下一轮涨势谁领军？

电脑硬件和软件。Computer(PC and Server) hardware/Software.
MSFT，AMD, NVDA, HPQ最近的涨势决不偶然，INTC过去两周也有起飞的迹象。主要理由在下面这篇分析文章有很好解释，我就借来用一用。

Why Microchips Matter (Again)

Why Microchips Matter (Again)
Thanks to a new wave of power-hungry software—Windows Vista, anyone? Desktop search? Portable video?—highspeed silicon is back in the spotlight. Here's what the new screamers from Intel and AMD can do for you.
Cade Metz - PC Magazine
Aug. 21 -

There's just one word I want to say to you. Just one word. Are you listening? Silicon. This is the year the microchip makes a comeback. It's not just that Intel's new processor, the Core 2 Extreme, is jaw-droppingly fast, wowing even the jaded chip geeks at our sister Web site ExtremeTech.com. Nor that AMD is set to strike back, acquiring graphics-chip powerhouse ATI in a $5.4 billion deal as it readies a PC platform with four CPU cores and four graphics processors. It's that these high-speed chips are arriving at just the right moment. Now, more than at any other time in the past decade, we need the power that comes with new silicon.



In recent months, we've adopted far more demanding PC software. Whether we're prepping video for an iPod, living the latest 3D game, or churning through years of e-mail with a desktop search tool, suddenly our "fast-enough" PCs run slower than molasses. And in the coming months, when Windows Vista finally hits the streets, we'll feel the slowdown even more. Unlike any other OS in recent history, Vista calls for a quantum leap in processing power. The entire operating system works best in 3D. Always-on indexing and searching tools eat CPU cycles for breakfast. Under the new OS, even e-mail clients and word processors demand some extra juice.


Back to the Future


Through the eighties and on into the late nineties, a certain aura surrounded the tiny squares of silicon hidden inside our PCs. Each new chip, faster than the one before, opened up a world of new possibilities—from the massive spreadsheet models enabled by the 286 to the desktop databases and graphical user interfaces enabled by the 486 and Pentium. Then as the decade came to a close, that all changed. The microchip lost its mojo.



After nearly 20 years of increasingly powerful silicon, we were sated. The latest chips were fast enough, and then some. The rise of the Internet put the spotlight on the browser, which moved much of the processing load to the network. And, try as they might, software developers couldn't add enough new features to our word processors, spreadsheets and e-mail clients to keep up with Moore's Law.


In early 2001, PC Magazine asked: "Do you need more processing power? And should you pay more for a super-fast machine?" Our conclusion: "Unless you're a product designer, digital video editor, or NASA scientist, the answer to both questions is no. Processor speeds have outstripped what most users do on their PCs."


Of course, Moore's Law kept on going. Processors continued to improve. The product designers, digital video editors, and NASA scientists wouldn't have it any other way—not to mention the guys making movies at Pixar, hard-core gamers, and die-hard PC Magazine readers. But despite the best efforts of Intel and AMD, the microchip never ­regained its rock-star status. Upgrading to the latest CPU became more of a luxury than a necessity.


Until now. The mojo is back.


Once again, we really need new processors. That includes not only CPUs, the chips at the heart of our PCs, but also graphics processors, that is, the chips that build the images on our PC displays, along with the chipsets and memory that handle the dirty work inside. Everyday software has evolved by leaps and bounds, finally overtaking the older breed of microchip and demanding something more.


Naturally, 3D games are pushing the envelope, but so are tools like Google Desktop and Yahoo! Desktop Search, which perpetually index your hard drive, so you can instantly track down files, contacts, notes, and e-mails. Then there's the video iPod factor. In order to play a video file on an iPod, you must first convert it to MPEG-4 format. Similar conversions are required when you're juggling audio and video on other applications and devices, and they all demand a formidable amount of processing power. The rise of malware has also contributed. Security suites chew up some serious cycles in the process of protecting us from spyware, viruses, worms, spam, keyloggers, Trojan horses, rootkits, phishing, pharming, and more.


