Brain of computer is a piece of chip, which is called CPU (Central Processing Unit), or in short form Processor. PC (Personal computer) models are based on the type of CPU used in that machine. PC are started with 8086 CPU (XT model), 80286 CPU (AT/286 model), 80386 CPU (386 model), 80486 (486 model) then Intel Pentium CPU (Pentium class) and follow by Intel Pentium-II CPU (Pentium-II class) and lately Pentium-III CPU (Pentium-III class).

Today CPUs are faster and faster in speed & more and more powerful in computation. Here are some new type of CPUs from three major player Intel, AMD and Cyrix.

There was a major architecture change from 80486 to Pentium CPU. Then Pentium was modified to Pentium-Pro ( by adding L2 cache). See all you need to know about Intel Pentium Pro CPU, detail of Intel Pentium MMX CPU (which is similar to Pentium processor with 32K L1 cache memory and 57 new instruction set especially used by multimedia applications) and new model Intel Pentium-II CPU (which is Pentium Pro feature with MMX codes and AGP support).

I don't like to recommend to buy Intel Celeron CPU, although it is a Pentium-II class CPU but Celeron CPU has only 128K L2 Cache (very first version does not has L2 Cache) . Celeron CPU usually slow down the overall performances of your computer. If you see a new PC and offer price is very low, it must be Celeron CPU inside. Please don't buy !!!. A lot of people are already cheated.

Again, Pentium-II is added 70 new performance enhancing instruction sets, CPU serial number feature, and allow to clock higher speed (more than 450 Mhz) then it becomes Pentium-III.

Here is the information of latest latest Intel Pentium-III CPU.

Faster Intel CPUs are still coming on the way. Check it out Intel roadmap for near future.

AMD K-5 CPU is equivalent to Intel Pentium CPU and AMD-K6 CPU is equivalent to Intel Pentium MMX model. New CPU series are AMD-K6-2 (Pentium-II equivalent) and AMD-K6-III which performance are equivalent to Intel Pentium-III class CPUs. AMD claims that their latest AMD-K7 CPU (Athlon) is the world's fastest and highest-performance CPU for x86 computer systems. AMD Athlon CPU introduces new Tri-level cache (L1 & L2 on the CPU and L3 on the motherboard) and 200MHz system bus speed. Take note that AMD Athlon is using new Slot-A connector which is not electrically compatible with Intel's slot-1 (although physically look the same as Slot-1). AMD CPUs are easy to over clock to get the better performance. This over clock guide for AMD Athlon CPU may be useful to get the best performance.

Cyrix is famous for speed and heat, so don't forget to use good heat-sink and reliable fan. See Intel Pentium equivalent Cyrix 6x86 Processor and MMX equivalent Cyrix 6x86MX Processor. The Cyrix MediaGX is the "All-in-One" type Cyrix CPU integrated with Sound & VGA for low cost solution. Latest CPU type is Cyrix M-II CPU which performance is equivalent to Intel Pentium-II CPU.

IDT is the new company trying to enter the CPU market battle between Intel, AMD and Cyrix. IDT developed a Pentium-MMX class equivalent processor called Win-Chip C6. New version of CPU from IDT called Win-Chip 2 will fight with Pentium-II. However, performance is still far behind Pentium-II and not very popular yet.

Detail information of Clock-Speed/ Bus-Speed/ Cache-Memory /Interface-Type for all CPU brands.

How they improve (or) make CPU faster?.
 
 

We need to upgrade to 56K faster modem for faster access and download. First of all, how 56K modem works ?. There were two competing proprietary 56K modem standards in the market. 56K Modem (K56Flex Technology) by Rockwell & Lucent (AT&T) and 56K Modem (x2 Technology) by U.S Robotic & TI.

In Feb 1998, ITU (International Telecom Union) has set the new 56K modem standard V.90 as official international standard to ensure compatibility and universal ability to call any ISP. New models of 56K modem are allowed to upgrade to V.90 standard by software. Most of the ISP (Internet Service Provider) have setup both K56Flex & x2 server for their customers now. But soon or later they will change to V.90 ITU standard. So, please make sure that your modem is V.90 read.
 
 

ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network)

ISDN modem speed is faster than 56K modem but you need an ISDN line. ISDN is a set of CCITT/ITU standards for digital transmission over telephone line copper wire as well as over other media. Speeds of ISDN vary from country to country. Normally the data rate is 128K bps and it provide separate voice channel for simultaneous data & voice feature. See some information about ISDN by Microsoft.
 
 

DSL (Digital Subscriber Line)

DSL is a technology for bringing high-bandwidth information to home and small business over ordinary copper telephone lines. It is usually mentioned as xDSL, refers to different variations of DSL such as ADSL (Asymmetric DSL), CDSL (Customer DSL), HDSL (High bit-rate DSL), RADSL (Rate-adaptive DSL), IDSL (ISDN DSL), SDSL (Single-line DSL), UDSL (Unidirectional DSL), VDSL (Very high data rate DSL), DSL-Light (G.Light) and so on.

Most available type is an ADSL (Asymmetric DSL) modem, which is much faster than ISDN (up to 9 Mbps downstream) on normal telephone line, but your telephone service provider must upgrade their exchange system (ATM network ) to provide ADSL/DSL feature. The Asymmetric means downstream bandwidth is much higher than upstream bandwidth. The speed will drop if your house is far from telecom office. It means, as decreases toward telephone office, the data rate increase. In general, the maximum range for DSL without repeater is 5.5 Km (18000 feet).

Magix is the ADSL Service in Singapore.
 
 

Cable Modem

Finally, Cable Modem which is 1000 times faster than today modem (speeds range from 500Kbps to 10Mbps and latest model can download 30 Mbps), but cable modem service is available only in a few area yet because of infrastructure requirement. Moreover, Cable modem service is usually the share medium. So, there is no guarantee to say how many Mbps you will received, depend on how many users on your cable link.

SCV is the Cable Modem service in Singapore
 
 

The bottleneck of communication between PCs is the speed limitation of COM port. Here are two new standards for PC serial bus with high bandwidth for future applications. The Universal Serial Bus ( USB ) can reach upto 12MB/sec speed since the bandwidth of USB is 12Mbps, which can be shared upto 127 USB devices. Intel has already embedded the USB logic to their chipset and many new motherboards are already populated the USB interface. More and more USB products are coming out to market lately.

IEE-1394/ FireWire is the fastest serial communication bus for PC standard. 100 MB/sec, 200 MB/sec are already released although 400 Mbps, 800 Mbps and Multi Gbps standard are still under development.