Mashed Articles

However you slice it, the PC processor business this year has been all about Intel. First came a revolutionary dual-core chip with a graphics processor shoehorned into the CPU package. At the other end of the scale, a new six-core monster has made Intel’s position at the top of the performance table look even more unassailable. Meanwhile, AMD’s CPU division has released, well, very little. Minor revisions of its dual and quad-core chips has been your lot.

That is about to change. By the time you read these words, AMD will have unleashed its own hexa-core desktop processor, known as Thuban. Based on AMD’s ageing Hammer platform, it won’t be enough to scare Intel’s finest. We’ll have to wait until 2011 and the arrival of AMD’s new Bulldozer CPU architecture before there’s any chance of that happening, but Thuban should make for an interesting addition in the meaty mid-range of the CPU market.

Of course, I’ve chewed the fat regarding the prospects for Bulldozer in PC Pluses passim. But it’s actually the chip scheduled to arrive between Thuban and Bulldozer that should mark the beginning of AMD’s renaissance. Codenamed Llano and due late this year or early next, it’s AMD’s first stab at a CPU-GPU ‘fusion’ processor. Intel may have beaten AMD to market with such a device, but it’s looking like AMD might have the edge.

For starters, AMD has much better graphics technology than Intel. That’s unlikely to change any time soon, given the recent cancellation of Larrabee, Intel’s stillborn effort to engineer a stand-alone graphics processor. Indeed, thanks to some recent disclosures from AMD, the full implications of its superiority in graphics are becoming clearer. Images of the Llano die have been circulating and reveal that the graphics core is big. Really big. It consumes nearly half the available die space. Remember, this is a 32nm quad-core processor. That means AMD has invested lots of transistors in the graphics.

Extrapolating from such images is always perilous, but I’m confident it will be by far the most powerful integrated graphics chip ever. To put it into context, the fastest integrated graphics core AMD currently makes has 40 stream processors. Llano is thought to have as many as 480, making it over 10 times as powerful. Indeed, the Llano graphics core looks more powerful than AMD’s fastest discrete desktop GPU of just a couple of years ago, the Radeon HD 2900.

Comparisons with Intel’s current Westmere fusion chips are tricky, not least because they are dual-die constructions combining a 32nm dual-core processor with a 45nm graphics chip in a single package. Suffice to say that in terms of rendering grunt, Westmere doesn’t even rank as the most powerful current integrated GPU, much less threaten Llano. Of course, by the time Llano appears Intel will be tooling up for its upcoming Sandy Bridge family of chips. Like Llano, Sandy Bridge derivatives will be quad-core, single-die chips. Intriguingly, die shots reveal the graphics core in Sandy Bridge represents at most one fifth of its total area.

All of which means we have two very different looking approaches from AMD and Intel when it comes to fusion processors. You could say each plays to its strengths. AMD has great graphics and relatively weak CPUs, so stuffing a big GPU into its fusion processor allows for a strong narrative. Want a great visual experience from your low-end PC? Then you need AMD. Meanwhile, Intel will be emphasising the superiority of its traditional CPUs, something it will have no problem demonstrating.

On the desktop, it looks like a win for Intel. Anybody who wants serious graphics power will simply drop in a discrete video card (though there’s a good chance that video card will come from AMD). It’s a different story for laptop PCs, however. Power use is the driving factor here, and that means a heavyweight discrete GPU is a non-starter. Likewise, outright CPU performance is less of an issue for mobile systems.

What AMD will therefore be able to offer is a more balanced package. Its CPU won’t be the fastest, but it will be good enough. Meanwhile, it will have by far the best integrated graphics core, all the better for everything from gaming to high definition video playback. What’s more, if general processing on the GPU ever takes off, well, that will just be gravy. All this, of course, is before the arrival of AMD’s new Bulldozer CPU architecture. If that’s any good, Intel really will be under pressure.

Some you win and some you lose. As it goes, Apple’s new iPad makes me feel like I’m first past the post. Not because it’s going to change anyone’s life for the better, but simply because it confirms what I’ve been saying for longer than I care to remember about mobile internet devices, or MIDs. Not to put too fine a point on it, MIDs are a bad idea. And make no mistake: the iPad is nothing more than a MID.

I could, of course, count the ways in which the iPad fails. I might wax proselytical about the oversized screen and how it bloats the device’s proportions unnecessarily. I could wail and gnash that the lack of support for Flash video is utterly bonkers in a device Apple claims is better for web browsing than a laptop.

Equally, there are legitimate complaints to be made regarding Apple’s decision to run a Mickey Mouse smartphone operating system – one that lacks proper multitasking support – on a far larger and supposedly more capable device. Likewise, the total absence of expansion-friendly ports, sockets and card readers is a galling limitation that smacks of control freakery. Whatever Steve Jobs claims, magical the iPad ain’t.

But ultimately, debating the pros and cons of the iPad’s weak execution is irrelevant and plays into the hands of Apple fanboys. It gives them the opportunity to point at the widespread criticism levelled at the first iPhone and confidently imply that the trash talkers have got it wrong once again. No, the real problem with the iPad isn’t poor execution: it’s the broken MID concept.

For starters, the fact that even a flawed MID such as the iPad is better for internet browsing than the best smartphone counts for nothing. You can’t slip the iPad or any other MID into a trouser pocket. To put it another way, MIDs neither replace nor compete with smartphones. As Apple itself says about the iPad, it’s a new category of device, not a replacement.

However, what MIDs do have to compete with, contrary to the preachings of his royal Jobness at the iPad launch event, are laptops in all shapes and sizes, including netbooks. It’s difficult to think of more than a small handful of distinctly niche applications for which the tablet or slate format factor is preferable to the classic fold-out screen and keyboard design.