The good news is, the chips we need are here today. In May AMD unveiled the Athlon 64 FX-62, a 64-bit dual-core CPU compatible with high-speed DDR2 memory. It was the fastest desktop processor anyone had ever seen—until Intel took the wraps off the Core 2 Extreme in mid-July. At the same time, the twin giants of the graphics industry—nVidia and AMD's new purchase, ATI—are scaling the heights with new graphics processors and new core logic, the motherboard chipsets that complement our CPUs. If you don't know the latest speeds and feeds, you better get with it.


The Down-Low on Conroe

Like AMD's FX-62, Intel's Core 2 Extreme is a 64-bit dual-core processor. ExtremeTech's Loyd Case was the first to test the chip outside the walls of Intel, and the results of his efforts are breathtaking. Despite a comparable clock speed, it's nearly 30 percent faster than the FX-62 when running SYSmark 2004 SE, the industry-standard benchmark test. That's right, nearly 30 percent faster. Loyd also saw similar speed on everything from video encoding to 3D rendering. The Core 2 Extreme and its sister chip, the Core 2 Duo, are a quantum leap forward. (For more on Loyd's tests, visit go.pcmag.com/core2duo).

The two chips—code-named Conroe while still under development—mark the debut of the Intel Core microarchitecture, a design that's also the basis for the company's new mobile chips, code-named Merom, and server processors, code-named Woodcrest. (Oddly enough, the new Core 2 chips and their Core microarchitecture have nothing to do with Intel's current mobile CPU, the Core Duo. In the chips business, naming practices don't always make sense).


Rather than simply boosting clock speed, Intel has increased the number of instructions these chips can execute during each clock cycle. As a result, performance increases even as power consumption decreases. The new architecture is not only faster, it's more energy-efficient. According to our tests, the Core 2 Extreme uses roughly 19 percent less power, in terms of the entire PC system, than either the Pentium Extreme Edition, Intel's existing desktop CPU, or AMD's FX-62.


Much of this has been achieved through a new technology called Wide Dynamic Execution. Previously, Intel chips could handle only three instructions at a time. With Wide Dynamic Execution, they can handle four—and handle them more efficiently. Instruction buffers are deeper, so more tasks can queue for execution. Branch prediction is improved, so chips can better determine which instructions to execute next. And in some cases, using a new feature called "macrofusion," the chip can handle two instructions as one. Certain common pairs are simply combined.


And remember: These are dual-core processors. Each chip packs in two CPUs. If you're multitasking or running a multithreaded application, using both cores at once, the Core 2 Extreme can execute eight instructions at a given moment. With the new Advanced Smart Cache, Intel has also improved the way these dual cores work together. Rather than using separate L2 memory caches, the two cores share a central L2 cache. So if they're working on the same dataset, it needn't be stored in two places. And if one core requires more cache than the other, space can be allocated accordingly.

The Challenge from AMD

Thanks to these improvements—and others involving memory access and the handling of multimedia instructions—the Core 2 Extreme is your best option today for running a wide range of desktop software. Judging from SYSmark scores, the chip is unrivaled when driving office productivity apps as well as Web design software. But it's also well ahead of the competition when it comes to encoding audio and video, building 3D images, and running 3D games.

Compared with AMD's Athlon 64 FX-62, the Core 2 Extreme is 30 percent faster when encoding DivX video, 12 percent faster when building 3D models via Autodesk's 3ds Max7 and a whopping 36 percent faster when running a 3D game like Half-Life 2. But there are exceptions. During Loyd's benchmark testing, the FX-62 outperformed Intel's new chip on a handful of isolated tests.


