Some of the research under distributed computing now uses GPU’s for faster processing, and it helps if you have a desktop when running them. Laptops are already overheating with regular graphics boards and 3 ghz CPU’s; you don’t need to turn them into portable stoves whilst researching DNA.
Well have to wait and see – but I think Fermi is a bit too close to larabee. Thats not a bad thing in terms of raw compute – both chips really are impressive BUT it doesn’t mean they will be great at graphics.
Will have to wait and see what performance numbers at graphics they will give. I also think it likely the Fermi chip will be later than they say.
An big issue with these architectures is they will need special programming to take advantage of them for anything non graphics. May be a while before that really happens – perhaps Physx will really deliver now.
Without having more info – I think Ati may have taken the right strategy for this round at least.
Win 7 actually looks like it can run on some very modest hardware without issues other than maybe turning off the fancy wall paper. Big deal.
Hack the phone companies’ billing software. Ha. You can bet that the bloody sucking Telco got that system locked down tight. They can account for every penny they’re screwing you out of.
I don’t know what Win7 will do. But someday, I’d like to see the desktop be capable of handing an MPG or Mov file (WMV?) as active wallpaper. A small animated GIF file, is the closest thing to that right now. But those aren’t easy to make without pricey software. And running even a brief movie loop, as backdrop, is probably a significant resource hog. But someday PCs will have tons of that to spare. And we needn’t worry that we’re slowing it down for fun.
BTW, whatever happened to the idea of animated desktop icons? Microsoft never went with that. They had that dumb “Clippy” the paperclip, and the animated dog in the search box. And there are animated emoticons displayed by most browsers. So it can be done. But either I’ve got icon animation turned off in Windows. Or it just never happened. But I remember seeing a friend’s PC (years ago) having them in his “Mahjong” game. Maybe it was animated tile pieces. Yeah, that’s what it was. Neat idea.
Ballmer should take a pay cut. Why be different from the rest of us? At least he still has a job! Why, is the bigger question? According to Forbes mag, all the billionaires lost a bit of their income. And the only one who gained was some guy who cashed out of Bernie Madoff’s investment scam, the day before it went bust. Highly suspicious timing, there.
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