But PLEASE, can we make this year different ? I mean, for a change, why can’t we atleast be more realistic ? This year is hardly any different from the one gone by. The global economy is still recovering from its near meltdown the year before last. Some old giants have had huge falls and some old dwarfs are seeing raise in a short span of time. Many things which we took for granted are no more.

So many things have been lost: companies during the recession like Lehman Brothers & Sentinel,  people who include legends like Michael Jackson & Les Paul as well as the numerous victims of the latest epidemic, Swine Flu, and other not-so-easy-to-mention things, like the hair on the head of the guy whom I talk to often.

So many things have been gained too: the world is wiser thanks to the recession. Science has been progressing faster than ever and newer technologies keep rising trying to solve the problems we have. The economy had a meltdown but it also had a new energy inforced into it to make it more robust than before, so that when it recovers finally, it will have a harder time failing like it did before. On a personal note, I turned legal last year. Yeah I’m an adult now by definition.

But it never really STOPPED at 2009. NO SIR, it continues into 2010 and the change in year is of no significance to the entity which we call time. And in spite of all this it’s still a “new” year. A time when the calendar asks you to make a fresh start just to make the date seem special.

But regardless of what has been happening in the past, lets march into this year’s end with a new outlook. Let the ghosts of the years gone by guide us to make this one of our best so far. Our good times shall inspire us to work for more while our bad times shall make us sadder but wiser, steering us away from paths which lead to ill. Lets welcome 2010 with a warm applause: It’s not always that you get an excuse to make a change as big and yet so simple. Lets finally think for a change. Before any action, let us not be guided by animal-like instincts and hunger for power and short-term gains but by long-term planning, an all-inclusive outlook, humanitarian values and a smart mind.

In a nutshell: I wish all my readers a Happy New Year 2010 !!!

Performance has gone up a lot, and I am able to benchmark several apps and several desktop environments more comfortably now. Most notably, I am using KDE 4.2 on archlinux (I ditched KDEmod, which is hardly different from KDE vanilla at the moment, for good till it becomes as strong as KDEmod 3.5.9).

Here is a pic for you:

Not the neatest, but I guess the comic strip explains that part more than anything else

The Simpler-Than-It-Looks Solution

1. Point your browser to http://firefox.com and download the firefox generic linux package. Here is a link to Version 3.0.6.

2. Download the .tar.bz2 archive and extract it to any directory. In the folder firefox, you will find an executable called firefox-bin. If for some reason it isn’t an executable already, make it by right clicking and going to file properties.

3. Run this executable to launch firefox. It may or may not take a while to start.

4. Point your browser to http://toolbar.google.com/ and you will find that the toolbar suddenly appears compatible with the browser.

5. Install it afer accepting the EULA.

6. Quit firefox. You may delete the downloaded files and the extracted files since they are useless.

7. Launch firefox from the version installed globally in your distro now. You will find that google toolbar has just been installed.

Why the Problem exists and the Solution works

Problem arises because all non-official compiles of firefox should not use the official firefox branding, due to a rule enforced by Mozilla Corporation. Now, since you are executing firefox from the generic official build, its unaffected because its the official package.  So google identifies it correctly as a supported browser. Now, all plugins are installed in your home directory. So whichever executable of firefox you run, the same settings are taken as long as the distro is the same. So this install can be used by your distro’s firefox build.

Alternate Solution

Just grab the .xpi installer of the google toolbar from somewhere. Drag and drop it in the firefox window and it will be installed. I don’t recommend this because of the chance that the version of toolbar you have in the XPI may be old, or that google may take issues with you or somebody else distributing the installer of their toolbar without their permission.

1. Open file manager in root mode. For this, open terminal, and type sudo nautilus, or sudo dolphin or sudo thunar or sudo pcmanfm depending on what file manager you use.

