With the recent crop of new Apple desktop hardware - The Mac Pro, iMac and Mac Mini (all of which we reviewed in Personal Computer World) - we noted the use of Intel's older Core 2 Duo processor rather than the newer and more powerful Core i7 chip. The Mac Pro is an exception, but Apple's high end workstation doesn't use Core i7 either, as it's built around Intel's Xeon 5500 processor (which is similar, but not identical, to Core i7)

It's a certainty that Apple will upgrade its range to use Intel's newer processors at some point, but it may be the recently announced Core i5 and Core i3 that it chooses rather than Core i7.

If you haven't been following Intel's roadmaps, Core i5 will use a completely different socket to current Core i7 processors, using 1,156 pins rather than 1,366, meaning if you want to use a Core i5 processor, you need to fork out for yet another new motherboard. Intel's decision to bring another socket to the market has been met with confusion and some disappointment from those who have already invested in Core i7.

The good news is that Core i5 processors and components should be much less expensive than Core i7, but still offer high performance, partly thanks to an integrated memory controller that gives better memory performance than its predecessor.

This leaves Apple with a choice of processors for its next mainstream desktop line. We'll bet on them choosing Core i5 for the iMac, Core i3 for the Mini and sticking with Xeons in the Mac Pro, meaning LGA 1366 Core i7 processors end up never used in an Apple computer.

Of course, Apple hasn't even announced a new desktop line, and Core i5 processors aren't on the market yet, making this little more than speculation on our part. However, as long as Core i5 is relatively affordable and offers a reasonable performance boost, we'll call this an educated guess on what Apple's next move will be.

Posted by orestis.bastounis on July 2, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Kelvyn Taylor on May 6, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Kelvyn Taylor on March 5, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)

As the newest member of staff here at Personal Computer World, I should introduce myself. My name is Orestis, and I'm the new Reviews Editor. On a day-to-day basis, I'll be in charge of our reviews and group tests, following on from the excellent job Nigel Whitfield has been doing.

I have a long background with computing, as I've been completely hooked ever since I first pressed the rubber keys of a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. There are few areas of computing I don't find interesting: programming languages, mobile devices, 3D games and operating systems are just some examples of what piques my interest.

New products and technologies are what has kept me interested for so long, and despite everyone's credit being slightly more crunchy this year than in the past, there's still a long list of exciting releases I am personally looking forward to in 2009.

As long as development remains on track at Microsoft's HQ in Redmond, Windows 7 should be on that list. Having tried the beta, I'm very much looking forward to using the final version of the OS. Regardless of the side you belong to in the Windows Vista versus Windows XP debate, few would doubt that Windows 7 has the potential to be greatly superior to its predecessor.

It will also be interesting to see if Intel can stick to its yearly 'tick-tock' update that was announced back in 2007. Last year's launch of Nehalem, better known as the Core i7 line of processors, constitutes a 'tick' as it was the company's first new microarchitecture since Core 2. This year, it should be followed by Westmere, the first 32nm processor line Intel has produced, which is a 'tock' according to their strategy. Intel has announced it's going to spend $7bn upgrading its fabrication plants to produce such astonishingly small transistors, which should offer better power efficiency and hopefully improved performance over the previous generation.

Although operating systems and processors are two of the most important components of a computing system, the technology launch I'm most looking forward to is USB 3, even though it will take a while before many devices support it. While USB 2 offers only 480 Mbits/sec of bandwidth, USB 3 bumps this to a whopping 5 Gbits/sec, and allows even more power-hungry devices to be powered solely via the Bus. With USB 3 in place, the speed of data transfers from external devices should no longer be bottlenecked by the speed of USB. 

Admittedly Firewire 800 already exists, outperforms and is arguably superior to USB 2, but Firewire has never proved quite as popular as USB, which is found on a much wider range of computing gadgets and peripherals. I have come to depend on the inherent utility and ubiquitous nature of USB, whether it's USB powered 2.5 inch hard disks which I use to carry files around, USB chargers for my phone, or USB rechargeable batteries that i can use in anything from cameras to remote controls. As USB is a technology that affects nearly every part of my computing experience, a major update to its specification is big news.

It's more than likely we will still be enjoying the benefits of USB 3, even after both Windows 7 and 32nm processors have been superseded.
 

Posted by orestis.bastounis on February 25, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Supply-chain analysts iSuppli told PCW this week that 10in is going to be the display size of choice for netbooks during 2009, as smaller sizes are phased out. This ties in perfectly with today's report from Digitimes that Asus plans to totally ditch its 8.9in Eee PC netbooks during 2009 in favour of 10in models.

As we have fond memories of our perfectly-proportioned 10.4in IBM Thinkpad 240X, we reckon that this is a good decision, as long as weight, price and features don't continue to creep upwards - we're already at the point where some netbooks are more expensive than bargain notebooks.

