Intel moving forward with incredibly fast 45nm chips, what will AMD do to counter?

It seems that Intel isn't going to be losing it's crown as fastest CPU manufacturer any time soon. They are testing new 45nm chips that will increase the processing speed of their processors from 8-10GB/s up to an incredible 128GB/s and that's just at 2.2Ghz clock speed. It is speculated that if they can manager to increase the clock speed to those of the Q97xx series that they would be able to accomplish an incredible 200GB/s if not more.

In comparison, AMD's quad core, Opteron processor can manage about 8GB/s. Assuming that AMD is not going to utilize Intel's new methods of production, it is unlikely that we will see AMD processors as being any serious competition to Intel in the near future. AMD does have plans for new processors to be released in 2009, the "Bulldozer" processor, however, they are still working on completing the "Shanghai" processor to be released later this year and there is still very little detail about that processor and as such, even less information available about the "Bulldozer" processor. However, the one thing we do know about "Bulldozer" is that it wil be a total redesign of the AMD processor. "Shanghai", to be released later this year, will be the last of the Athlon 64 based chips AMD is going to produce before "Bulldozer's release.

Changes on the blog

If anyone at this point is following this blog, you will notice some changes I just made. I have changed the theme a little bit (still playing with that, so you might still see it continue to change). I also changed the title and description. This is in an effort to try to re-direct the focus of this blog. I am going to start focusing on two subjects that are very near and dear to me: Bicycles and Computers. For the Bikes, I'll mainly be covering my commutes and stuff that is in cycling news (or maybe not) and with computers, I'll be covering "hacker" conventions that I attend regularly and I will be throwing up some interesting computer news on occasionn too.

New hours, New commute, New Apartment

Alright, well thanks to the guys at ecomodder.com giving me the extra boost of motivation I have needed I have begun riding my bike again...a lot. I do the daily 10 mile round trip commute to work 5 days a week which so far has knocked a total of 280 miles off my car per month so far. I have also started riding pretty much everywhere else too. I rode to my parents house the other day, about 11 miles away, but had to have them drive me home with the bike on the rack because we ate dinner too late and riding 11 miles in the dark didn't sound like much of a plan.

I've also picked up more hours at work, and CONSISTENT work at that! I'm now pulling almost 30 hours a week, so I can actually afford stuff, WOOHOO!!! The only thing that kinda sucks now though is that I have to wake up at 6:30AM to have time to eat and get out the door and to work on the bike (commute takes about 30 minutes) and then still have enough time to clean up a little before I sit down at my desk for the day. The commute home is great though, I get off at 2PM and that means there is NO TRAFFIC so it's a really relaxing commute, all be it uphill.

In upcoming news, I'm preparing to move at the end of next month. I am moving in with one of my fellow con goer buddies that I met at Carolinacon earlier this year and she's really great, we get along like we've known each other for years. The other plus to moving there is that the place is literally across the street and down a block from the apartment, so I won't even need my bike anymore to get there. So, I've begun packing for that all while making plans for going to H.O.P.E next month too. Looking forward to that as well, I'll be posting here while I'm there (assuming I can find some secure wifi while I'm there, unlikely) and putting up some pictures as well on my flickr page, so be looking for that.

Myrtle Beach

So, just got back from Statesboro, visiting my friends from high school. That was fun times and now I'm in Myrtle Beach South Carolina with my family for the week. The weather up here is absolutely gorgeous. I'm outside in the courtyard of the place I'm staying at and it's got to be maybe 70 degrees out right now and just a little breezy, mmmm love it.

Off to the BEACH!

Trying to Keep My Sanity

The last few days have been absolutely nuts. This week is finals week and I've been trying my best to keep from having a complete panic attack over this stuff. I had my Music Appreciation final last week so thankfully I don't have to worry about that anymore, however, this week isn't any more fun. I had my Government final on Tuesday which hopefully went well, I didn't study too much for it because, by looking at previous tests I have been doing pretty well on all tests with very little studying if any at all so I did a little extra preparation this time and just took the test and got it over with. Today is a little worse, though thankfully not too much more then Tuesday. I had a final paper due this morning which I got done, but then was promptly informed I was missing several other assignments that unless I did them, I would be failing the class. So thankfully my teacher was generous enough to give me until Friday to finish some of the major ones that would kill my grade if not finished. Then tonight I have my Grammar final, which, aside from sentence diagramming, I should be pretty good for. Hopefully I can at least pass it so I can keep my GPA up, it was one of those mistake classes where it seemed like a good idea and then inevitably, right after the withdrawal date, the teacher starts the difficult stuff so until then I thought I would do pretty well in that class, after then, not so much. So I have to take that tonight and then I'm officially FINISHED. The only things left to do after that would be to finish some of these missed assignments if I don't finish them before the end of today (which I'm trying to do) and then I just have to start my application process for GSU for the fall.

Bored on the Week Before Finals

So, it's the week before my finals start, that means it's crunch time, WOOHOO...not. So far this week, I have managed to skip most of my classes in favor of sleeping and studying basically 24/7. This week they were thankfully just doing review for finals in most of the classes so I just go to the few that I think I need help with and otherwise I just try to keep my mental sanity in tact, which often proves more difficult then it sounds.

Also, in news this week, I have switched my laptop to Kubuntu 8.04 instead of Ubuntu 8.04 just to try something new. So far so good, it has some quirks I'm not a fan of, but nothing I can't live with for now. Hopefully I'll find fixes for what I don't like in the near future.

Jan 2nd and a happy new year to everyone!

Well happy new year everyone. Today is Jan 2, 2008...wow, it still feels weird saying 2008 I guess I'm going to have to just get used to it though. Do you ever get that feeling when the new year starts? You just can't let go of using 2007 (or just can't remember to use 2008) when you write things? I know I do, it's actually kind of annoying on things like school papers and such. I often times will catch myself still saying or using the previous year often times well into June or July, but I really try to remember what year it is, it's just usually a slip of the mind when putting the date on a last minute paper or something. Anywho, so my girlfriend of many years now got me some wonderful things for my birthday. Among them were two video games for my Nintendo DS: "BrainAge 2" and "My Word Coach" (I guess she thinks it will help me in my classes this semester or something). But I have to say, I'm very impressed with these games, especially BrainAge 2. This game is not like traditional games when you think of things like Halo or Counter Strike, heck, it's even different then the other teaching game I got before it "Big Brain Academy". The game isn't really oriented in a "beat this as quick as you can to brag about it" kind of game. I really feel this is a teaching tool. The instruction encourages you to take your time and to only do each lesson 1 or 2 times per day as to make sure your not just cramming it in you're head, but rather that you are actually learning. I have played it now for about 45 minutes a day since my birthday and I have to say, I think it really is helping me think more. My "Brain Age" is certainly improving (I went from having a brain of a tired old 56 year old man to a 45 year old man in just 3 days) and I feel like I can do things off the top of my head a little faster (or maybe I just 'think' that I can) but whatever it is, I like it. I will continue this post later since I'm at work, I probably shouldn't post up too much at a time so I can still get some work done while I'm here.