2. If your username is foobar, go to location /home/foobar.

3. There will be a file called .recently-used.xbel – delete it.

4. Create a new file with the same name – again as root.

5. Right click and in permissions, for all, set permisssions to NONE.

6. Do steps 3-5 for another file, this one called .recently-used located in the same directory.

7. Close the root file manager.

Now you have effectively disabled access and erazed information in the two files, where all standards compliant software store their recently used list,  by making root own them, and by BLOCKING all access to the files.

KDE 4.2 is simply AWESOME!

The KDE 4.2 Desktop - Simply Superb

The first thing I saw when I ran KDE4.2 is that its fast, atleast when compared to KDE4.1 and Gnome. But don’t run it unless you have more than 512MB RAM. 512MB is the  minimum for a good experience. If you have 256MB RAM like me, you are in for some serious lagging, though its still usable and you can comfortably unitask.

But the visual effects, plasmoids, menus and the whole interface – its simply fabulous. I have never seen a better Desktop Environment in my life, and this beats MacOS 10.5, Windows 7 and Gnome 2.4 hands down. Its ULTIMATE. See <<THIS VIDEO>> to know what I mean.

And now I am 99.99999% sure that Windows 7 superbar is nothing but an imitation of KDE4’s Plasma Panel.

KWin-compositor is much lighter on resources than Compiz Fusion, but its obviously not as light as xfce’s basic composite capabilities. But yeah, KWin-composite now has several features to REALLY start rivaling compiz fusion as the eye-candy of choice for lay-users.

The applications have not changed much, because the way they look remains the same in KDE4.2 as in KDE4.0 and KDE4.1. But they are definitely faster and much more responsive. I couldn’t review them due to lack of time. But see  <<THIS VIDEO>> if you want to see KDE in action. It shows the KDE window manager in action.

Konqueror has a spell checker which has a small issue – it checks spelling as I type each letter, and not as I type each word. So for example, when I just typed example, it underlined the word when I had finished typing “exa”. But I can live with it.

Amarok2 and DigiKam are both out in KDE4, but sadly, K3B is still in development. Once K3B comes out, KDE4 would be 100% ready for desktop use. Another app you may miss is Kaffeine, but luckily, since the VideoLAN team has switched VLC Media Player from wxWidgets to QT4, you can use VLC instead of Kaffeine. And Amarok2 supports both video and audio, and is now the best jukebox ever, effortlessly outclassing wmp, itunes, realplayer, etc thanks to its great interface and features along with support to play ALL media formats.

And yeah, on a personal note, I am still sticking to Xfce4.4 because I have less RAM, however, when I get an upgrade, I am coming back to KDE4. And hopefully, KDE4.3 will be out by the time my new rig arrives, around June-July.

Till then, feast your eyes on the KDE 4.2 visual guide.

But for now, HATS OFF TO THE KDE TEAM.

My Tips to migrate to KDE 4.2

1.

Remove .kde and .kde4 and any other KDE related folder or hidden configuration file from your home directory before installing KDE 4.2.

2.

You need _minimum_ 512MB RAM to run it. 1GB recommended by me.

3.

It has desktop effects on by default, and they slow down weaker computers, especially those with IGPs weaker than Intel GMA 950. Disable them and restart KDE if you want to experience a faster interface

4.

You can use ANY distro for trying KDE 4.2, but my personal advice is that don’t buy things people say like SuSE having best KDE support and hence use only that. I personally recommend you use KDE from a Rolling Release distro, either vanilla or with some trusted patches.

I personally recommend Gentoo and ArchLinux. The problem with SuSE and Ubuntu is that they optimize the DE for next releases and right now you can’t expect the best of KDE 4.2 in them. On the other hand, distros like Gentoo and ArchLinux are totally different and they keep rolling out updates and never have feature freezes for a release. Hence they often have the latest of updates.

The following tries to analyse reasons why corporates still need to use Windows XP while there are several better options available, and it also tries to present reasons why migration and hardware upgrading would be quite difficult.

