one will you choose ?, will follow the others or will take your own decision, INTEL or AMD?
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