Posted by Kelvyn Taylor on February 19, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)

A new report in Nature about the mysterious Antikythera Mechanism - a clockwork computer dating from around 150BC - suggests that it may have been used to calculate the relationships between the various astronomical calendars in use in ancient Greece, and the 4-year Olympiad calendar used throughout Greece.

The Antikythera Mechanism was discovered in a shipwreck in the Mediterranean in 1901, and despite a poor state of preservation continues to reveal surprisingly complex features. You can download a PDF of the full paper from the Nature website.

Posted by Kelvyn Taylor on July 31, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

  Asus today announced UK pricing for its Eee Box PC, the desktop version of the Eee PC 'netbook'. Available from September, the two models of the Eee Box (white or black) will retail at £199. In a departure from the strategy used for the successful Eee PC, the first versions will ship with Windows XP Home installed. A Linux version will follow at an unspecified date. Full specs are listed below. No monitor is included in the price.

Posted by Kelvyn Taylor on July 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Never mind benchmarks, how many PCs do you know that can do 211mph and accelerate from 0-62mph in just 4 seconds? Well, we found one at the British Motor Show that can.

This ultimate office on wheels is a Brabus SV12 Biturbo , based on a long-wheelbase Mercedes S600 limo with one of Brabus' legendary 6.3litre V12 'Rocket' engines, developing 730bhp, squeezed into it.

Naturally, it's the IT side of this £270,000 motor that interests us, although the eye-watering £24,726.70 (ex. VAT) price for the 'Business equipment' means that interest is purely academic.

For your money you get a retractable 15.2in widescreen TFT built into the headlining, an infrared keyboard with touchpad, a couple of multimedia screens built into the headrests and a laptop running what appears to be Windows Vista mounted in an electrically operated drawer in the boot.

There's also built-in mobile internet, sat nav and a console for a colour printer, apparently.

We certainly managed most of that in our car PC feature in the current issue of PCW, and certainly for a lot less cash, but we must admit we couldn't quite match the leather trimmings. Or the exhaust note...

Posted by Kelvyn Taylor on July 22, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Obituaries of David Caminer, who has died at the age of 92, have focussed on the fact that he was the world's first systems analyst. But his death also revives memories of Leo, the world's first proper business computer.

Leo emerged from the heady days immediately after World War Two when a bankrupt Britain could spare few resources for the development of new-fangled computers. It was an early example of the kind of co-operation between universities and business that later produced Silicon Valley in the US and the cluster of technical companies around Cambridge University that has been dubbed Silicon Fen.

Lyons Corner Houses were in those days as much a feature of British life as Tescos or Boots are today. They provided good affordable food and to keep prices down the company had been a pioneer in what was then called scientific management.

Lyons early on spotted the possibilities of computing and partly financed Maurice Wilkes's Edsac computer at Cambridge, in return for help in building a computer to help run its business. The circuitry on Leo 1 was almost identical to that on Edsac.

Mike Hally recalls in his book Electronic Brains (Granta, £15.99, ISBN 1-86207-663-4) how the first program in 1951 valued all the goods produced at Lyons bakeries. It was a relatively simply task that some thought to trivial to computerise. But Caminer felt the team need experience doing live work on time.

It was the first ever business application. Soon Leo was doing everything "from clock-in to payroll"; Caminer's team had virtually invented business computing from scratch.

So how was that the UK got in first? Wilkes generously acknowledged in a 2003 interview with me how much he owed to a free exchange of knowledge with US pioneers, and that American projects took longer because their aim from was to produce general-purpose models that could be sold on the open market.

Edsac was built specifically for use by researchers at Cambridge, not as a commercial project, and so it was easier to cut corners. Leo was produced initially for specific purposes by one company, though later models were sold to other companies.

Lyons was so well known as a caterer and tea merchant that it had a hard time being taken seriously as a computer company, even though it spun its computer operations off as Leo Computers in 1959.

But it would anyway have had a hard time fighting off the clout and marketing expertise of IBM, which had actually come late to computing. After a series of mergers Leo Computers eventually became part of ICL.

Hally says Caminer was bitter about government short-sightedness, particularly in not granting a contract to calculate the effects of tax changes. Caminer told him: "We had minimal government support. They simply didn't realise that business computing would become vastly more important in volume than scientific computing. If they could find some scientific computer with time to spare to do the tax tables, then they went there if they were saving a few bob. It was very sad."

Posted by Clive Akass on July 1, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

View imageWho says Friday the 13th is unlucky? Visitors to Shuttle's European website can tempt fate and enter a competition to win a special edition Shuttle PC. Clebrating the launch of the fifth instalment of Atari's 'Alone in the Dark' game, the PC - based on a XPC Barebone SG31G5 chassis - comes with a copy of the game. The competition ends on 7th July 2008.

Posted by Kelvyn Taylor on June 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)