 "Best PC Products of 2006")
2006 has been a revolutionary year in terms of technology. Along with the introduction of completely new technologies like Blu-ray and PMR (Perpendicular Magnetic Recording, for hard drives) we have seen complete overhauls in the Core 2 Duo and the 8800GTX. Let’s have a closer look at them.
Intel Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme Processors
Intel was going crazy increasing their clock speeds from 2GHz to 3Ghz and even beyond, which really never worked. On the other hand AMD with their architecturally superior socket 754 and socket 939 processors was almost owning Intel in the consumer desktop space. And just when we thought the lead had completely reversed in AMD’s favor, Intel came back with the Core 2 Duo. Taking cues from their Pentium M (mobile processor) and even Pentium 3’s architecture, the Core 2 Duo was born and was called the ‘Conroe’. This new processor along with blazing speeds is much cooler than its predecessors ( the infamous Prescott series from their Pentium 4 stable was nicknamed ‘Press-Hot’ for its soaring temperatures) and consumes lesser power ‘per watt’, as Intel likes to call it. The Core 2 Duo is once again the performance chipset with AMD reduced to the value segment.
Nvidia 680i Motherboard Chipset
If you are talking about performance chipsets for motherboards, there’s nothing that can come close to Nvidia. Not taking you too long back in time, Nvidia’s NForce4 based motherboards were a rage and were the top choice of enthusiasts with AMD’s socket 939 processors. But then 6 months back Intel came back into the scene with their Core 2 Duo processors and Nvidia’s offering then was their 500 series chipsets. The 500 series were better suited to the AMD chips and its overclocking capabilities were average. As the enthusiast community completely shifted base to the Core 2 Duo platform, Nvidia was seriously lagging in the game and guys were going for boards with Intel’s own 975x performance chipset. Come November, and Nvidia launched their 600i series, with 680i their flagship chip which was completely built, ground up, from Nvidia’s lab in Bangalore.
We can firmly say, it’s the best Intel Core 2 enthusiast chip available. Among the things that make it the best are the zillions of overclocking options, dual x16 SLI lanes, dual Gigabit Ethernet, HD audio, and an added lane to run a physics card along with SLI.
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Sony BWU-100A Blu-ray Recordable Drive
Although Blu-ray was technologically ahead of HD-DVD on the storage front, HD-DVD edged ahead by shipping consumer HD-DVD players much ahead of Blu-ray players and at a lesser price. But on the PC front, Blu-ray optical drives were the first to arrive. Though a little premature to adopt due to its high price (the Sony BWU-100A costs Rs. 44,300), it’s the next generation, high definition, high capacity optical drive. Along with Blu-ray discs that come in 25 and 50 GB capacities it can also burn and read DVDs and CDs. The BWU-100A ships with a Cyberlink software that lets you play High-Definition movies. The Cyberlink package also contains a mastering software to help you burn Blu-ray discs.
Nvidia 8800GTX Graphics Card
2006 has been a hectic year for GPU manufacturers, Nvidia and ATI. They have released so many cards in one year, it almost feels like graphic cards have become cell phones. In January, ATI released its successful R580 GPU (x1900) that was based on the R520 chip. To counter that, Nvidia released the G71 chip in March that restored the balance a bit. Again, Nvidia came out with its dual GPU-based card in June, the 7950 GX2. To that ATI replied with its X1950XTX, which became the fastest single card solution.
The G70 and the G71 were actually improvements of the NV40 GPU, which was released way back in 2004 and with the dual GPU-based 7950GX2, it looked like Nvidia was running out of technological advancements. The G80, on which the 8800GTX is based, broke the mold and came with a completely new architecture. Along with being the first DirectX 10 card in the market, it features unified shader units. It has a whopping 682 million transistors and to give you a modest comparison, Intel’s flagship quad-core Kentsfield CPU has 582 million transistors. This powerhouse is priced at Rs. 44,000.
Seagate 160GB Laptop Hard Drive with PMR ( Perpendicular Magnetic Recording)
With storage requirements dramatically increasing with the introduction of high definition media, it was becoming more and more difficult for manufacturers to pack in more data in the same space. 2006 saw the introduction of the drives with perpendicular magnetic recording. Along with the ability to pack in as much as 4 times the data, the drives based on PMR are also 5% to 15% faster. The Seagate 2.5 inch 160 GB hard drive not only beats the previously highest 120 GB barrier but also generates less heat and consumes lesser power making it ideal for consumer devices like Digital Video Recorders (DVRs).