anyone knows why IBM chose Intel's x86 instead of its own powerPC CPU chip when initially introducing the PC?
455030
The powerPC didn't exist then.  IBM's chips at the time were designed for more powerful and expensive systems.  The PowerPC didn't actually come out until 1993 in alliance with Apple and Motorolla(AIM).  IBMs own Power chip, which the PowerPC shares a lot with didn't come out until 1990
366750
In the future, the battle between 64 bit vs 32 bit processors will inevitably yield the 64 bit processor as the victor, but this transition is going to take some time. \n\nFirst, I’ll talk about the pure mathematics and structure of the processors that are involved here. I’ll keep this part short and sweet.   \n\n\nA bit is short for “binary digit.” It is basically how a computer stores and makes references to data, memory, etc. A bit can have a value of 1 or 0, that’s it. So binary code is streams of 1’s and 0’s, such as this random sequence 100100100111. These bits are also how your processor does calculations. By using 32 bits your processor can represent numbers from 0 to 4,294,967,295 while a 64-bit machine can represent numbers from 0 to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615. Obviously this means your computer can do math with larger numbers, and be more efficient with smaller numbers. \n\nNow see, that description wasn’t too bad, but the question is how does this affect you, the average PC owner? The largest benefit will go to academic institutions and private companies, where large calculations are being performed, huge databases are being accessed, and complex problems are being solved. \n\nEveryone that doesn’t fall into that category will see some benefit of using 64 bit processors over 32 bit processors, but not much in today’s marketplace. The AMD Athlon 64-bit processor is completely backward compatible, meaning you can currently use it with 32-bit operating systems and software programs. You will see some benefits by using this setup, but because the programs weren’t written to take advantage of the extra power, they won’t use much of it. \n\nThe true benefits of this set up don’t come from the amount of bits, but by the improved structure of the 64 bit vs 32 bit processor's older structure. A 64-bit processor is made with more advanced silicon processes, have more transistors, and faster speeds. This is currently where the true benefit of switching to a 64-bit processor lays. \n\nAs for 64-bit operating systems and software, many are in the works, but nothing is in final version. Microsoft has released a beta version of Windows XP that takes advantage of the 64 bit technology, but there are still issues. The problem is when you run 32-bit software programs in the environment of a 64-bit operating system. Many programs won’t work properly, such as Adobe Acrobat and Windows Media Player, for example. Another issue is RAM. You really need about 4 GB of RAM to take full advantage of the capabilities offered by a 64-bit processor, while most PC owners have less than 1 GB under their computer’s hood. \n\nSo, the question now is should you buy a 64 bit processor now, or wait? \n\nDisadvantages: \n\nYou’re currently not able to take full advantage of the technology because the software vendors haven’t made the switch from 32-bit to 64-bit processors.\n\n\nMost AMD Athlon 64 bit processors are expensive, with prices sure to go down in the future. \n\nAdvantages: \n\nBetter performance out of a 32-bit operating system.\n\n\nProbably the last processor you’ll have to buy for many years to come.
57637
I would tend to think that the hardware is more advanced than the software.  Hardware, of course, was around first with simple electrical circuits; however, over time, fabrication processes for CPUs has become more refined, allowing for more components per chip, smaller chip size and thickness, heat reduction, lower power consumption, etc.  Also, newer processors have several cores working in tandem on the same chip, which is the same as having multiple processors in one small package.\n\nAnother important note is that other pieces of hardware which run independently (and can be controlled by software drivers) are keyboards, scanners, monitors, network adapters, etc.\n\nSoftware, however, has been key in designing these new processors and other pieces of hardware, simulating them, designing board layout, etc.  One key point though, software cannot completely simulate an Input/Output device.  While there are design / emulation packages out there (even virtual PC software that allows one to simulate more advanced processors on lower end hardware), I have yet to see software completely replace the following *without* any hardware whatsoever: Keyboard, mouse, scanner, printer, monitor, CD/DVD drive, speakers, wireless data transfer, etc.\n\nI would have to say that hardware is more advanced.
195812
realalexpc's answer is absolutely right; but to answer your question: I don't think Intel makes ANY 64-bit processors.
303115
Well, they weren't making motherboards 40-60 years ago, but what you need to do is find out which processor they want (or you think they should have), then you'll know which socket you are dealing with.  However, I wouldn't recommend you try to build your own computer, if you didn't even realize that there are over 10 different sockets on the market right now.
