The Gaming Grid

I just read an article today that says the CPU has pretty much hit a brick wall in terms of physicality. What the hell does that mean? CPUs really can’t offer more than they do right now except for speed and at a cost of power consumption. Enter the GPU. Everything under the sun can run through the GPU now. It really has no limits to its functions. Hell, the things are being used as physics processors for games and rendering. Ever think that would happen? Oh, there’s more…

Apparently, Microsoft has been doing some major R&D into using old computers to create “Personal Assistants”. Again, what the hell does THAT mean? Well, MS wants to create a somewhat watered down AI program that can sense things. It can help you schedule things and offer help on others and even book airline tickets. Okay, how scary is it that MS wants to do something as innovative as this? Well, until it becomes used and shows major usefulness in many areas, I’m not really gonna worry about it. If Cyberdyne happens to be created within the next 20 years, then we can sh!t our pants.

I never would have thought the CPU would have limitations. I know companies have some major ordeal making things smaller for whatever reason, but the more things you cram into a small space, the more its going to expand that space whether you like it or not. Oh well if a CPU has to be bigger than an inch and a half if it helps with making it more effective at what it does or needs to do. I honestly wouldn’t have an issue having 2 separate units doing separate things. If I could have my CPU going 8 GHz because other things can be done on another processor on the board at 1 GHz, then so be it!

In the future, the GPU will become more effective and almost more needed if things are progressing the way Microsoft thinks and is showing it can. We’ve only barely touched the tech pool with what things can do. I think it has to do with the fact that engineers and programmers have “tunnel-vision” and see only one component being the answer despite the multiple abilities of everything else. It’s actually a great thing to see unused processor power being used for something other than nothing. Too bad it didn’t happen sooner.

Recently There have been some big pushes in the RAM world. Samsung has had some interesting breakthroughs on modules sizes. They have created a smaller chip which allows the ram to use less power and generates less heat. Now what does that mean for the computer world. There are some future uses that I cant think of, but this does lead us to actual ram drives. There are some out there currently but they are very expensive and not that big. I think currently this break through will only benefit the server and gaming community.

Back in the day of Windows 9x you could easily create a RAMdrive and load your OS on it. Now you would need to do two things. 1.) Don’t turn off your computer 2.) Don’t turn off your computer. Now your saying, that’s the same thing. I know, but its very important if you did. As some of you know RAM is what they call Volatile memory. This means when you remove power from it, it will lose the information stored on it. So in order to make a RAMdrive you would need to add a CMoS chip to it. This will keep a small voltage going to the RAM at all times.

Now as for Servers, More RAM the better. With a lot of things going virtual you will need to have an increase of RAM. VMware and Microsoft have been making leaps and bounds with their virtualization. One thing I like about Microsoft Enterprise edition, is that you also get 4 Virtual licenses also. So you don’t need to by many copies. VMware has great resource implantation for virtualization. This alows a Vitrual Machine to call on more resources if needed. I think  the next break through we really need to see in computers is the speed of Hard Disk Drives. Not the size of drives but the speed at which you can call data.

Currently HDD are the bottle neck on most computer. While we do have other options, like solid state drives and RAMdrives, both are small and not as cost efficient. We probably will see either a large size increase in RAM, or solid state in the next few years. Personally I think we are very close to the end of the life span of the platter style HDD.

Here are some link that you might like.

Samsung’s 32Gb Breakthrough

Samsung’s 2Gb Breakthrough

How much can your OS support?