Its purely the company’s decision to use an operating system. Public presumption of an OS as good or bad has nothing to do with how a business feels about it. So I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that a company enjoys using Windows 98. Infact, there actually ARE companies which rely on windows 98, office 2000, visual basic 6, etc and I have seen them in action. Believe me, the satisfaction level is indeed very high.

Migration is not an easy business for many. You need to train an entire workforce to accept a change and to do things differently. And as people grow older, their learning capability reduces. Its hard for a 50-year old clerk in some office to suddenly start using windows vista, when he hardly manages to use windows 98 for example.

For the very same reason, migration to Linux is also often heavy. How do you expect a several thousands of workers to suddenly use an OS which is as different from windows as communism is different from capitalism ? The REAL cost and time involved in training, which includes the loss in productivity during the training period, alone would make it much cheaper to continue using windows products.

And take a look at the economic situation today. Thanks to some brainless economic policies followed by some american banks, world is in recession and profits of several companies are dipping and most economies are slowing down. In such a situation, to expect companies to upgrade their hardware is nutty.

Besides, there is a role of common sense too for companies which are satisfied with Windows XP. If it ain’t broke, why replace it ? For the same reason, I have seen several billing machines in various department stores still use windows 98, and sometimes even windows 3.1.

However, going from an individual consumer’s perspective, if someone needs to buy a new rig, it always works out cheaper to buy vista than XP. That’s a solid fact which nobody can deny. But for a company which deploys several rigs for their work and which has already been using windows XP, windows vista is a costly affair indeed.

Windows XP has become more of a trap than anything else to most of the firms that use it. Vista might be easier to use, but when XP has been around for 7 years, people obviously find it easier since they are used to it. Most hardware can’t run vista. Migration to Linux needs several hours of training, while migration to mac means nothing more than having to spend money on not just training, but also software and hardware. It does not make sense in these uncertain times to make dramatic changes to the way a company functions, nor does it make sense to invest funds which could otherwise be used to rescue the company from the hard days ahead in front of them. Look at what happened to Satyam which tried to buy Maytas.

To conclude, continued use of Windows XP is a necessary evil. There is little most corporates can do about it. However, nothing stops individuals like you and me from moving away. Infact, its actually encouraged, so that when the time is right, a smooth migration can occur from XP to other OSes.

BSNL promised to deliver cheap 2.0Mbps broadband to every house in India. But that is hardly broadband anymore. Its more like online torture for its customers. Personally speaking, I use BSNL H500, a Rs. 500 plan which, if not for BSNL’s shitty nature, would have been actually GOOD by Indian pricing standards. It has a monthly data cap of 2.5GB, with happy hours from 2:00 AM to 8:00 AM when there is no data cap. During non happy hours, it bills Re. 0.90 for every MB which exceeds the 2.5GB cap. But yeah, its still horrible, and yet I am forced to use it. Why ? Read on…

2Mbps is not really 2Mbps

BSNL claims it offers 2Mbps internet, but its never really 2Mbps (or 256KBps). Most of the time, speed is around 200KBps, and during the happy hours, the speed per connection is often throttled, to very low speeds. This is clearly a cheap stratagy to decieve and cheat people, since it officially states that it offers “upto” 2Mbps connection speeds. Legally speaking, its not doing any wrong, but this twisting of language does decieve many people. Under normal circumstances, “upto” can be refered to being somewhere “around” 2Mbps. But as far as BSNL is concerned, its not true at all.

The customer care service personal with questionable knowledge level BSNL employs only make things worse by confusing people. Many of them think “browsing” speed is different from “download” speed, and say that the 2Mbps refers to the “browsing” speed. Despite several attempts to explain them about browsing being the same as downloading html files and then opening them, they are determined to believe that browsing is different from downloading. A few cite customer reviews stating that they get 100mbps connection, and claim that its much higher than 2Mbps and that its the system thats at fault.(note: most lan cards in PCs have a max connection speed of 100mbps which is cited by windows as 100mbps connection speed in connection properties, fooling novice customers.)

