According to Digitimes and Tom’s Hardware the new x48 Northbridge motherboards will be released next week. This means only 1 thing… the new 45nm quad core processors (CPUs) will be released as well!!!!
What does this all mean? x48? 45nm quad core?
The CPU is the main workhorse of the computer. This is where all your information is going through before you can visualize anything on the monitor. You reading this right now? The data is going through the CPU. It is what makes all the calculations at the microsecond or sometimes even nanosecond level. So fast, you can’t even count because it has already finished thousands of calculations.
So how does the 45nm chips come into the equation?
45nm is the actual wafer size of the CPU or the physical dimensions of the integrated circuits imprinted into the chip. But what makes 45nm so special? Compared to the current 65nm chips, the smaller the dimensions, the more information you can fit into the exact same physical dimension. So comparing the Conroe (a dual-core 65nm processor) vs. the Wolfdale (a dual-core 45nm processor), the number of transistors are 209 million to 410 million respectively. Nearly double the transistors in the 45nm than in the 65nm processor. Not only are there more transistors, but the cache has increased 50% from 4MB to 6MB.
Cache?
A cache is a small amount of memory built into the processor to enable faster memory exchanges. The more cache, the more room a processor has to work with at the fastest speed possible since it is on the chip. The further away any existing memory is from the CPU, the longer it will take to compute due to resistance and distance. The information on the cache is very short lived and is constantly being exchanged.
The conclusion…
With a smaller profile (but same physical dimensions) and a larger cache, 45nm will be the way to go for the next 2 years. Especially with a larger cache, computing power will only increase. As for me, I will be getting the quad-core processor in the 45nm die.
I will follow up with the NorthBridge and RAM in the next post!
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