1170098
The answer by gatwic100 was very well said!\n\nIBM was the first company to bring out the PC (1981) to compete with the strong Apple computer industry, but if you were really rich, you could purchase an IBM XT for $2500 then the ever so powerful 286 came out, which was over $3000.\n\nColumbia copied the IBM PC and produced the first "IBM PC Compatible" in 1982. Compaq Computer Corp. produced its first IBM PC compatible a few months later in 1982—the Compaq Portable.  Compaq became a very successful PC manufacturer.\n\nThe prices for these clones were almost half the price of the IBM computers.   And worked a lot better than the IBM PC.  You could upgrade them with about any kind of part, were IBM would only allow you to upgrade them with IBM parts because of their big blue plastic connecters.\n\nThat was the past and end of the huge giant.   Now they still exist, but slowly are trying to rebuild and stay in the market, by copying other companies from what I have read on the net.   \n\nSo we do owe IBM some thanks for making a nice machine for people to copy and make better, but the thanks has already been sent out.  Now they are trying too hard to beat out Microsoft, Dell, HP, which will never happen because these companies are better than ever.
1158423
This is like the old chestnut of Beta versus VHS. The fact is that IBM is the common standard not mac. Jules, Australia.
428470
The powerPC Chip was created in 1993 (WikiPedia say 1991, but IBM says '93 and since they produced the chip, I will take their word for it), well after the introduction of the x86 line of processors.\n\nIBM did in fact try to create a line of PC like devices based on the chip, known as the PReP (and later CHRP) platform, but like Micro Channel Architechture, it was flop, with people seeing IBM as trying to take control over the market again with proprietary architechture.\n\nEven Apple which used the chip in their Macintosh computers, did not follow the exact architechture layed out by IBM.\n\nWhile there were intention to ship powerPC chips that ran on Windows NT, AIX, OS/2,etc., only IBM Server running AIX was ever actually shipped based on the platform
1031426
Gateway makes processors? IBM has its own processor?\n\nAll processors most people are using are either made by AMD (if it is Athlon or Turion or Sempron) or Intel (if it is Pentium, Centrino, or Celeron). Anyways, if you do manage to take the little processor chip out, it will work on any other computer considering that the motherboard is new enough. \n\nAs for your monitor problem, if your processor is compatible with the motherboard, there is no reason why it should affect the monitor. In computers, dont worry about brands. For example, I can run a Sony Viao Pc with a Dell Monitor, a HP printer, a Toshiba Scanner, and Alienware speakers and everything will still work fine :)
450884
You're buying a loptop, so power use will be important to you. Batteries life is terrible with high power components, including the CPU. \n\n=======\npower\n\nAnd that's the first distinction. The Pentium M was designed for minimum power consumption in a Pentium compatible CPU. So your batteries will last longer. \n\nThe Duo Core CPUs are really two CPU cores in one chip. IF the operating system, and application design (which you can't affect) support them properly, such a CPU can be much faster than a single CPU, all other things being equal. But the Duo Core chips use more power, so your battery life will suffer, all other things being equal. This may be worth it, if you are doing computationally intensive stuff, and if your software / operating system can take advantage of the additional CPU. Otherwise, it will make little difference. \n\n========\ngraphics performance\n\nOne computationally intensive use that's common is gaming. it takes a good deal of effort to calculate color brightness and shading for each pixel in a scene, and there are lots of scenes. In fact, it takes so much computational power that vendors have largely given up on making the CPU 9or CPUs) do it all. Recent graphics schemes, the ones that make game images snap and sparkle, during play require a lot of work from some processing chip. The best of the graphics processor chips have more computational power than nearly all CPUs, and they require comparable electrical power (draining batteries still more quickly). It's this reason that accounts for laptops rarely having cutting age graphics performance or CPU speeds. In particular, the graphics hardware in most laptops has low power needs and is hardly up to recent graphics performance standards. \n\n==============\nCPU architecture differences\n\nAnother issue, which will matter only if your use of the laptop needs it, is differences between various Pentium editions. Intel has added more instructions, and used different internal architectures, as they have designed new CPUs. These include new instructions (the SSE, SSE2, etc groups) and the 64 bit EM64T additions to the basic 32-bit core, in emulation of AMD's Opteron and AthlonFX approaches. But for the moment, until your applications can use those extensions, and until your operating system is fully 64-bit compatible, your EM64T CPU will be running mostly in 32-bit mode. And recent Pentium 4 CPUs have included something called Hyperthreading which speeds up some kinds of programs substantially. And, of course, various Intel CPUs have included more or less fast cache on the CPU chip itself. If this is done sensibly, cache (and more cache) can have dramatic effects on many kinds of program execution speeds.\n\nDepending on detailed comparisons between the CPUs you're considering, some (or none) of these differences between CPUs might be significant to you. See Intel's spec sheets for the CPUs you're looking at for the differences. \n\n\n\nIn your case, since you aren't a gamer, the merely adequate graphics hardware in most laptops will probably be acceptable. Your mention of graphics programming might mean image manipulation, and either CPU should do in that case. Photoshop and similar programs don't have to handle graphic manipulations in real time, and so their demands are much less for satisfactory performance than video (or near video -- such as games) processing. \n\nWord processing simply doesn't have so high requirements. After all, any CPU sits doing nothing for eternities between key presses, even for fast typists. There's lots of available cycles from most any CPU in most any word processing operation. \n\nSo, for you, which would be better? mostly, it depends on the work you'll be doing and the applications with which you'll be doing it. If they can take advantage of the processor features in one or another CPU (not something you can easily find out, probably even from the software de
733421
A dual-core CPU combines two independent processors and their respective caches and cache controllers onto a single silicon chip, or integrated circuit. IBM's POWER4 was the first microprocessor to incorporate 2-cores on a single die. Various dual-core CPUs are being developed by companies such as Motorola, Intel and AMD, and are scheduled to appear in consumer products in 2005. \n\n\nIt's like having two processors, so you can do more cpu-intensive work at the same time, such as playing a video game while encoding a video, where before it would just really not work at all because one would be taking all of the cpu power, usually the video encoding, leaving your video game choppy.
