Akasa Nero AK-967 Intel LGA 1366 (S775/1366/939/940/AM2/AM2+) , Heat Pipe cooler, 120mm PWM fan

The modern PC is potentially a mass of heat output and heat production hot spots. With CPUs rated at more than 100W of heat output, single graphics boards carrying similar ratings (and people want to run two!), multiple hard drives the norm, lots of memory and mainboards covered in heatpipes to combat toasty core logic and PWM circuits, a PC appreciably warming up a room when it’s working hard is no joke.

This TekSpek quickly and easily explains AMD’s new processor socket and related technology to the reader, comparing it to AMDs previous socket types.

This TekSpek explains what AMD’s AMD64 CPU instruction set architecture (ISA) is, shows what CPUs implement it from both AMD and Intel, and explains what software is available to run on those 64-bit consumer processors.

The purpose This TekSpek quickly and easily explains AMD’s new processor socket and related technology to the reader, comparing it to AMD’s previous socket types.

Intel’s Core 2 Duo is now slugging it out against AMD’s Socket AM2 Athlon 64s with DDR2 memory support. So what is next on the roadmap from the two chip-vending foes?

There’s been a lot of hype about Intel’s Core 2 recently, even since they launched Core in fact. Words like Conroe, Badaxe and Allendale have been flying around. The bottom line is that Core 2 is the name of Intel’s latest line of CPUs, based on a new micro-architecture, designed for speed and efficiency.

Over the course of the last year or so we’ve seen GHz become less of a focus when it comes to processors. Instead, we’re seeing a shift towards processors that do more work per clock, have larger caches, are more power efficient, and of course we’ve seen dual-core processors hit the market. So what is dual-core all about, and how does it weigh up compared to single-core?

It’s been a long time since MHz were the only part of a CPU’s specification that concerned people. Manufacturers take different approaches to CPU design, even when using the same architecture. That means for example, at the same clock speed, an Intel and AMD processor will deliver different performance.

Intel’s been on a mission of late. That mission revolves around grouping and standardising key technologies under various banners that are designed to ensure hardware compatibility and consumer ease of use. We’ll take a closer look at three such technologies that fall under the headings of Centrino, Viiv, and vPro, respectively.

The purpose of this TekSpek is to delineate the publicly known features of Intel’s next generation desktop microarchitecture. Codenamed Conroe and officially titled Intel Core 2 Duo, it’s loosely based on the current mobile Yonah (Core Duo) underpinnings.

It’s a debate that’ll carry on until we have thought controlled PCs that respond to our cerebral synapses, but until then the argument over how best to move that in-game version of ourselves will continue.

This TekSpek explains why you’d want to overclock your graphics board, the risks in doing so and how you can go about doing it.

What makes a PC tick? Is it the processor, graphics card, RAM, or a plethora of other peripherals. It’s all those and more, but none would be much use without a means of connecting said components in an efficient manner. That’s where your humble motherboard comes in. Its job is to ensure that all devices can communicate correctly, and the beating heart of any motherboard is the chipset it’s based upon.

Anybody who has been near their share of computer systems will appreciate that not all systems make the same amount of noise. There are a number of reasons for why this is so. Firstly, a computer makes noise for different reasons. Generally, anything mechanical is going to make noise.