Hey, I just got through completing a roughdraft for a paper that I have been working on for a couple weeks. It's about 2 and a half pages doubled-space so it's not that long at all. The final draft is due tomorrow, Feb. 7, at 8:00am.
I need some help profreading it and if anyone has any comments or ideas about wording or something to make the paper better, let me know. Let me know what you think the essay is bout, because the beginning of the essay may throw some people off and I need to know if it does. The paper is far from being the final draft, so please only provide some constructive criticism. Anyways...
Only
the uneducated believe the myth that a computer’s performance can be determined
by only looking at its megahertz or gigahertz frequency. They simply overlook the other important
factors contributing to a computer’s performance, such as its memory speed, its
storage sub-system, its chipset, and whether or not it has more than one core
on its central processing unit (CPU).
After seeing little performance gains with the new dual-core processors
over single-core processors in single-threaded benchmarks, they also may be asking
why dual-core processors ever made it to the market. They could possibly even be demanding more
single-core processors with more gigahertz instead of more advanced technology
like multiple-core CPUs. Even though
large computer corporations have brain washed us into believing this myth, the
truth is that the microprocessor manufacturers are approaching a vertical
ceiling when it comes to a CPU’s clock speed (gigahertz) and are now gradually
trying to change the people’s eye of a computer’s true performance.
First
and foremost computers are steadily becoming apart of everyone’s lives and they
continue to become more powerful as time passes. A lot of people believe that a computer’s
speed can be determined by the clock frequency it is running or how much memory
that is in the system. This is, indeed,
true, but it really depends on which company is making the chip if the
gigahertz rating is considered fast or
not. For an example, CPU maker, Advanced
Micro Devices, design their processors a little different from the larger
corporation, Intel. Instead of raising
the clock speed of their processors, they integrate other technologies into
their chips. Instead of raising the
clock speed of their processors they have opted to perform other measures to
gain their processing power.
AMD’s
microprocessors have a shorter pipeline than Intel’s chips. Shorter pipelines really affects how fast the
clock rate of a processor can run. A
shorter pipeline means more work has to be performed in one clock cycle which
limits how high the clock frequency can be before becoming unstable. However, a shorter pipeline also means that
the data flowing through it gets to its destination quicker. AMD utilizes smaller pipelines to gain its
performance, which is one of the main reasons why their processors can compete
with a 3ghz Intel processor, when it only operates at 2ghz (MediaMan). Actually, their smaller pipeline processors
equal the speed if not surpass them made by Intel.
Intel
utilizes larger pipelines in their design of processors which allows their
processors to run at a much higher frequency than AMD’s processors. With the higher clock rate comes heat. Heat is one of the key factors why Intel and
AMD have begun introducing new technologies like the dual-core or multi-core processors.
A
multi-core processor is a processor that contains two or more CPU cores on the
same silicon chip. This new technology
allows companies like Intel and AMD to include more than one processor on a
single die to aid in performance without changing the pipeline. This new technology all but conquers the heat
issue that was starting to be a problem for the high clocked single-core
processors, but some still say dual-core is a lot more of a headache than it is
worth.
With
the invention of this new computer hardware, computer software developers are
now forced to reinvent the way they create their applications so they will
utilize both cores. A lot of old
programs that are no longer updated will not see any benefit with dual-core
processors. The production costs of producing
dual-core processors are also higher are more difficult to manage thermally
than lower density single-core processors.
(Wikipedia) However, multi-core
is the future.
Multi-core
processing, despite its drawbacks, offers benefits to processor
manufacturers. “Assuming that the die
can fit into the package, physically, the multi-core CPU designs require much less
PCB space than multi-chip SMP designs”
(Wikipedia). What this basically means,
is that instead of placing two CPUs in the motherboard of a computer, a
dual-core CPU can provide about the same performance without requiring a larger
motherboard and, likewise, larger computer cases would not have to be
engineered to support them. A single
dual-core processor also uses slightly less power than a dual single-core CPU
setup, which furthermore means they will run cooler. And finally, dual-core designs are superior
to other ideas attempting to gain performance by enlarging and expanding some
of yesteryear’s technologies (Wikipedia).
Expanding today’s technology would also require better cooling
technologies such as liquid cooling similar to that found in the new Xbox 360
gaming console. On a side note, some of
the Xbox 360s have had overheating problems.
Multiple-core
processing is the future. When more
advancements are made, odds are it will have a multi-processor core
architecture. Even though there are
several other factors contributing to the performance of the computer, the
selection of the right processor can guarantee one a good experience with her
or his new computer.