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Showing posts from November, 2010

CoreTemp: Monitor Your CPU Temperature and Load

I am a big fan of AMD CPUs. They are cheap and just as fast and reliable as Intel CPUs. But a few years ago, its cooling system was an issue. Intel based computers will not start if the CPU temperature is to high. But not for early AMD CPUs. It would continue to run regardless of the temperature. That is why in my early days as an IT professional, I managed to burn three CPUs. But these days this is not a problem anymore. You can set your BIOS to stop the computer when the central processing unit reaches a certain temperature threshold. Still, if you are curious about monitoring your CPU temperature and load, you can use CoreTemp . It works for both Intel and AMD based computers . This program can be useful in determining whether you need to improve your computer ventilation. Perhaps you might need more fans or more powerful fans to lower your CPU temperature.

Future of Computing: CPU + GPU

Personal computing continues to advance in an unprecedented ways. At first chip makers were trying to out do each other by making CPUs (central processing unit) faster. And then they decided that it would be more efficient to combine multiple CPUs in one chip. That is why we now have what we call multicore CPUs. What this latest chip is capable of doing is to split computer processing loads among its cores. But soon you won't be needing you graphics card either. Intel and AMD are working on a new breed of CPU that combines a graphics processor with the traditional multicore CPUs. At Intel they are using what they call the Sandy Bridge Architecture to achieve this combination. AMD's initiative on the other hand is called AMD Fusion. Back in 2006, Intel started exploring making their own graphics card. Which probably forced AMD to buy ATI, the graphics card company. One has to wonder what NVIDIA is thinking or doing right now. If in the future we will no longer need a