Intel's Not-So-Secret Weapon

Intel just might make a big comeback this year, once the third quarter rolls around. The company announced at IDF that it has begun making plans to begin the process of phasing out its Pentium 4 technology in order to make room for their new line of chips, dubbed the Intel Core. Not merely content with catching up with their rivals at AMD, who have been winning the processor war thus far, Intel has completely redesigned everything from the ground up with newly added features such as Wide Dynamic Execution, Advanced Smart Cache, Smart Memory Access, and Advanced Digital Media Boost. The chip has been reported to provide users with a whopping 40% performance boost and 40% reduction of energy use in comparison to the Pentium D 950 processor, which means less wear and tear on your power supply and more money saved in your electric bill. Additional benchmark tests performed by Hexus and Anandtech between the sample Core and an AMD FX-60 (overclocked effectively to a FX-62), also saw Intel in the lead with significant gains in gameplay fluidity with games like F.E.A.R., Half Life 2: Lost Coast, and Quake 4. With that in mind, there is no doubt that 2006 is proving to be an exciting year of technological innovation and development. Not to mention that AMD now has a good reason to watch their back in the upcoming months.