Indeed, Apple’s promotional video for the iPad, replete with images of the hapless user contorted into a slouching, knee-high, feet-on-coffee table position, tells you all you need to know about the difficulties of the slate form factor. Anything other than perfunctory prodding at the screen is a royal pain in the backside.

Despite all that, don’t think I’ve come over all smug this month. Yes, I’m increasingly confident that I got it right regarding MIDs, but the launch of a certain new CPU has dropped a bomb on another of my forecasts. Not long ago, I predicted that 2010 would be the year that multicore computing got back on track. To an extent, that remains true. Both AMD and Intel plan to launch six-core PC processors soon, thereby increasing their core counts for the first time in a couple of years.

Nevertheless, I suspect that a humble dual-core processor will remain the most impressive chip launched in 2010. The CPU in question is Arrandale, Intel’s new mobile engine for laptops. Putting Intel’s baffling new branding scheme to one side, thanks to which Arrandale will be sold under not only the Core i3 and Core i5 banners, but also Core i7, this chip is a stunner. I’ve certainly never seen such an enormous leap in raw performance, generation to generation.

At any given clockspeed, I’d estimate it’s often in excess of 50 per cent faster than Intel’s existing Core 2 Duo mobile processor, which is no slouch itself. Add in Intel’s auto-overclocking Turbo feature and it only gets better. In fact, it’s so fast that it makes me doubt the need for quad-core processors in portable PCs. As if that’s not enough, my early testing suggests it delivers all that extra performance in return for almost exactly the same overall power draw as a Core 2 Duo.

That’s a particularly intriguing observation, because it doesn’t just mean you can have performance to rival Intel’s older quad-core chips in a relatively thin and light notebook. No, things get really interesting when you consider the low-voltage and upcoming ultra-low-voltage versions of Arrandale. With these, we’re likely to see performance on a par with full-power variants of the Core 2 Duo range, but in far smaller form factors. Bung in a decent solid-state drive and the result should be a desktop-class computing experience in an ultra-
portable PC. Now that’s what I call magical.

Windows 7 is 234 per cent more popular than its predecessor. It’s official. OK, so that figure relates to the first few days of sales in the US, and the predecessor in question is Windows Vista, the Antichrist OS. Even so, pathologically mediocre as it may well be, Windows 7 has been well received.

What interests me is how this reflects a broader malaise that continues to blight the PC industry. What else but Microsoft’s ongoing near-monopoly can explain the continued success of an operating system that sports a near-total absence of real innovation?

The broader problem, therefore, involves the fact that the key components inside your PC, both software and hardware, are still owned by far too few companies. In just about any other industry of global import, the way Microsoft dominates the software landscape while Intel has the hardware platform largely sewn up and Google owns web searches would be viewed as unhealthy.

A handy analogue is the food industry in the US. If you’ve seen the recent documentary Food, Inc., you’ll know what I’m talking about. According to the film’s makers, key sectors in the US food industry have been whittled down from around 20 major players in the 1970s to just four mega-producers today. The result has been the emergence of a range of seriously unsavoury practices – the concentration of power in the hands of a handful of massive companies hasn’t done anyone any good. Except those companies, of course.

Compare that to the PC industry and, if anything, the concentration of power looks much, much worse. It’s a fact that both Microsoft and Intel, for example, have recently been subject to prosecutions for market abuses. But a plausible argument can still be made in terms of the benefits to the PC industry and end users. Together, Intel and Microsoft provided developers with a single, unified platform and a massive customer base. Thus was born the astonishing ecosystem of PC-compatible applications and devices we take for granted today.

Moreover, I suppose we should all be grateful for what little competition there has been. Without AMD and ATI to keep Intel and Nvidia honest, for instance, we might now be marvelling at the power of single-core Intel Pentium 5 processors and Nvidia GeForce 4900 TI graphics.

Similarly, I scarcely dare imagine what horrors the Beast of Redmond would have sired were it not for the threat, however remote, of Apple’s OS X and the open-source Linux operating system.

So, a lot of power and wealth may have been accumulated in the hands of a few thanks to the Wintel monopoly, but mankind has benefited enormously from the emergence of ubiquitous personal computing.

Still, if I’m convinced it’s all been worth it up to now, I’m equally sure the time has come for a more democratic wave of innovation. Fortunately, there are signs it’s already happening. Microsoft is increasingly under siege from all conceivable angles, whether it’s the success of Linux as an enterprise OS or the arguably even more lethal threat posed by the humble web browser. Who needs a complex operating system if all your applications are hosted online?

Intel’s hardware nut seems trickier to crack. Creating computer chips is a complex business – the idea of new entrants to the market is virtually inconceivable. However, the increasing importance of mobile devices might be the key. Currently, ultra-mobile computing is dominated not by Intel chips but by ARM’s processor architectures.
Crucially, ARM’s approach to producing CPUs is rather novel. In fact, ARM doesn’t really produce processors at all. Rather, it licenses out designs. This gives chipmakers the option of simply knocking out an off-the-shelf design or fusing an ARM processor architecture with its own technology to create something unique. As the remit for ultra-mobile devices expands over the next few years, so will the range and ability of ARM-based processors. Chips with all kinds of enhanced functions, from video decoding to cryptography acceleration, are likely to appear.

Intel recognises the threat posed by a plethora of purpose-built ARM processors and so has taken the bold step of licensing out the Atom processor architecture to TSMC, one of its main rivals in the chip production business. Again, the idea is to allow the Atom core to be combined with a range of third-party circuitry.

All of which means we’re poised for a battle royal between ARM and Intel in the ultra-mobile segment. Google, meanwhile, might just provide a similar foil for Microsoft. The result would be a perfect storm of hardware and software innovation. If that happens, the mediocrity of Windows 7 will be but a distant memory.