Pushing dual-core PCs beyond the desktop

The launch on Thursday of Intel's Pentium D processor sparked debate among computer makers about what shape next-generation PCs will take.

Gerald Holzhammer, a vice president with Intel's digital home group, said PC makers could use the new dual-core Pentium chips to dream up new forms and functions beyond the standard tower design.

"I won't say it is as exciting as the Internet was about 10 years ago, but it comes pretty close," Holzhammer said during a launch event Thursday.

Holzhammer said 70 percent of Intel's Pentium systems are used in standard box designs, with the next-largest percentage powering laptops. But he noted that there is a small yet growing number of Pentium chips appearing in new categories of machines such as media-center PCs and extreme-gaming devices.

"For the first time it is a PC pushing into the living room," he said. "In that respect, the PC must almost become a server and manage multiple activities."

Holzhammer said Intel is wooing its hardware vendors with additional features in the Pentium D line, including support for two different specifications of RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) storage, high-definition audio and a graphics engine that will support the improvements in the next generation of Microsoft's Windows operating system, code named Longhorn.

PC makers, meanwhile, were in lock step with Intel's dual-core Pentium plans.

Dell revealed its new Dimension 9100 computer, which supports the Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 operating system. The company also announced that it is now shipping 500-GB1 Serial ATA 2 hard drives on its Dimension XPS Gen 5 desktop, which is designed for gamers and multimedia enthusiasts.

The No. 2 PC maker, HP, showed off its Media Center PC m7100y, with networking capabilities, as well as the HP Pavilion d4100y, business desktops in the Compaq dc7600 line and the HP xw4300 workstation.

Lenovo said it would deliver its ThinkCentre M52 and ThinkCentre A52 desktop PCs in June for high-end users and small and medium-size businesses.

Intel itself has for years designed its chips around next-generation PC concepts. The company's more notable forays into that realm included a mini tower and its portable Florence Digital Home desktop design.

And while Intel has been touting the Pentium D's multi-user capabilities, Holzhammer said most users would stick to a single- computer-per-user philosophy for the near term.

[AgeOfPenguins_com]

In RAID, the R actually stands for...

'redundant', not 'random'.

The purpose of RAID is to be able to recover from a single hard drives' failure. So it stores data with a bit of redundancy.

[msingersfo]

In RAID, the R actually stands for...

Matthew,
Thanks for the clarification. We here at CNET strive to maintain our journalistic credibility.

Michael Singer
Senior Writer
CNET News.com

[Andrew J Glina]

Plus

I thought that the "I" is more seen to stand for "inderpendant" now that it is used for more purposes these days. (Just like DVD used to mean Digital Video Disc, but now it mean Digital Versitile Disc.) Someone please correct me if I am wrong!

[aabcdefghij987654321]

Wishfull thinking

That a change in the nature of the processor being included in the box should somehow also affect the shape of the box it's placed into is just fantasy.

It will however continue a revolution in the software. As the idea of multiprocessing systems grows, the software running on those systems will have to be able to utilize the multiple processors in order to provide maximum performance. With most current software running only a single thread there's no benefit in these newer processors.

[Andrew J Glina]

Multitasking

Dual core will give smoother multitasking and will prevent system lockup when one program is overloaded. This is why I will buy one.

[George Cole]

running only a single thread

http://www.analogstereo.com/jaguar_x-type_owners_manual.htm

[compu_geek]

Interesting how Intel manages the spin...

Intel Spinmeisters... They made it look like they were first with the dual cores, but who shipped first? And whose chips are consuming/wasting even more energy than ever before? Read between the lines and IMO this is just more hype to make Intel look better than they really are. Not sure that there's really any news here beyond new product introductions.

[CharlesJo.com]

Interesting...

Reminds me of section 2 on OS Wars, Episode X.4:

http://www.charlesjo.com/newsletterissue?newsletterIssueEntityId=285

CharlesJo.com
Let's dream big

[NWLB]

Spin over substance.

Intel's dual cores are still held back by a few problems and bottle-necks. AMD's chips however will jump past intel when they go to four cores.

But more is better and I think having mulitple cores will open the flood-gates of change. Between that and SLI/PCI Express, and the growth of RAID in common desktops, it will require a full system approach to create a PC that leaves the old single core units in the dust. That takes some of the control out of Intel's hands. The PC will require a lot more than just the main CPU to be really good. With AMD also pushing from another direction, Intel won't be able to fend off motherboard companies and others that don't want to use certain chipsets among other things.

NWLB
****
http://www.nwlb.net