The FX-62 and the slightly slower Athlon 64 X2 5000+ are the first chips that plug into AMD's new motherboard socket, dubbed AM2. AMD's existing 939-pin socket worked only with DDR memory, which has recently taken a backseat to the faster DDR2 standard. AM2 adds an extra pin—so only new chips will fit—and works solely with DDR2. DDR2 data rates reach 667 Mbps, whereas DDR topped out at 400.


But Intel uses DDR2 as well. When comparing the FX-62 with Intel's new chip, the big point of interest is AMD's integrated memory controller, which runs at the same frequency as the CPU itself. Intel uses an off-chip memory control, and in certain situations this could give an edge to AMD. That edge shouldn't be overstated, but the FX-62 did outperform the Core 2 Extreme on ScienceMark's MemBench benchmark test by 30 percent.


It's also worth noting that the FX-62 includes a separate L2 cache for each core. There could be cases in which this works better than Intel's single-cache setup. Does that mean certain apps will run faster on the AMD? At PC Magazine, we're not so sure. Yes, the FX-62 outperformed the Core 2 on a few of our memory-centric synthetic benchmark tests. But it always trailed on real-world apps.


You can bet, however, that more speed is on the way from the FX line. AMD is just finding its feet with DDR2. Perhaps because of timing issues between the memory controller and the memory itself, the jump to the new standard doesn't seem to make a big difference to overall performance. As AMD improves the current architecture, those faster memory chips will really start to kick in. Looking further out, into 2007, AMD's road map includes a 65-nm chip code-named Brisbane. (The FX-62 uses a 90-nm manufacturing process.) Only time, and benchmark tests, will tell who will wear the performance crown in the months to come.

Cores and Core Logic

Whatever the case, both the AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 and the Intel Core 2 offer far more juice than your current CPU. Running SYSmark 2004 SE, the Core 2 Extreme is over 40 percent faster than Intel's previous performance leader, the Pentium Extreme Edition 965. And the AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 is over 6 percent faster than the FX-60, which hit the market as recently as January. The difference between these new chips and your old Pentium II is astronomical. They even offer brand-new processing tools, including hooks for virtualization, which lets one PC behave like many PCs (read "Let's Get Virtual" for more on virtualization).


If you're into audio, video, and games, a new dual-core processor is a must. But don't think that's all you'll need. Modern graphics processors play a far bigger role than they ever did in the past. In some cases, they're processing more than just graphics (see "Graphics Chips Reloaded"). When Windows Vista arrives, a new graphics chip will become even more important. Vista's breathtaking Aero Glass interface requires an AGP or PCI Express graphics card with 64MB of RAM, a 32-bits-per-pixel color depth, and support for the DirectX 9 graphics API. Otherwise, you get a 2D imitation.


Then there's core logic. Both ATI and nVidia offer core-logic chipsets that are designed to work with not one but two graphics cards. That's right: You can run two graphics chip cores as well as two CPU cores. nVidia's SLI chipset works with both the AMD and the Intel platforms, as does ATI's CrossFire. Even single-threaded apps benefit from the dueling graphics cards. Software drivers—provided by ATI and nVidia—automatically divide tasks between the two. But you can't mix and match chipsets and GPUs. If you run two graphics cards, you're forced to use an nVidia chipset with an nVidia GPU or an ATI chipset with an ATI GPU.

Sign of the Four

Do you really need two CPU cores and two graphics processors? If you don't now, you will in the near future. It's only a matter of time before you move beyond word processors, Web browsers, and e-mail clients. Once that Quake 4 box shows up under your Christmas tree, everything changes. Before you know it, even the 2-by-2 setup will seem painfully slow.

nVidia has unveiled a special version of the SLI that enables two graphics cards with two GPUs each, for a total of four graphics processors. And in June, desperately trying to keep pace with Intel, AMD announced plans for a new platform called 4x4, which will pair four graphics chips with two dual-core CPUs. Then come the quad-core CPUs.

No doubt about it, the microchip is back.
Why Microchips Matter (Again)