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Your PC in the New Millennium
by Michael Desmond
It's not your imagination: Things really are changing faster than ever. Take hardware, for example. The average new PC seems to have a shorter life span than a tsetse fly's. Office storage rooms are filled with great technological advances that never made it past version 1.0. As the unlucky souls who purchased them no doubt discovered, the road to PC hell is paved with good inventions.
But to paraphrase a certain software mogul, what about The Road Ahead? Can you avoid buying hardware that becomes obsolete before you've finished paying for it? Yes, you can--if you shop wisely. That's why we've produced this guide to the technologies and trends that will shape the design of PCs for the next three years.
Though predicting the future is a job best left to the Psychic Friends Network, it's safe to say you'll see smarter silicon packed into more stylish cases. More than two dozen new CPUs will appear in the next 18 months, along with fast new memory types and data connections. PCs will look better (thanks to slim, affordable LCD screens) and listen better (using software that recognizes speech, gestures, and even eye position).
In fact, by 2001 you may not recognize PCs at all. Many will fit into the palm of your hand; nearly all will offer connections to the Internet and to each other. But the road ahead is also full of speed bumps, potholes, and blind curves. The following pages will help you navigate the hairpin turns of technology and show you what's on the horizon, as well as what's just around the bend.
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More Than Intel Inside
Chips take on 3D, buses hit 133, farewell AGP?
By 2000, Intel's mainstream desktop CPUs will tick along at a torrid 700 MHz. But that's not the only change you'll find inside the box. The coming three years will see numerous new processor families (see " CPU Road Map"), a new memory standard, and perhaps an end to the motherboard as we know it. The enhancements will allow new PCs to handle the emerging tasks of the day--intense 3D graphics, full-motion MPEG-2 video, and applications like voice recognition.
The question is, will there be enough of these applications to justify the additional cost? "The amount of processing power that will be in place in systems at that point will be absolutely scary," says Nathan Brookwood, president of Insight64, a technology consultancy in Saratoga, California. "And if software developers don't find a way to soak up all that power, it's going to be a really messy market. The performance available in low-end systems will be far in excess of what most people need for their jobs."
Brookwood adds that it could be years before apps that really tax the coming generation of hardware appear. "I expect that in 2002 we'll see the arrival of reasonable amounts of bandwidth making that last mile to the home and business. And in my mind, that will trigger a reevaluation of what people can do with PCs."
Swift Silicon
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Brookwood's concerns haven't slowed Intel's rapid-fire introduction of new processors, nor will it keep the chip giant from making big changes to the PC platform. Later this year we'll see a new type of system memory called Direct Rambus DRAM (RDRAM) start to replace synchronous DRAM (SDRAM). Direct RDRAM memory uses a thin and fast connection to more than double the amount of data available to a PC's processor. MPEG-2 video, Accelerated Graphics Port-enhanced 3D graphics, and high-end imaging applications will all benefit from the faster RAM.
Alas, the performance boost will come at a cost. Brookwood expects both RDRAM chips and compatible motherboards to cost more than today's SDRAM technology, at least through 2000. As a result, he says, universal adoption of Direct RDRAM won't happen until 2001. Nonetheless, the technology has the support of key CPU players like Advanced Micro Devices and Compaq's Alpha division, making it a lock to succeed SDRAM.
Around the time that RDRAM gets its start, Intel will roll out a new version of AGP, the graphics-only bus that lets graphics cards call on system RAM to create highly realistic 3D images. AGP 4X will double the data rate of today's AGP 2X cards. The extra speed may help eliminate some delays that occur when AGP-enhanced games juggle detailed 3D scenes. Keep in mind that your mileage may vary.
Even though you'll need an AGP 4X graphics card to take full advantage of the new bus, most older AGP 2X cards should work just fine in the new slots, according to Niles Burbank, product manager for ATI Technologies, a graphics hardware maker based in Thornhill, Ontario.
By late this year, many lower-end machines will not have a separate graphics chip at all, as more tasks begin to fall directly to the chips attached to the processor. Intel's Celeron-based motherboards will begin using the company's forthcoming 810 chip set, which will include a built-in graphics controller. Likewise, Cyrix's MXi processor, which is expected to arrive this spring, will integrate a 3D graphics controller
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Motherboard Makeover
This year, for the second time in two years, Intel processors will boost the bus speed of high-end PCs. Newer chip sets like the one code-named Camino will rev the system bus from 100 MHz to 133 MHz for Pentium II lines, while Celeron PCs will be accelerated from 66 MHz to 100 MHz.
Even bigger changes are due in 2000 or 2001, when Intel is expected to shake up the current motherboard format, according to Peter Glaskowsky, senior analyst for MicroDesign Resources, a technology analysis firm in Sebastopol, California. The change will open the throttles on system bus speeds, further enhancing programs such as real-time natural speech recognition, advanced 3D modeling, and software-based MPEG-2 video playback. (Currently, you need an MPEG add-in card, but the speedier motherboards will handle video without the aid of extra decoder cards.)
Intel won't talk about its plans, but Glaskowsky envisions a motherboard that links components using thin and fast, point-to-point connections. Data will travel directly from system memory to the CPU, bypassing the chip set. The shorter wires and simpler data transfers will allow motherboard speeds of 200 MHz and beyond, says Glaskowsky.
The new type of motherboard will sport a high-end expansion bus that should run nearly ten times faster than today's PCI bus, Glaskowsky adds. This bus will likely supercede AGP and become the main conduit for graphics and even disk access
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