Techno Page

By Harendra Alwis

Cool it!

The competition raging between AMD and Intel has just hit new levels. After all, long gone are the days when AMD was considered to be the underdog. When innumerable publications all over the world began to emphasize the positive side of the "weaker and vulnerable" AMD, you'd bet there were alarm bells ringing at Intel.

One of the key distinctions between the two chips is that AMD is hot! I mean AMD chips literally heat up more than the more popular 'Pentiums'. AMD had neglected the heat factor in their race with Intel to build faster chips, a mistake that cost them big money. Right now they are using gigantic coolers for their chips. This works fine, but if the cooler accidentally falls off, AMD's 'Athlons' and Durons would literally melt off, whereas Intel has a heat management mechanism built into the chip that makes it come to a dead stop as it overheats. What is a cooler?

If you have ever peeped in through your machine's casing and caught a glimpse of your processor you would have seen that you can't actually see your processor because it is covered with a fan. This fan and the heat-sinks below it help absorb the tremendous heat that is produced by the processor. A basic knowledge in physics would tell you that the conductivity of metals decreases as they heat up, which means that they would conduct electricity more when they are cooled. This means that; the cooler the processor, the faster it will be!

Some experts go to the extent of cooling their processors with liquid nitrogen coolers to make their processors run much faster than they usually do. This is known as 'over-clocking' and in a recent exercise of that nature, they managed to get an Intel Pentium 4 2200 to run at over 3000MHz which is about 50% faster than normal. Is it worth all the trouble? Actually no, but they don't just want optimal performance from their machines - they just want to show off.

Getting back to AMD and Intel, most of the reviews published in recent times support the Hot AMD chips than theirs rival's 'Pentiums'. 

This is because of the performance that the AMD chips offer over the 'Pentiums'. For example, some benchmark experts rank the Athlon XP 1600 on par with the Pentium 4 2200, but the criterion is as always the price. 'Athlons' also come much cheaper than the Pentium 4s giving them a distinct market advantage. In recent 'price-for-processing power' tests done by Toms Hardware Guide <www.tomshardware.com>  the AMD chips ranked considerably higher than Intel's 'Pentiums'.

If you chose to get an AMD, be sure to get a proper cooler. Cheap coolers will force the processor to run at low speeds. The kind of cooler I am talking about could cost anything up to Rs. 3500/- to Rs. 4000/- but it's a worthwhile investment.

On the other hand if you are the traditional type who would pay more for the time tested 'Pentiums' - they perform better when it comes to games. So you see there is not much of a difference between the 'Pentiums' and 'Athlons'.

I am sure there are folks out there who would have a few things to say about this, so write in and share your views with us.

Techno-download of the week

This set of easy to use tools allows you to find and fix problems and properly maintain your PC so that problems don't occur. It is a lot like Norton Utilities in its capabilities, but just under 1.5 Mb (yes, it's no printing mistake) it's just amazing what this little thing can do (Besides since it is a shareware, you don't have to pirate it either!).

Features include the ability to: Hunt down and remove junk and obsolete files and drivers; Maintain privacy and security by eliminating tracks left behind while using your computer or surfing the web; Properly remove browser cache, cookies, and other history files; Find, fix, or remove broken Windows shortcuts; Find and remove invalid uninstaller information; Clean and optimize your system registry; and much more. 

With System Mechanic, you can track and report on changes made to your system when installing programs and schedule system maintenance to take place unattended. It also keeps Log statistical information to quantify the benefits of all tools. 

Even if you choose not to use it, I guarantee that you'll simply be amazed at what such a small program can do.

Ladies 'Web' ahead