Intel and AMD Duke it Out Over Dual Core Processors

Processors have been getting steadily faster. My first computer, which I had when I was in elementary school, had a processor whose speed was measured in kilohertz. I thought it was pretty cool when I saw a laptop whose processor was 50 MHz. But, of course, technology progressed, and processors got faster. Around the turn of the millennium, the processor manufacturers hit the 1 GHz benchmark, then two a year later, three a year after that, and then, eventually, four. Although the only theoretical limits in processor speed are the size of the atom and the speed of light, processor manufacturers ran into trouble. The high speed processors came to require too much power and generate too much heat.

All this created logistical problems. Laptops could not handle these highly demanding chips, and their performance slowed down. In order to move forward, chip makers had to look for a new direction. The answer, it turned out, was multiple core processors. Rather than making one fast processor, they reasoned, why not make a one chip with multiple processors? That way, in addition to doubling computing power while avoiding logistical hurdles, processors could also become better at handling multiple processes at once. Two 1.5 GHz chips processors proved to be better than one 3 GHz chip.

Intel and AMD entered the dual core battle simultaneously in spring of 2005. Intel released the Pentium D 800, while AMD released the killer Athlon 64 X2. Even when Intel released its improvement over the 800, the Pentium D 900, it came nowhere close to catching up. Intel quickly leveled the board, though, creating the Core Duo, a mobile chip, designed with laptops in mind. That summer, Intel launched two more chips, the Conroe and the Merom, designed for laptops and desktops respectively, the two of which constituted one of the most successful chip launches ever.

The new dual core processor technology has done great things for the computing power of laptops, especially. Overheating processors, a problem that used to plague laptops, are now a thing of the past. Some laptops used to overheat to the point at which they simply wouldn't work on hot, humid summer days. Computers would shut themselves down to prevent processor damage. Dual core processors have changed all that, allowing people to use laptops all times of year, without feeling them get painfully hot as they sit on your lap.

We'll see what comes next. As technology improves, and processors get smaller, it will be possible to fit more processors onto a chip. Soon, we will likely see quad core processors, and greatly improved computing power.

As a side note, I should point out that dual core processing technology is one of the most promising developments in the technology of artificial intelligence. Scientists have figured that the human mind, rather than functioning like one giant processor is more like a network of hundreds of thousands of separate but interconnected processing centers. Artificial intelligence is another science whose progress will likely move forward as multi-core processors improve.