1053964
Mac commercials make you think that PC's are bulky, repetitive, and way behind. What's ironic is that Apple recently ditched IBM -- the decade-long manufacturer of their CPU technology. They switched to Intel and the "x86" platform. So much for being unique and innovative. The move admitted that they are chasing the PC.\n\nThe truth is that there is nothing a Mac can do that a PC can't.\n\nThough Macs are generally better out of the box and easier to use, by no means are they more powerful. How can they be now, especially if at the very core you have a PC component (the x86 CPU)? Plus, if a Mac breaks down, good luck repairing it yourself. Most of what makes up a Mac is proprietary. With a PC, it's the complete opposite. That's the other side of the story you don't hear a lot about. It gets expensive buying parts straight from Apple.\n\nEspecially now that Macs have changed their platform to become more like a PC, what reason is there anymore to have this debate? The only thing left to discuss is the Mac OS vs. Windows. Since the hardware is nearly identical, why pay for a system that goes out of its way to restrict you from modifying it? The PC is the way to go if you want the power to customize. There are more upgrade options at a lower cost.\n\nNothing against Mac's overall - I just think they're a pretty package with hidden maintenance costs.\n\n\nOnce you move past comparing the hardware, Macs do seem to have a bright future. Although I would still go with a PC at this point, Apple has a lot of multimedia editing applications that are already fine-tuned for systems with multiple processors. When all the bugs are finally hammered out so that everything runs smoothly in the x86 architecture, getting a Mac with dual-CPU's would be a great option for the audio/video enthusiast.
951386
The x2 means that there are actually 2 processors so that applications that have multicore support can run faster on the x2 machine even that on a 1.6+1.6 single core. Unfortunately not many programs currently support this but it is sure to change soon especially with both Intel and AMD pushing multicore systems. In conclusion for the moment no. If you want to use just one application that is not optimized for multiple cores it will only work up to 1.6 but if you run multiple applications or aplications designed to take advantage of hte technology it will work even faster. :D Hope this helped
370198
is that a complete question?\n\nwhich proc?  intel, amd, power pc?\n\nthe x86s each have power management for clocks (Intel SpeedStep, for example)...\n\ncare to expand the question?
1144341
I've been doing that since the IBM PC was introduced in 1981.  I kept upgrading the same computer a little at a time, and it went through a number of cycles where all of the parts had been replaced, so it was a whole new computer each cycle, but each cycle was a number of years.\n\nBut I've gradually come to the conclusion that's a mistake.  The parts keep evolving.  Subtle differences from one year to another cause subtle compatibility problems.  As just one of hundreds of examples of this problem, I added an ATI video card a number of years after I upgraded to a new motherboard, and it stopped working about once per month on average.  It just froze/crashed the whole computer, such that it needed a power-on clear.  It turned out the motherboard had a subtle glitch at the speed of that video card, and I had to reduce the AGP speed.  That solved it, but that kind of problem takes months or years to diagnose, because the symptoms only happen at random.  If the motherboard and video had been from the same year as each other, they would have been far more likely to be compatible with each other.  Glitches such as that one don't get much testing in their early years before the right combination of products is available to make them happen.  And by the time those products are available, the earlier products are being phased out, so the glitch doesn't get much testing then either.\n\nTherefore, instead of gradually evolving a computer, I recommend that you save your money till you can afford to start from scratch, and build a whole new computer then.
138011
You know this topic is too extensive to cover here. \n\nThere is some good reference material covering both types of processors here: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/r_harvey/doc_cpu.htm \n\nIn Pentium class processors, there also model-specific registers  http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/r_harvey/doc_cpu.htm
685518
The 5mhz Intel 8086 came out in 1978.  This was developed from the 8080 processor which followed the 4004 and the 8008.  so it seems like the 4004 might have been the first.