I guess what Intel has always been using to cudgel AMD with is
that their processors (since Pentium4) have always been faster in
clock speed, ghz by ghz. It all went well until heat management
control. Every manufacturer will maintain or go for a smaller
architecture and that adds more issues with heat build up and
dissipation. I guess Intel also realised that their 'virtual' core
design will still lose out to AMD's true physical core and that has
long been proven with AMD's X2 processors.
Since the lauch of Intel's Core Duo series, they had dropped their
Pentium naming of their processors and is trying to gain better
performances with a much shorter/ moderate fined tuned thread
length and generous L2 cache. Since Intel processor supported
motherboards usually make the memory controller with their chipset
(unlike AMD which has various chipset manufacturer on their
processor supported motherboard, e.g VIA, nVidia etc), they now
have more freedom to work on their processor core.
IMO, and truely in my very own opinion, Intel has duplicated AMD's
concept and i feel that with DDR2 (and DDR3 and so on in future) a
mature technology, AMD should also duplicate Intel's concept of
removing the memory controller from within their processors so that
they can now beat Intel in heat management and shrinking the
architecture. But to do that AMD has to solve their mix and match
of motherboard chipset makers first.
As for Gamers, there are some who like to mod and it can also range
from intermediate to the extreme 'modding' gamers. Those who care
not much for the case design but who want to have a hassle-free
quick heat removal from their system (and if they too overclock
intensively) will prefer watercooling. Before this, moderate
overclockers or intermediate gamers may opt to forgo their stock
cooling hardware and select their custom cooling solutions and
fans. There were already HSF for CPUs, chipsets and GPUs. With the
introduction of the heatpipe, it can combine with a rapid and
silence fan to produce better results.
Depending on the size of your case and the number of actively
running hardware in your case or the rate of heat generation, you
may use the appropriate number of fans (intake and exhaust) and
place them at the correct locations (front, rear,side and/ top) for
better heat circulation and discharge. For better noise/ power
consumption control, you can rig the fans to speed-controller
units.
