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At the end of the year, it has become somewhat of a tradition to look back on the year's events and remember the most significant and/or disappointing. Well, in the computer hardware world, 2006 was not unlike any other year and had its share of exciting releases and over rated products. With 2007 just around the corner, it is time for HardwareLogic to take a moment and reflect on the good, the bad, and the ugly computer related technologies of 2006!
To start things off on a good note, we would like to first introduce the computer hardware we liked best over the course of 2006. As most of you know, there are really only two major players in the desktop CPU arena: AMD and Intel. AMD has finally broken the DDR mold and released their socket AM2 chips complete with a new DDR2 memory controller. This is the first time in history that AMD has ever had a platform based around DDR2 memory. In addition to the first ever DDR2 product lineup from AMD, they also managed to squeak in their first ever 65nm manufacturing process announcement in December. With new DDR2 capabilities and a 65nm manufacturing process, AMD's latest socket AM2 developments are worth an honorable mention.
But since Intel has been rolling out chipsets and processors designed for DDR2 memory for quite some time now and several processor families manufactured with 65nm processes, they have had more chances to get a step ahead of the K8 competition. With their Prescott core and Net-Burst architecture stretched to the performance, heat, and power max, Intel was well over due for a change. Luckily this processor architecture evolution came sooner than later and saved us from a gloomy future with Intel's Pentium 4 and Pentium-D. Building on the success of the new Pentium-M mobile processor technology, the Core 2 architecture was born.
Whether it be on the desktop, behind the server, or in the laptop, there is little that can be said to tarnish the pure performance of the new Core architecture. That said, it is pretty easy to say that the best processor technology of 2006 has to be the Core 2 Duo line. Not only did Intel take back the CPU performance crown, they were also the first to introduce the desktop quad-core processor with the Core 2 Quadro line.
As for the other silicon war between nVidia and ATI, 2006 gave birth to a plethora of new performance, mainstream, and budget GPU solutions on both sides. nVidia's GeForce 7 series GPU's all got enhancements of some kind to make them bigger and better.
ATI also followed close behind every nVidia launch with new product lines, inlcuding the first 80nm GPU, the X1950 Pro. The X1950 Pro is a great new card with HDCP support and great power and heat characteristics for the performance it yields. Also unveiled with the X1950 Pro was the demise of the external dongle for CrossFire. Down with the dongle and in with the much more user friendly internal CrossFire bridge connector; thank you ATI!
Also worth mentioning here is the fact that ATI is no longer just good ol' ATI. In October, AMD completed its acqusition of ATI. This is easily one of the largest (and possibly the most significant) mergers of the year. With AMD and ATI now joining forces, it is only a matter of time before we get to see some exciting new technologies coming from the green and red corner. But ATI's X1950 cards and revised CrossFire interface weren't quite enough to win out over their opponent's technological developments; so ATI (now AMD and ATI), receives the honorable mention for 2006 GPU technology.
So who does that leave us with now? Oh, right, nVidia of course! One of the biggest buzz words in the gaming hardware world had to be "G80". Finally, in November, the GeForce 8 series was born.
Featuring never before heard of power consumption and DirectX 10 functionality, the GeForce 8800GTX and 8800GTS are two undeniably impressive pieces of computer hardware. While we still think there is much work yet to be done to make the GeForce 8 series cards (and all future DirectX 10 cards for that matter) more efficient and affordable, progress is progress. You will be hard pressed to find benchmarks showing anything but the 8800GTX as king of the hill in the gaming world. So we have no choice but to give a tip of the hat to the GeForce 8 series GPU technology from the graphics green giant, nVidia.
In the world of chipsets and motherboards, there have also been several exciting new developments in 2006. The introduction of AMD's AM2 platform of course brought with it new chipset offerings from nVidia in the form of the nForce 500 series for AMD.