Broadband means “ALWAYS ON”, right ? Well, with BSNL, it DOES NOT.

OK, let me set speed throttling aside, next comes the reason BSNL Broadband is so horrible when it comes to downloads from connections which don’t allow resume. I am refering to several FTP sites and many file sharing websites. The internet keeps reconnecting. Reconnecting again and again, without warning, for apparently no reason at all. I remember, the last time I bothered to count, I noticed that while I waited for a rapidshare.com timer to count down from 100 to 0 seconds, the internet reconnected approximately 8 times in 4 minutes. Its impossible to use BSNL broadband with filesharing websites like rapidshare, and several popular mirror sites for gnu/linux distros.

Can I atleast browse normally, despite reconnections ? NO again.

Then comes the famous BSNL down times. Often, the network cannot be accessed because of downtimes at BSNL. They appear to turn off the network every week for several hours, and in extreme cases, I have gone days without networking. This with all my life being online. Wait there is more – these downtimes often occur in happy hours, the hours when we download the most.

2Mbps ? Wow!!! Compared to the older service of 256Kbps, my pings are low, aren’t they ? NO AGAIN.

The download speed may go upto 2Mbps, but pings are still very high. This is the reason I am hardly able to game, and its also the reason several people still prefer a local ISP’s limited 256Kbps connection for gaming to BSNL’s service. My friend with 256Kbps gets a ping of 100 while with BSNL 2Mbps I get 200-300 pings. This ping again fluctuates, with me getting 100 ping once in a blue moon and sometimes the ping going upto 800, all on the same server, while my friend happily games on with his 100 ping. [note: as I was typing this, I just reconnected...]

Are there any other crazy BSNL issues ?

Well, I can’t remember any more related to MY internet, however, BSNL has some crazier internet plans. For Rs. 150 per month, they advertise one of their plans as India’s cheapest 2mbps broadband. But guess what ? It has a data cap of 150MB, and it costs you an additional rupee per extra mb downloaded. Wow BSNL, thats like 20 whole minutes of downloading. Great. Just great. All hail BSNL, the lord of cheapness.

Edit: And yeah, BSNL is known for their riddiculous SMS service for their mobile phone schemes. SMSes sent through them take several hours to reach someone. Its next to only snail mail.

Then why the hell do I STILL use it ?

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any other ISP with a plan of this type thats priced the same or below. Due to a small wallet crunch, I am stuck with BSNL, atleast for the next several months. While there do exist some rather highly attractive (relative to BSNL plans) plans in the 265Kbps unlimited segment, I need 2Mbps, and hence, I am still with BSNL.

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edit: When B is capitalised in kBps it means kilo BYTES, and when B is not capitalised in kbps it means kilo BITS. 8 bits make 1 byte. Thanks to http://www.dslreports.com/faq/2388 for explaining the convention clearly, and thanks to Cr0nor for pointing out my mistake.

i686 Optimisation

Archlinux has been optimised for i686 architecture to a very high extent. All modern 32bit capable standard x86 CPUs support i686. This is right from the old Pentium Pro CPUs to the new Nehalems. Its also optimised for modern AMD CPUs. For those who need a 64bit distro, there is an x86_64 (commonly known as amd64) variant for archlinux.

Unlike arch, most common distros are designed for i386, i486 or i586 architectures, which are architectures very few existing systems use and are long obsolete. So Arch’s i686 optimisation carries with it several speed boosts, and reviews commonly go that next to Gentoo and CRUX, arch is the fastest distro around.

x86_64 capability

Arch supports x86_64, which its original inspiration, CRUX, does not. And this makes arch the fastest binary amd64 distro available. Though arch does not boast of a very strong team of developers which large distros like SuSE, Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, etc boast of, its partial geeky nature ensures that a good amount of its users DO use x86_64 seriously. Thus, it happens to be one of the better supported x86_64 distros.

