MaximumPC 2006 04

Small Formfactor—Big Performance

Falcon Northwest and Monarch Computer launch SFF rigs with dual graphics

cards. That’s what we call power-to-go!

T

he next-gen optical-storage format war has been warming up, but with the

fi rst HD-DVD drives poised for release, the kerfuffl e is bound to escalate.

For those of you still on the fence over which format to adopt, check out this

handy comparison chart and then vote with your wallet.

Falcon’s Fragbox (left) sports dual 512MB GeForce 7800 GTX boards. The Monarch

Revenge edition touts dual EVGA 256MB 7800 GTX cards. Both should be on sale

by the time you read this.

he next-gen optical-storage format war has been warming up, but with the

fi rst HD-DVD drives poised for release, the kerfuffl e is bound to escalate.

For those of you still on the fence over which format to adopt, check out this

Falcon’s Fragbox (left) sports dual 512MB GeForce 7800 GTX boards. The Monarch

A

MD is enjoying its resurgence against Intel

partly by moving more aggressively in new

directions, such as multicore processors and

64-bit x86 extensions. But Intel is catching up,

forcing AMD to hunt for the next big thing. AMD’s

most recent maneuver is to license a radical new

memory technology called Z-RAM.

Z-RAM is from Innovative Silicon, a start-

up company in Switzerland. The technology is

based on experiments by university research-

ers in Belgium who were stalled by a technical

roadblock in 1990. In 2001, a Swiss engineer

came along and solved the researchers’ biggest

problem. That engineer co-founded Innovative

Silicon, which has spent years perfecting the

technology. But the company is too small to

compete as a chip manufacturer, so it’s licens-

ing Z-RAM to other companies.

Z-RAM exploits an electrical phenomenon

called the floating-body effect. (Innovative Silicon

calls it the Cinderella effect.) Some transistors

have an extra insulating layer to reduce unwant-

ed capacitance. Despite this, they still retain

some capacitance, which slows them down. But

Z-RAM uses the residual capacitance to store a

binary state (0 or 1), turning the transistor into a

one-bit memory cell.

Normally, a one-bit DRAM cell needs a transis-

tor and a capacitor. Z-RAM needs only a transistor,

which doubles as a capacitor (hence the name Z-

RAM: zero capacitors). Thanks to this trick, Z-RAM

is smaller and faster than conventional DRAM.

Although Z-RAM isn’t faster than SRAM, it requires

much less space, because SRAM bit-cells have

four to six transistors.

Z-RAM isn’t fast enough to replace SRAM in L

caches, but it could replace SRAM in the slower L

or L3 caches. Depending on design goals, Z-RAM

caches could have five times the memory capacity

of equal-size SRAM caches, or they could provide

the same capacity while occupying only one-fifth

as much area on chip. Either way, Z-RAM is poten-

tially a big advantage.

Now here’s the catch: Z-RAM works only with

silicon-on-insulator (SOI) transistors. That’s no

problem for AMD, which has been using SOI for

years. But Intel has steadfastly resisted SOI and

has no plans to adopt it. If AMD can successfully

integrate Z-RAM into future processors, it will

be a new direction that Intel can’t follow without

reversing course.

Tom Halfhill was formerly a senior editor for Byte magazine

and is now an analyst for Microprocessor Report.

AMD Hooks Up

with Cinderella

TOM

HALFHILL

FAST FORWARD

APRIL 2006 MA XIMUMPC 9

HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray: Round 1

Which Format is Better?
As you can see, both formats are
close in terms of features and specs
(which begs the obvious question: Why
can’t the industry just agree on one
format?). Both will have gnarly DRM
implemented, and movie studios are
offering tacit support for both formats.
HD-DVD appears poised to beat Blu-ray
to market by at least six months, which
may sway early adopters. But Blu-ray
has some big backers and signifi cantly

higher capacity, which means it’ll prob-

ably be a long, drawn-out fi ght, with us

(the consumers) caught in the middle.

HD-DVD BLU-RAY

*DVD compatibility is not part of the spec, but manufacturers can implement it.

NEXT-GEN OPTICAL STORAGE

SUPPORTERS Toshiba, NEC, Sanyo, HP, Microsoft, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer,

Intel, movie studios Samsung, Sony, movie studios

STORAGE CAPACITY PER LAYER 15GB 25GB

WILL IT PLAY DVD? Yes Maybe*

TRANSFER RATE 36Mb/s 36Mb/s

VIDEO SPEC MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264 MPEG-2, MPEG-4,

H.

AUDIO SPEC Dolby Digital Plus, DTS-HD Dolby Digital Plus, DTS-HD

DRM Digital watermark, possible real-time Mandatory Managed Copy, ROM-Mark, BD+

monitoring for hacking attempts dynamic encryption, digital watermark