COMMENTARY--Technology developments are being foisted on us at every turn, but what do we really get out of them?
We are still busily exploring the new D875PBZ motherboard with 3GHz CPU and 800MHz FSB and, while it is undeniably fast, the most significant item to discuss is the Hyper Threading (HT). Yes, we've mentioned this before, but you will recall that during our previous series of tests with the very first HT processor we received we did not get anywhere near Intel's performance claims, and many others were finding negligible performance improvements in their benchmarks as well.
We still did not get much of a performance boost with our benchmarks--unless we got sneaky and, as I will explain, an awful lot of users will not see a great deal in their day-to-day use as well.
So did Intel fib about HT's performance benefits?
Well, not really, but you could say it was presented in the best possible light.
In a nutshell we found if you are a strictly one task at a time person--you start a task on the PC, finish it, then start another--then HT is not going to set your world on fire. With current business software you will see a few percent performance increase, but it is probably not perceivable without a stopwatch.
Admittedly, as HT-enabled software infiltrates the business arena the performance advantage will undoubtedly increase. But then again, many of us are probably office suite users most of the time and even then are probably a version or two behind the current suite.
There are some instances when you'll notice a difference. When you switch on your PC does it immediately launch into a virus check of your hard drives? If so, you have probably noticed the extended wait when trying to launch other apps while the virus check is doing its unfortunately critical business. With a HT processor on your XP box (oops, forgot to mention: you need XP as only it can recognise and utilise an HT processor) you will find the whole operation is smooth--the apps load quickly even with the checker running.
It would be fair to say that almost any application written for a multiprocessor platform will show a marked performance improvement as well. But the real winners are the power users. No matter how fast your single CPU system is clocked, try ripping a couple of your CDs to MP3 (for archival purposes, of course). If you attempt other tasks while this is going on, they will run in a "jerky" manner. But with an HT system you can rip CDs in the background and even watch a DVD on the same PC without frame dropouts.
On another subject, I'd like to share something I came across in the latest issue of Popular Science. If you regularly read this column you may recall quite a while ago I was excited about a clever implementation of the technology that makes inkjet printers work. It was a "rapid prototyping" device that was simply an inkjet printer that squirted droplets of polymer onto a surface and then built up layer upon layer until the 3D model was finished.
A group of lateral thinking scientists impressed with rapid prototyping thought "Hey, why can't we apply this technology to solutions of living cells instead of inks and polymers?" And, voila! the Desktop Tissue Printer was born. The device is made from scrounged HP and Canon inkjet printers with a solution of cells and biodegradable gel replacing the ink in the cleaned-out cartridges. The printer fires the droplets onto a similar biodegradable surface and the cells are then given time to fuse. Then the gel, which was holding them in place, is melted away.
Currently, simple cell cultures are grown in petri dishes but growing anything more complex is currently impossible as the blood vessels to feed the structure are difficult and slow to make.
Though, we're not yet building spare body parts like in the movie The Fifth Element, the next challenge for the printer is cartilage, which has very few blood vessels. With successful cartilage printing under its belt the printer should be able to build new ears and noses, for example.
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