BSD style init framework with rc.conf

Archlinux follows the BSD concept of different init runlevels defined in inittab. It also follows the BSD style configuration concept using .rc fines. The difference here is that arch uses a single rc.conf ALL major system level configurations. This results in simplicity and ease of use. A single text file with a few sections and lots of easy to understand comments can be highly helpful for an intermediate linux user.

High level of documentation

Archlinux has everything well documented. Its wiki is neat and clean, and questions can be asked in its forums or its IRC channel, #archlinux at chat.freenode.net. All its documentation is simple and elegant. For most tasks, there is a simple solution in archlinux. Not just external documentation, internal documentation in man pages and different text files for configuring arch is also vast and easy to use. This results in the next point, ease of use of commandline in archlinux.

Stress on commandline – text mode can actually be easier

One major flaw of newbie distros like ubuntu and opensuse is that they try to deny the existence of a strong commandline in linux. Configuring ubuntu via commandline is a painful task indeed for many novice users. On the other hand, the very nature of archlinux and its doccumentation, along with its install procedure make configuring arch via commandline a breeze. I originally wished for GUI tools when I was considering installing archlinux, but believe me, commandline on arch is AWSSOME. The fact that everything is centrally configured in rc.conf, and there are only a few other files that need configuring makes things even better.

KDEmod

Archlinux has a wonderful exclusive DE based on KDE. Its called KDEmod. Its compiled against an enhanced version of QT, and is quite modular. Currently its based on KDE4 series along with normal KDE, KDEmod is quite quick and zippy compared to classic KDE. Its even faster than Gnome. KDE’s overall neat interface and ease of use coupled with speed boosts from QTmod and archlinux make KDEmod one of the best DEs.

EDIT: Due to recent changes in KDE4 series, the performance difference between KDE4.2 and KDEmod4.2 is next to zero and even QTmod isn’t needed due to an upgraded Qt. And KDEmod 4.2 wouldn’t run on 256MB RAM anyway – it needs atleast 384MB ram for normal running, 512MB for multitasking and 1GB recommended as a minimum if you don’t EVER want to feel that the amount of RAM is less. So people with 256MB RAM are best left with KDEmod 3.5.9 – its much faster than gnome on such systems. Its also fully feature rich and is available as KDEmod-legacy. So in a nutshell: if you got 256MB RAM and want the power of KDE, get KDEmod 3.5.9.

Pacman

Arch package manager is called pacman. Make no mistake, this is no game. Its one of the fastest package managers out there. Though I personally feel it could have used some more apt-get like features, its still too good. It has insanely fast installation speeds. I could install 700mb of gnome in less than 5 minutes. Compare this now to the 15min windows xp sp3 installation time.

Repositories

Archlinux has wonderful repositories containing binaries optimised for i686 or x86_64 architecture. You can find most common software here, and they are all pre-compiled for you and compiling again makes no difference since they are already highly optimised for your architecture.

AUR and ABS

Ah… the one thing that stands out here is AUR, or arch user repository. You can install any software in arch with ease, even if its not present in arch repositories. Its because of AUR, where users can submit their own install scripts for misc. software. Before I say how this works, I need to talk about ABS, or arch build system. Its a feature which allows you to run PKGBUILD scripts to compile software. Everything, including dependencies, is taken care of in this script and hence you need to do next to nothing to install a software via compilation. Now AUR hosts lots of these compile scripts. They often contain link to the sourceforge page of the software from where there is a download link to the source tarball, so that this too is taken care of by the PKGBUILD script. You get a binary pacman package in the end, which can be installed the usual way via pacman.

yaourt

This is an awesome pacman frontend, which has in built support for AUR. So you can install software from aur here directly without visiting AUR website. Its one of the most awesome piece of archlinux exclusive software available.

But personally speaking, getting stuff from AUR can also be fun sometimes. Yaourt is one of those apps which please many (Its especially useful for those who don’t have X and find browsing through a text-browser a pain in the @$$), while others just ignore it. So use it before deciding if you want to like it or not.

powerpill

An enhanced pacman front-end written in perl, powerpill is there when you need faster download speeds and multi-threaded downloads. I recommend all archlinux users to install this in their /bin directory.

