November 07, 2006
Processing Vista: Is Your CPU Up To The Task?Bill O'Brien
Vista's coming, and will probably cause a big change in your computing real estate. The question is: Will this include a new processor?
Vista's coming -- and whatever you think of Microsoft's new operating environment there's one thing you can put money on: Vista will put more strain on your computer than anything else you've probably ever seen before.
Most of the emphasis in the scramble to adjust to these new hardware needs has centered on memory. For example, a major reason that Vista will be a pain in the bus (thank you, Microsoft, for deciding that an operating system should be an operating environment) is, of course, Aero, its hoity-toity graphical interface. As you might expect, that's going to put quite a strain on your computer's graphics subsystem. Although Vista will scale back on Aero effects if your system is too poorly equipped to use them all, are you really ready to admit that you're running a hobbled computer to anyone? It's doubtful. That means at least a new graphics card. But wait, there's more. If your graphics memory starts to run low, Vista is designed to borrow from your system memory to fill its needs. We have all said for years how terribly wrong that is because it robs overall potential system performance -- you might also want to get yourself a bit more memory. However, if your PC is strictly for business, or if you're more interested in grunt than glitter, you may need to start thinking about your CPU. In fact, once you've assured yourself that the rest of the components are up to the new OS, but your PC is still dragging its feet, the only place to turn is your processor.
All CPUs Are Not The Same If we just look over the new processors of the last five years, it's easy to see that things have changed considerably. The Pentium 4, for example, has continued to morph. First, Intel added mega amounts of L2 cache along with Hyper-Threading, a virtual multiple CPU environment that made you'd think you had multiple processors. Then it switched to actual dual cores with Hyper-Threading (in other words, two real and two virtual cores). This was followed by Core Duo chips (32-bit CPUs using earlier Pentium architecture) that no longer used Hyper-Threading. And most recently, Intel introduced the Core 2 Duo chips, the first models in Intel's 64-bit Core line, which have been closely followed by the four-core Core 2 Quad (the first shipping product is known as the Core 2 Extreme QX6700). Luckily, despite their differences, each one of the newer processors fits in a standard Intel 775-pin CPU socket. On the other hand, despite having the same number of pins in the CPU socket, a motherboard manufactured for a bland old Pentium 4 can't actually handle a Core 2 Duo or Quad because of the technical changes in the processor that the motherboard was never designed to accommodate. Let's not leave AMD out of the picture. Its equally ubiquitous 939-pin processor socket can also accommodate its share of improved CPUs -- both single and double core -- except when you got to the dual-core Athlon X2, which requires a BIOS upgrade (or a new motherboard ). There's also the newly released 940-pin AM2 socket, which is completely different than the old Opteron 940-pin socket because the two chips are completely different. The new AM2 chips have been built to use DDR2 memory, just the way their Intel cousins have been doing, but they needed an extra pin to do so. That 240th pin was used for an entirely different function with the Opteron. (For more on the current onslaught of new chips, check out our Dual-Core CPU Buyer's Guide and Quad-Core Processor Forecast.) 
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