Intel Commits to Socketed CPU

Intel released a statement that it will continue to produce and support socketed LGA CPUs for the foreseeable future.

This comes after AMD's release of a similar statement that they will continue support socketed CPUs and rumors that the BGA platform would be socket-less.

For more information and the full statement, please visit MaximumPC's site.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/intel_says_company_committed_sockets2012

AMD vs Intel - CPU Sockets

AMD has released a statement saying that they will continue to support the DIY and enthusiast desktop market with socketed CPUs through 2014.

"AMD has a long history of supporting the DIY and enthusiast desktop market with socketed CPUs and APUs that are compatible with a wide range of motherboard products from our partners. That will continue through 2013 and 2014 with the 'Kaveri' APU and FX CPU lines," Gary Silcott, Corporate Communications of AMD Client Products, told Kirsch in an email. "We have no plans at this time to move to BGA only packaging and look forward to continuing to support this critical segment of the market." - MaximumPC.com

This was released amid rumors that Intel is looking toward socket-less CPUs for their future generation processors.  This would basically mean the motherboard would have the CPU physically soldered from the factory, which would make future upgrades or replacements, at the very least, extremely difficult.

A Little Bit About Me

I figured I could post something to get back in the swing of things and to let anyone who reads this know a little bit about me and my experience with things I am blogging about.

I will not claim to be an expert in anything, but I have been working with computers and Information Technology for a while now.

I began tinkering with computers as a teen and took programming classes in Pascal and Visual Basic during my junior and senior years. 

Photo Courtesy of: CampusExplorer.com

 

From high school, I went on to South Hills School of Business & Technology and earned an Associate's Degree in Computer Information Systems, following their networking tract.  While I had my own laptop during this time, I still built myself a home desktop computer while I was enrolled at the school.

Photo Courtesy of: Tv.Comxa.com



My first job working with technology was working in the Call Center and then Internet Support group for AccuWeather, Inc.  The focus was mostly on troubleshooting issues with the company's free and subscription based websites, as well as the ForecastFox FireFox add-on and other Desktop Weather products.

  P

hoto Courtesy of: WHEC.com

 

From AccuWeather, I moved to Penn State University, specifically Telecommunications & Network Services in Information Technology Services.  I was in the Network Operations Center for a little over two years, where I fielded calls from the Penn State University main and branch campuses for troubleshooting of data, voice, and video systems.  Through this position, I gained a lot of knowledge with troubleshooting and configuring Cisco, HP, and 3Com switches, using network monitoring tools and Cisco VoIP phones.

From the NOC, I moved to another group within TNS, called Network Planning & Integration, where I currently still hold a position.  My duties in this position consist of speaking with customers after they contact NP&I regarding a service that TNS offers and determining the best equipment and configurations for them to achieve the result they are looking for.  TNS generally offers LAN services on Cisco, HP, and Brocade (Foundry) equipment on a variety of switch port configurations and SFP types.  To further assist organizations with keeping costs down and to look toward the convergence of all network connected services, TNS has recently begun offering VLAN setup as part of their service catalog.

Another item that I am involved with at TNS is fulfilling requests for IPv4 and IPv6 address space.  A service offering that I am so involved with that I became part of a team that is evaluating a new system for tracking and assigning the university IP space.  I may be able to post more information about this once a purchase has been made.  At this time, I am bound by a non-disclosure agreement.

 

Photo Courtesy of: CheckPoint.com

I have recently embarked on becoming more knowledgeable about are CheckPoint Firewalls, which are used throughout Penn State University and recently attended a course taught by Barry Stiefel, who is the person that started the CheckPoint User's Group (http://www.cpug.org).

Also, I am looking into learning C/C++ Programming, which through the university I have access to a free e-learning course on. From here, I may explore other programming languages, such as, Perl, Python, or C#.

So, in a nutshell, at 30 years old, I have spent nearly half my life tinkering with and learning about computers and look to continue to do so throughout my life.  I would like to put together a gaming-class desktop computer for home use, but for now, I will stick to my company provided Dell E6400 (up for renewal next spring) and our Dell Inspiron 1750 at home.  I may put up a parts list of the components that I would like to include in a build.

CyberPowerPC

While putting together different scenarios for a potential gaming rig, either with all new stuff or a rebuild of my old Gateway PC, I came across several "pre-built" systems by CyberPowerPC.

