The PC architecture has been around for over two decades, but it's interesting to note that powerful graphics accelerators - the unit responsible for the 2D or 3D output you see on your display - have only been around since the mid 1990s.

Graphics Beginners' Guide, Part 2: Graphics Technology

Graphics Card Technology

Live Stress Test Rundown: AMD vs. Intel

The AMD system featured the Dresden-manufactured 90 nm Athlon 64 X2 4800+, which consists of two FX-53 cores each running at 2.4 GHz with 1 MB L2 cache. The processor understands new command extensions; in addition to SSE and SSE2, it now supports SSE3 as well. This should make its effects felt in applications using video encoding.

The Athlon 64 FX Overclocked to 3 GHz

It's nothing new that the Athlon 64 offers at least the same performance as the Pentium 4 while running at a far slower speed. That said, in the last two years power loss values have risen to such levels with Intel devices that the manufacturer is now vulnerable on two fronts.

Dual-Core, Simple Price: Athlon 64 X2 3800+

As we closed up our tests of the Dual Core Athlon 64 X2 from AMD, our conclusions were positive. With two processor cores on one chip, slow-moving computers are a thing of the past: multi-threaded applications run faster, as if the clock rate were boosted. But despite this trouble-free and powerful technology, AMD over-reached itself.

A Dissatifying Compromise With AMD's 64 bit Sempron 3400+

There are two sides of the processor market. The first consists of high-end PCs run by powerful and prestigious chips from either AMD or Intel, which outshine each other from time to time. And there is the second side, which consists of large volume shipments of stripped-down computers, solely meant to attain attractive price points at the expense of features or performance.

A Sneak Peak at Intel's 65 nm Pentium 4

History draws a somewhat ambivalent image of Intel's top selling microprocessor, the Pentium 4 , because of its nearly picture-perfect career that lasted until an unprecedented turning point. Intel platforms are versatile, processors are fast and fully featured today; but they run hotter and consume more energy than comparable products offered by the competition.

Intel Moves From Dual Core To Double Core

There is no doubt that the 65 nm chip is going to be much better, though it won't be able to attack AMD's Athlon 64 X2, at least for the time being.

Intel's Next-Generation Server Promises

Intel's architecture still clearly dominates the x86 server market, AMD's Opteron has represented more than just an annoyance for Intel since its introduction in April 2003. In a nutshell, Opteron offers better computing and per-Watt performance at a roughly equivalent per-device price and it scales much better when moving from one to two or even four CPUs. AMD's performance lead is equally large when compared to Intel's new dual-core Xeon devices.

Pentium, Schmentium: Decoding CPU Names

Know The Processor Inside Your Computer Case?