Featuring a range of products to suit everyone from the budget minded builder to the extreme gaming enthusiast wanting dual graphics capability, the nForce 500 series chipsets really had something for everyone. But as we all know, things don't stand still very long in the computer hardware industry. With Intel's new Core 2 Duo processors picking up speed and gaining acceptance, nVidia wanted a piece of the pie and managed to adapt the nForce 500 series for Intel and subsequently offered the first official support for SLI with an Intel platform. But the processor support was patchy and performance was not quite up to the task of competing with the solid Intel chipsets of the time.
So eventually nVidia rolled out with the nForce 600 series chipset for Intel. nVidia gave birth to a full range of 600 series chipsets from the entry level with the 650i Ultra to the 680i SLI for the enthusiast looking for the best overclocking performance and SLI capabilities. The nForce 600 series (particularly the high-end 680i SLI) gained a good amount of support from motherboard makers and solidified nVidia as a key player and viable alternative to the ever popular and solid chipset offerings from Intel. But why stop there?! nVidia then quietly released a single nForce 600 series offering for the AMD crowd under the name of 680a SLI.
The AMD/ATI duo also has a range of chipsets available but, as you would imagine, they are almost exclusively designed for AMD's AM2 platform. However, DFI did manage to go against the grain and roll out with a board based on the long rumored "RD600" chipset. While this board looks like it will be a great option for Intel LGA 775 platforms, it is still a little early to determine how good this board is really going to be.
Intel on the other hand has been very busy with new chipset releases, but that is mostly due to the fact that a new chipset was needed to ensure compatibility with nearly ever new processor they created. Now, at the end of 2006, Intel seems to have managed to scramble their way back to the top of the award stand with the Core 2 processors; and that means new chipsets! This time around they managed to simply revise the already existing 975X chipset for the high-end market but they also replaced the 945 chipset with the Q965, G965, and P965 to round out the mid-range chipsets with full support for Core processors. While the 975X is a great chipset packed with features and top-notch performance across the board, it is often out of the price range for many builders. The 965 chipset on the other hand is still very feature rich and offers great performance while being less expensive. For all around stability, compatibility, price, and performance, Intel's 965 chipset is a hard product to beat. So we are happy to say that Intel has done a stellar job on this chipset and hope 2007 brings more great products like this.
Ok, so we've covered every board or piece of silicon in a computer, so that leaves us with storage. Whether it be primary storage in the form of system memory (RAM) or secondary storage with hard drive devices, 2006 has also brought with it some great new changes in storage technology.
The most significant is probably the rise of DDR2 memory, which has officially overtaken DDR as the most widely used and sought after memory standard. Many did not open their arms to DDR2 last year, but over the course of 2006 it has gained a tremendous amount of speed; literally! The speed and bandwidth of DDR2 memory has grown and grown by leaps and bounds. Kingston has just announced their DDR2-1200 (PC2-9600) running at an amazing 1.2 GHz effective speed. While it may cost you an arm and a leg, the sheer speed and bandwidth memory like this offers is truly amazing and makes the thought of 2007's memory technology advancements very exciting indeed.
In the world of secondary storage however, bandwidth is really not the goal. Even the fastest 10,000 rpm drives cannot usually fully tap the potential of the 300 MB/s offered by the SATA interface. Instead, hard drives have gotten bigger and bigger with their performance boosts coming from larger cache buffers and new recording technology.
Western Digital has really created a unique spot for themselves in the enthusiast desktop segment by producing the only real desktop SATA drive with a ten thousand rpm spindle speed: the Raptor. The Raptor drives have previously only been available in 36 GB and 74 GB capacities with an 8MB cache, but during the first few months of 2006, Western Digital updated their legendary line with a 150GB, 16MB cache product as well as the first ever Raptor-X with a small window that allows spectators to view the drive's actual moving platter and read head. A big congrats to Western Digital for making the hard drive with the largest "WOW" effect!