They all seemed reasonably priced, but I started out under the "I want to build it" mentality.

After finally visiting the CyberPowerPC Website I am starting to second guess that...

They are offering you numerous choice on almost every component that would go into the computer, including (but not limited to) case, motherboard, CPU & cooler, RAM, GPU (up to 3 in one system), SSD and/or HDD, PSU, ODD, sound card, monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc..

Then you also have a choice of software including the choice between Windows 7 or Windows 8 and warranty.

I priced out a system that was very similar to what I thought would be the cost of the parts to do my complete system build (not rebuilding old computer) and thought, hey it's about the same price.  Then it dawned on me that my price was sans ODD, OS, keyboard and mouse (though I have the keyboard and mouse covered).

If you are looking for a gaming rig or even just to put together a nicely powerful system for general use, check them out.  I will note that I have absolutely no ties to them at all and have no advertisements that I gain from for them.

Intel 20nm SSD Drives Available

The 240GB Intel 335 series Solid State Drives are now available through NewEgg.

The drives are said to be the first to use the 20nm NAND flash memory process and features a 6 Gbps SATA interface and Sandforce SF-2281 controller.

Photo from NewEgg.com

My Thoughts on Windows 8...so far

I have been toying around with the Windows 8 Release Preview (32-bit) for a little bit, during slow times at work, on an older PC that I have.

The PC has an Intel Pentium D 2.8Ghz CPU with 2GB of RAM.  I have it setup as a dual-boot between Windows 8 and Vista that came on it.  I have installed Classic Shell on it, to get the Start Menu back and to minimize the use of the metro interface, which I am not a fan of at all.

Performance-wise, the computer runs quite smoothly with Windows 8 (especially compared to Vista) and Adobe Flash Player only seems to have crippling effects on the CPU for the first bit of a YouTube video.

Here is the video that I tested with on 720p setting:

Skorch82 - Borderlands Co-Op w/ ShadowZack: Part 41 (Walkthrough / Playthrough)

The video started at 100% CPU usage (using simple CPU Utliization Gadget) and stablized at 50 - 60% throughout the remainder of the video, which is better than it does on some Windows Vista and Windows 7 videos, where the CPU usage varies and creeps back to 100% causing severe lag.  Once the video finished and the system went back to a mostly idle state, the processor was only running at 3%.

I was able to successfully install Google Chrome, Super Anti-Spyware, Microsoft Office Pro 2010 and Visio 2010 with no issues.

I was also able to connect to the PC from a Windows 7 machine using TeamViewer.

Before setting up Classic Shell to get the traditional Windows Start Menu back, I was not fond of Windows 8, but now see it as a usable Operating System to compare to Windows Vista/7.  Without Classic Shell, I saw it as more of an OS for a mobile or touch screen device.

I will continue messing around with things on the Release Preview for as long as Microsoft will allow it and will update this blog with anything I find that is great, annoying, or helpful.

Windows 8 Launch Party

On October 24, 2012 at 11:15AM EDT MicroSoft will have a webcast event for the launch of Windows 8.

Follwing the Launch Party will be a webcast for the Microsoft Surface beginning at 1:30PM EDT.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/presskits/windows/

New AMD Processor

The AMD FX-8150 (Bulldozer) 3.6Ghz and AMD FX-8350 4Ghz (Vishera) were put up against the Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4Ghz.

While the new Vishera based processor performed well in benchmark testing, it simply fell short to the Core i5 in nearly all categories.  In the categories that it actually outperformed the Intel, there was only very little variation.

For more information on the benchmarking tests and the systems used, please visit Maximum PC magazine:
Maximum PC Vishera Review

Windows 7 and Windows 8 Preview Dual-Boot

For those of you that want to test out Windows 8 with the Release Preview, but don't have a spare PC just laying around and don't want to wipe out your Windows 7 installation, check out this guide from CNet on dual-booting the two Operating Systems.

C-Net Dual Boot Windows 7 and Windows 8 Release Preview

New Tech Blog

I have decided to start a technology blog.  My hopes for it are to feature new technologies that I hear or see information from various sources and eventually review new products.  I will also attempt to feature some tips and tricks that I have learned throughout my time as a IT guy.

I will accept any input regarding this readers would like to see on the blog and will do what I can to implement the suggestions.

That is all for now, I hope to have something up with some meat to it soon.

Thanks for reading!