Quad-core Gaming Chips

Say you need some additional firepower for the latest online shooter and decide to assign three of the four cores of your Intel Quad Core CPU to that single application and run the rest of the applications on the remaining cpu core. That’s a valid scenario don’t you think? It does not have to be a game though, you could assign a cpu intense application to a core and the rest of the applications to another. SMP Seesaw (via Download Squad ) is the application that you are looking for if you want to control the cpu cores in detail. It’s probably more of ... Read Full Story

From time to time in my writing I have made reference to Moore’s Law ; which, phrased simply, means “the power of computers doubles every 18 months” (some say two years). I like Moore’s Law– smaller, faster, double the power (and often, power consumption is lower too). Moore’s Law is most often comes up when speaking about CPU ’s (your computer’s “brain”). My first Intel computer ran a very good CPU– a 486 DX (at 133MHz [that's .1GHz]). It had a million transistor on it, and was considered Top of the Line. Today’s Top of the Line consumer chip is actually four-CPU’s-in-one (or, “quad-core”) ... Read Full Story

As expected, Intel just announced its Clarksfield laptop chips, bringing Core i7 to the laptop form factor. There'll be three chips, two regular quad-cores and a Core i7 Extreme that can run as fast as 3.2GHz in Turbo mode, which selectively shuts off cores and uses the extra power to speed up the the remaining cores while preserving battery life. The parts were demoed working in shipping-ready form on stage, but pricing and availability weren't mentioned -- we'll let you know what we can dig up. Read - Intel's Core i7 Mobile press release Read - HotHardware's Core i7 Mobile review Read - LegitReviews' ... Read Full Story

As expected, Intel just announced its Clarksfield laptop chips, bringing Core i7 to the laptop form factor. There'll be three chips, two regular quad-cores and a Core i7 Extreme that can run as fast as 3.2GHz in Turbo mode, which selectively shuts off cores and uses the extra power to speed up the the remaining cores while preserving battery life. The parts were demoed working in shipping-ready form on stage, but pricing and availability weren't mentioned -- we'll let you know what we can dig up. Read - Intel's Core i7 Mobile press release Read - HotHardware's Core i7 Mobile review Read - LegitReviews' ... Read Full Story

Looking back, quad-core processors have had quite the run already. Intel’s first quad-core CPU, the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 was released almost three years ago, with the much more popular Q6600 following up months later at a rather steep $850. As you may recall it was quite the luxury then to have one of these at your disposal. Today we find ourselves with very different and diversified offerings from both companies, that are not only cheaper but also significantly faster. Just take for example AMD’s Phenom II X4 945 that can be purchased for as little as $170, not to mention Intel’s most recent ... Read Full Story