Buying a new PC this Christmas?

Christmas offers have started showing up this year. Choosing a configuration is not easy for everybody. While shops have a pile of cute and portable laptops, we will be talking about desktops. My previous post would have introduced you to Intel’s new plans for this Christmas. I would be splitting buyers into separate categories, so you could choose what you want to buy yourself. As of Yesterday, Intel did not reduce any of its processor prices in its Price list.

Home and Office User: One who does Internet, MS Office and Home Entertainment will fall under this category. I would encourage people belonging to this category to buy a PC now because prices are dropping due to recession and you don’t care much about your PC hardware. I would recommend a Core 2 Duo Processor, G31 based board, 2GB of RAM along with 250 GB of Storage. A 19” TFT would provide ample screen space. Find a cool looking Cabinet and a Wireless Keyboard mouse combo.



Enthusiast: One who does a little of everything - Gaming, HD Media, Heavy Apps and Edting stuff. This truly depends on how willing you are to spend. If you have a good budget, I would recommend you to upgrade to the Core i7 processors with a x58 based board. Though there are not many products to choose from your system is future proof and offers reliable performance. You will have DDR3 and can go for good graphics like the ATI HD4870 or Nvidia GTX cards. If you have a tight budget, I would recommend you wait for some time expecting price drops due to the new i7 processor. If it happens, You can get a good C2Q with ample ram as both will be old by next year. I would recommend a 2.66Ghz Processor, 4GB Ram kit and an 22” TFT for both.

Hard Core Gamers: If I have a million, I would go for a Core i7-965, Asus Rampage II Extreme, Corsair Dominator or Kingston HyperX T1, GTX 280 in SLI. Yes, most gamers don’t have a million. Well for mid range Gamers I would suggest they get their hands on fastest clocking C2D Processor they can get with their favorite platform and graphics. High end serious gamers can go for a Quad Core Core 2 Extreme with the fastest memory kit you can afford. I would not recommend DDR3 for present Core 2 Platforms as they offer meager rise in performance. Graphics for both Enthusiasts and Gamers graphics - mid rangers can choose 9800GT, HD4830 and Heavy users can choose GTX280 or the HD4870. SLI systems are also an option to consider. Many 24” Monitors are there to choose from.

For those who want to have a powerful system at considerable rates can wait till summer as Core 2 series prices will drop when Intel promotes their Nehalem based processors. You can buy a powerful C2Q or even a C2E processor with your limited resources. Things to watch for are DDR3, PCI x16 2.0, Better IGP and larger,cheaper & faster storage.

Intel’s new Nehalem Micro-Architecture

Intel has a new delight in the micro processor market; it is a better performing new micro-architecture from Intel – Nehalem. This will replace the Intel’s present Core 2 architecture. Happy news for the die hard Intel fans is that, Intel’s chief people have told that they would from now on introduce new processor architecture every two years. Business aside, the new architecture holds a lot of technical goodies to talk about. Intel delivered the Core i7 processor and the X58 Chipset based on Nehalem technology. Nehalem is a Quad Core Solution scalable to 2 and 8 cores.

Two Divisions: Intel like AMD now splits the processor working into two major segments, the Core and the Uncore. The Core consists of all the Physical Cores along with their L1/L2 Caches. The Uncore region has three important parts of the processor, the memory controller, the L3 Cache and the QPI interface. There are two different clocks for this CPU. The Cores runs with the QPI clock with a suitable multiplier. The DDR3 memory controller and the L3 cache runs on the Uncore clock which could be different. A specific core could be effectively turned off when the need arises.

Turbo Mode and Cache: The Turbo mode, it offers a meager rise in clock speed when the processor is running under stable conditions and could offer better clock. The Turbo mode is totally governed by the CPU temperature. The Cache sizes are the lowest in recent times. But it is said that Cache is shared equally amongst the cores rather than each one having its own. Better and smarter utilization of the Cache eliminates the need for a larger one. But there will be increase in the L3 Cache size. As Intel says, the smart cache eliminates latency to increase performance.

QuickPath Technology: This is Intel’s synonym to AMD HyperTransport. Improved Parallelism and Point to Point connectivity are primary benefits. Finally, the Front Side Bus or the FSB will be replaced with QuickPath Interconnect (QPI). QuickPath enables direct access to the Memory and the I/O HUB (Yes, MCH is no more). This increases the access rate by three times. Also Multi-Processor Environments will be greatly benefited with QPI. QPI offers up to 25.6GBps inter processor bandwidth and 32GBps Memory Bandwidth. Normal end systems will have a single QPI and high-end machines will feature two of them, QPI-0 and QPI-1.

HyperThreading Strikes back: Intel has re-implemented the HT Technology in Nehalem Platform that was earlier used in the Pentium 4 Series of Processors. HyperThreading is a specialized form of Simultaneous Multithreading. HT enables individual cores to handle more threads to facilitate better performance. HT was said to be power inefficient, but with today’s memory bandwidth I think that including HT makes the architecture power efficient.

4 Cores 8 Threads

Socket and Dimensions: The new Nehalem uses Socket B or LGA1366. It could replace both the LGA771 and LGA775 due to its support for QPI. There are also some speculations that there will be two more sockets, LGA1160 for desktops and LGA1567 for high end server platforms. The physical size of the processor is more than the earlier processors by 20% paving way for larger heatsink, increased TDP.
Some Important Features: Nehalem is completely fabricated under the 45nm manufacturing process. It will support native (all cores on single die) 2, 4 and 8 cores. It incorporates the new SSE 4.2 SIMD. Review of Core i7 from AnandTech confirms a 30% performance increase in performance with 10% rise in power consumption. Some points to note are better Loop Stream Detector, Supports DDR3 only, eight core systems will be available, triple channel memory support.

Nehalem will be available at the end of 2008. Nehalem is aimed at the server workstation platform. The Specs and numbers provided here need not be exact as this is just Nehalem’s entry. Looking at the future, two other Lynnfield and Havendale are due 2010. These processors are said to include direct link with their GPU and Integrated GPU Core respectively. Also 2009-2010 will see Westmere and Sandy Bridge under 32nm fabrication. Nehalem is expected to move from 45nm to 32nm before them. After writing this post, I have only one thing left in my mind – what does AMD have for Intel???