Rolling Release

Archlinux is a rolling release distro. Meaning, there are no separate “releases” in archlinux. Instead, the latest snapshot of the[core] repository is offered for download as a live CD every month, and a simple pacman -Syu command upgrades your system to the latest cutting edge software. This means that you don’t need to download and install a new ISO every few months the way you did in ubuntu or fedora or suse. Even CRUX is not rolling release. With arch’s rolling release concept, you can install the distro once, and keep it forever. There are people who installed it the moment it was released and have had it for quite a few years till date without reinstalling.

Raw Speed

Last, but not the least, is the raw speed archlinux offers. Compared to most distros, arch is one of the fastest distros around. I recommend you use either ratpoison WM, or IceWM window manager, or Xfce4 for a DE or KDEmod for a complete DE if you want to experience arch in its full glory. Gnome should be replaced by Xfce if you want similar features but at the same time, no bloat and high speed, because that’s the arch way. Archlinux is a boon for users of older PCs like me, since its extremely fast on them. But its also awesome on new PCs, and infact, one of my friends uses arch on a Core2Quad Q6600 and is very happy with its performance.

CONCLUSION

If you have a decent amount of experience in linux, of say, 9 months to 1 year, or if you enjoy good commandline skills, and at the same time you want a distro with fast software install times and high speed and performance, archlinux is the one for you. I recommend it also for anyone who wants a distro which would help you LEARN more of linux. People who have no idea about linux but have used UNIX, Solaris, or BSD can also find arch impressive and it can teach them linux easily.

So what are you waiting for ? Head over to www.archlinux.org right now and download your copy today and install it. Trust me, its definitely worth it.

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Despite all this, I still need to keep windows. There are a variety of reasons, none of them my fault, due to which I still need to keep an inferior, insecure, featureless platform with me all the time, and though its rarely booted into, windows is still an important software I need to install…

Why ? Its quite simple. My family needs windows. My parents are both used to using windows. They don’t know how to use other OSes. My sister is fast learning how to live with linux, but windows is still needed. When windows was in trouble, it was linux which came to my rescue. Then, everyone had to use only linux. But it was not well received at all.

Moving on, windows is still needed if I need to game. I am no more a gamer, but I still have the old familiar gaming pangs from my gaming days once in a while. And yes, gaming is a way I entertain guests. So without windows, I wouldn’t be able to do that either. IF you are wondering why I am not using the windows emulator, Wine, then my answer is that I simply can’t. My computer is just too weak for that.

Finally, windows is needed for Security. Not the virus/internet protection type, linux does a much better job there (isn’t it obvious ?), but I need software security. If I need to get some work done on my system for which I am given a windows software to start off with and I get a deadline thats too short, the last thing I can do is search for a way to get it onto linux.

But I have absolutely no usability related reasons, which many people find surprising. I transformed from a windows power user to a linux power user easily, and I find the keyboard shortcuts and some tricks in linux better and more comfortable than windows. Infact, I am starting to hate having to use windows now due to which I never boot it, but thats an entirely different story.

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Phenom – The troubled one hoping to gain back the trust it lost

AMD Phenom was supposed to be AMD’s big hit. It was supposed to crumble opposition from Intel Core2 series hands down. But sadly that never happened. AMD not only was unable to gain the upper hand in mainstream and high end range CPUs, it also ended up loosing its much more secure and liked budget range spot to intel, because of Intel’s E2xx0 series. Unlike during the days of Athlon XP, when AMD was the perfect thing, being of a better performance as Intel at a lower price, but was ignored due to general public ignorance of AMD processors by many people, this time AMD had created lots of hype regarding Phenom. But unlike the days of Pentium D, when AMD was THE fastest CPU manufacturer and out-performed intel from every angle, Phenom failed. Miserably. It was not the Core2Quad killer. Core2Quad Q6600 was much more VFM and better performing than early phenoms. AMD was forced to release its CPUs at a much lower clockrate than originally planned due to a faulty B2 stepping. Profits were hard to come by since AMD had to sell the phenoms at a very low price to ensure customers.

