AMD Bulldozer versus Intel Sandy Bridge versus NVIDIA CUDA

AMD Bulldozer versus Intel Sandy Bridge versus NVIDIA CUDA
By William Jiang, MLS

The new battleground for microprocessors is now the realm of graphics, and there are three major combatants: AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel. Intel produced the Sandy Bridge series of processors which integrate the Computer Processing Unit (CPU) and Graphical Processing Units (GPUs). This integration of CPU and GPU seems to be a trend for the future. AMD’s flavor of this hybrid CPU and GPU is called an APU or Accelerated Processing Unit. AMD’s new processor architecture named Bulldozer has come out with their first chip aimed at the mobile segment: Llano.

The “system on a chip” was not always in existence. Since the Intel 8066 chip came out in 1978 video cards handled video, and the CPU was divided into the CU (Control Unit) and ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit) and never did the two meet. NVIDIA emerged as the video card power more than a decade ago, and relatively recently NVIDIA started the CUDA technologies which gamers and people involved in multimedia use for drastic improvements in performance. As of yet, a strong CPU with a strong NVIDIA video card combination’s performance can not be touched by an integrated CPU/GPU as of yet, so NVIDIA has some breathing room. However, as the CPU/GPU integration becomes tighter, NVIDIA may need to find a strategic partner in AMD or Intel.

AMD hexacore vs Intel core i7 for Libraries By William Jiang, MLS

AMD released their desktop six-core 64 bit Thuban chip in April 2010 on the 45nm process (the smaller the nanometers, nm, the better because it uses less electricity), and beat Intel to the punch of releasing the CPU processor with the most cores. The chip was able to be overclocked quite easily, and to be competitive it was released at a price point that was well below the Intel I7 32nm process CPUs. The majority of the Intel Core i7 chips have four cores and they are still more expensive than the AMD hexacore CPU, in this case if you need raw processing power and price is not an issue the Intel chip is the way to go because it is more powerful than the AMD hexacore chip.

Let us look at pricewatch.com to see how the various processors are priced.
Let’s face it, all you need is a Celeron to browse online catalogs. Libraries only need to run an internet browser. What is needed to run a library browser? Almost anything. So, just get the cheapest thing possible. According to pricewatch.com (12/26/10), the AMD Phenom II X6 1090t is $227.36, and the most inexpensive Intel Core i7-860 is $260.38. Ok, fine, so you want some speed so that you play World of Warcraft when the patrons aren’t around. Will I notice any difference between the 1090t and the i7-860 when playing games? According to cpubenchmark.net, the i7-860 at 2.8 GHz has a Passmark CPU mark of 5555, and the 1090t has a score of 6061. I don’t know what these scores mean, but an 8% difference seems like nothing, so I doubt that you’ll notice any difference while playing Warcraft.
As I said before, most library applications only need a weak computer because it doesn’t take a lot of RAM or processor speed to run a web browser, which is pretty much all one has to do when using a old-fashioned or database application. However, if you want to delve into the realm of multimedia or gaming, then you would have to go for a more powerful processor which would in theory be linked to a more powerful and pricey system overall.

If the goal of your library is to save money, and in this economy many libraries need to do this, It behooves a librarian to think of saving money on the operating systems by downloading a popular Linux distribution such as Ubuntu. It would take some learning to set up a network of Linux computers but the cost savings could be significant, especially if you are working in a cash-strapped environment. The plus side to a Linux box is that you would save on the operating system, there are many fewer viruses that could mess up your system, and Linux is quite stable. you can learn more about open source software at e-LIS which is detailed in another article on this blog, El Otro Blog Del Bibliotecario. also, it should be noted that many companies when they upgrade their computers are amenable to donating their old computers to libraries or other learning institutions. There is really no reason to buy a new computer if an old computer can serve just as well. Throw Ubuntu on it, and you have one more happy patron.