While Western Digital doubled the cache and storage capacity of the Raptor, Seagate doubled the capacities of their Barracuda desktop drives. The new Barracuda 7200.10 drives all feature a 16MB cache and can be had in capacities all the way up to an amazing 750GB! This is due to the new perpendicular recording technology. Seagate's 7200.10 series HDDs all feature the latest SATA interface with NCQ technology, a 16MB cache, and perpendicular recording. Combined with Seagate's industry leading 5 year warranty and renowned reliability, the 7200.10 drives from Seagate are arguably some of the best hard drives available today. We're sure the other hard drive manufacturers are close behind in getting their new desktop drives out the door, but for now, Seagate's 7200.10 Barracuda drives take the cake in 2006 for being the one of the best drives around when comparing price, performance, and capacity.
With every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. While that is one of the laws of physics, a similar idea can hold true in the computer hardware industry. With every great new technology breakthrough, there is always another right behind it that is either just as great, or is a giant flop. Over the course of 2006 there were actually some developments that were interesting and exciting ideas, but turned out to be not so appealing.
One of the most anticipated products with possibly some of the best potential could be the Physics Processing Unit (PPU). The PhysX card from Agea promised amazing new levels of 3D realism and immersion in PC games, but the actual product arrived with a flurry of mixed emotions. First of all, compatibility seemed to be pretty limited as many games just do not have the options for advanced physics processing of the environments. Second, the pure performance of the card was not where it should have been. While there some extra effects with debris from explosions and whatnot, the average framerates of the games running these extra physics effects from the PhysX card dropped. It may just be us, but we really have a hard time getting excited about paying over $200 for some extra splinters at the cost of performance. If a user is going to spend that kind of money on a second (or third) card to enhance their gaming experience, it really should provide a better all around gaming experience and not add to one area while taking away from another. However, in the defense of Agea, this is the first release of such a product creating a brand new market. It will obviously take some time for games to adopt such advanced effects as well as for Agea to develop a PPU that will actually improve your gaming experience across the board. So while the PPU isn't very attractive today, it opens up a lot of new doors for improving the game play and realism of electronic games.
While the PhysX card was a little bit disappointing, it still has potential. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for one of AMD's odd creations known early on as 4x4 or the "Quad Father". After getting its official name on release day, QuadFX is an interesting attempt at regaining the CPU performance crown. A QuadFX platform essentially consists of two of everything, including two dual core processors (hence the "quad" part of the name). This makeshift quad core system requires an exclusive Asus motherboard with two chipsets, four PCI-Express x16 slots, four RAM slots (two for each processor), and two socket-1207 LGA processor sockets that require exclusive FX series processors. Well, with all that extra hardware, this thing must perform nearly twice as good right? Strength in numbers, more is better, that sort of thing? We wish we could agree, but the fact of the matter is that Quad FX is really seems to be more of a "concept" platform for people with more money than brains. It's an interesting idea and it's always nice to see companies thinking of new products, but we really think the research and development money spent on Quad FX would have been much better invested in developing a new, more efficient architecture or perfecting a better manufacturing process. Granted, we aren't seeing any Quad FX parts becoming readily available, but the whole idea was disappointing enough that we feel it deserves an honorable mention for one of the biggest let downs of 2006.
So what could possibly top our charts for the worst, most embarrasing, and most disappointing product of 2006? None other than the Killer NIC from Bigfoot Networks. What could a $250 NIC possibly offer over even onboard ethernet controllers? How about 64MB of onboard DDR memory, a 400 MHz network processing unit with an exclusive and stylish nickel plated passive heatsink, and (as the icing on the cake) an extra USB port? The fact of the matter is that if you are looking for better gaming performance, your $250 would be much better spent on a better video card, more RAM, or a better processor. Whatever gaming performance improvements the Killer NIC might give you, it is not going to be significant; certainly not meaningful enough to justify the outragous price for such a basic piece of hardware. So we congratulate you Bigfoot Networks, you have managed to really wow us with this one!
So there you have it folks. 2006 was a year not unlike any other in that it was full of high performance technology, great new products, and lightly salted with some disappointments. And like years past, the next year looks to be an exciting one and should reveal lots of great new computer hardware and software innovations. So grab a seat up front by registering in our forums and join HardwareLogic as we continue to bring you some of the latest and greatest coverage of everything computer related that is soon come in 2007!