It’s no secret that your computer is only as good as the latest upgrade. The speed of obsolescence in the personal computing industry is almost a law of physics on its own.
As fickle as fashion, the 486dx25 you went ga-ga over when it first arrived, ended up a short time later in the same box as your M.C. Hammer parachute pants, both vibrating in the front seat on the way to the Salvation Army. But at least the po’ folks would get something.
A similar fate awaited Pentiums I and II, only this time it was your Nintendo 64 that was in the box.
So this week, dual-core processors make their debuts from Intel and AMD, and suddenly your 2.24 GHz single core processor (which you were sure would last a while because if it got much more powerful, the salesman told you, it would overheat), looks like a wet, half smoked cigarette.
And now, out of habit, your eyes turn to the dual-core desktops that will be released in the few weeks.
AMD said it will start shipping dual-core Athlon 64 chips in June, with speeds ranging from 2.2 GHz to 2.4 GHz, and priced from $537 to $1,001.
Intel’s Extreme Edition 840, shipped on Monday, runs at 3.2 GHz and is priced at $999 wholesale.
The advantage of a desktop dual-core rests within multitasking. Two processors work like two computers; dividing the workload so more can be done at once. Ideally, you can burn a DVD and play a resource demanding game (and maybe even run a virus scan) at the same time without the PC getting a digital ice cream headache.
“Well, holy smokes!” you say. “If it can do that then I must have one!”
All that’s well and good. The consumer has his latest dual-core processor propped up nice and shiny on his desk, and once he hooks it up, loads all the software, he smiles and sighs to find that it runsslower?
It would appear to be a bit early to hop onto the dual-core turnip truck. While the new processors will run current software like Windows 2000 and Windows XP, these programs and others aren’t written to support two processors.
What has also been released with multi-processor units is a general lack of software. The software will trickle in over the coming months, but we’ll have to wait until Longhorn is released (in 15 months) to fully realize their potential. Are we to believe there won’t be faster and better multi-core processors developed in a year and half?
It may prove a prudent move to hang onto that single core desktop for a little while. Though it may not satisfy the need to upgrade, it will leave a little money in your pocket.