AMD Phenom is no longer AMD Moron !

But now Phenom is fast catching up. Their issue with the buggy B2 stepping is solved with an enhanced B3 stepping and now amd is releasing higher clocked phenoms to combat intel CPUs. AMD is launching an innovative attack stratagy – release more cores than intel in a given price range. While synthetic benchmarks often tie some of the value to mainstream range phenoms, and sometimes phenom looses, it definitely scores more for multitasking and virtualisation thanks to its extra core or two. Its clock to clock performance might be lesser than intel, but performance has definitely improved.

Advantage Phenom – The Value King

AMD Phenom has become one of the most buyable processors for mainstream value PCs today. Combined with the 780G chipset motherboard, esp the cheap Gigabit 780G, you get a PC which can multitiask a lot, stay cool and green, have lots of expansion and input slots to keep things future proof, at the same time, ensure that future processors are usable, since AMD AM2+ socket can accept AM3 CPUs of the future.

Lets take a Core2Duo E7200 and compare it to a phenom X3 8450, which my friend Saurav Basu kindly dug up in the market for me and found its price to be an amazing 5.5K + Vat, ~= 6K in India. The penryn gives better performance per clock, agreed. The penryn gives better gaming performance, agreed. The penryn overclocks better, agreed. But do you get a better platform support ? Nope. For 4.5K, the max you get is a Biostar P35 which hardly has features of 780G like eSATA port, etc. Also, when you try to run virtual machines which are 64bit, you can do so only on phenom since E7200 lacks hardware virtualisation support. The extra core helps here too. For multitasking, phenom gives more juice since it has 3 cores. More parallel processing is possible. Finally, phenom’s 780G has an excellent onboard solution that totally pwns others in Hybrid Graphics mode. You can even use the rather OK onboard as it is, since it runs HD3200, an underclocked HD3450. But for Penryn, you need to buy an external card which is going to add to your budget. Lets say you DO buy an external card. Low end cheap ones include the ever popular HD3450. Now if you use this in penryn, I assure you that you would get only half the performance of phenom since phenom can run the dedicated card and the onboard card in hybrid graphics mode.

Then, lets go to Intel CPUs on the higher end, like E8400. This is intel’s big and strong flagship dual core (lets forget the pricey E8500). Compare this to an AMD Quad Core Phenom, and lots of arguements as above, plus more come into picture.

Its all about 780G

Well, this wonderful chipset makes all the difference. It supports many features due to which amd can’t help but become a better choice than Intel. It has godly onboard graphics. It has lots of expansion slots. It has 5 SATA II ports and eSATA port for ensuring that you can connect all the HDDs you ever bought. It has support for upto 12 USB ports. And it supports 2 FireWire ports. Enough to connect anything. It has support for AMD’s future next generation CPUs. It supports PCIe 2.0 16x. Can things get any better for a 4.5K Budget motherboard ?

CrossFire gets more value with 790FX

Take a look at AMD’s Flagship gaming platform, the “Spider” Platform 790FX chipset. This does not have (and doesn’t need either) any onboard graphics, but it has ATI CrossFire support, and with ATI cards becoming cheaper by day, and purchasing power increasing, this makes the perfect Gamer’s choice. Its also a beautiful overclocker.

To Conclude

AMD has once again redeemed itself. Lets prepare for an AMD future. Hopefully this would ensure that the computing world is not lopsided again towards intel.

So finally, what do YOU feel about AMD now ? Has it successfully redeemed itself ? Do you think AMD now poses a valid threat to Intel ? Do you think its the right time to start hoarding AMD processors ?

PS: This article is just in revision #2 stage. Its still waiting edits. So bear with the bad spelling and grammer for now.