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Some PC upgrades can have an immediate and dramatic effect. Installing a solid state drive may halve your boot time, for instance. A leading-edge graphics card can do wonders for your gaming frame rate, and a faster CPU will improve performance in many applications

A RAM upgrade, though, won't always bring significant benefits. If your current system only has 2GB of RAM, then sure, it may look underpowered by modern standards: but if it's an old XP PC, really only used for browsing and occasional emails, then there's little need to add anything more.

Of course if you're running Vista or Windows 7 then you really should have 4GB of RAM, perhaps more if you're running 64-bit Windows. Even if you're not running memory-hungry apps, this will help with multitasking, allowing you to run more programs simultaneously without paging large chunks of RAM to your hard drive (which is what really cuts your performance).

Which type of RAM should you buy, though? Which technology? In what configuration? And how fast does your RAM need to be? Let's take a look.

PC memory types

There are three main varieties of PC RAM available.

DDR (Double Data Rate), rated at speeds from 200 to 400 MHz, was the standard many years ago. If your PC is aging (5 or more years old) then you may not be able to use anything else.

DDR2 was the next generation in RAM technology, requiring less power while delivering potentially up to twice the performance (400 to 800MHz, officially, though some sticks can run faster still). It was such a success that, despite first appearing in 2003, you can still find new computers using it today. And as our OCZ Blade DDR2 4GB review shows, it's still capable of decent speeds.

The latest standard is DDR3, though, which cuts power requirements again and is a great performer: 800 to 1600MHz and also with higher speeds available (see our DDR3 guide).

While this all sounds simple enough, there's a major complication in terms of memory latencies, the delays incurred when various RAM operations are performed. Each generation of RAM may have more bandwidth, but their latencies increase too, and so the performance difference between memory types isn't always clear. (Read more on this in "Is it DDR3 time yet?")

Fortunately, most PCs will support one memory technology only, so once you've found out what this is then life will be considerably simpler.

STILL AVAILABLE: It's been eclipsed by DDR3, but there are still plenty of quality upgrades available for DDR2-based PCs

PC memory checker

The Crucial System Scanner provides a simple way to find out more about your current RAM configuration. Essentially you download a small tool (just 220KB), it detects your RAM type, then displays compatible upgrades.

At least, that's the idea. When we tried it we were told that "our System Scanner couldn't make a complete match", but by manually entering our motherboard manufacturer and model (both of which were displayed in the scan report) we were given a list of suitable upgrades. You don't have to buy any of these, of course, but it will at least point you to RAM that will work in your PC (you can always enter product names into a price comparison site to see if they're cheaper elsewhere).

And just to double check, and collect some other handy details, download the excellent (and free) system information tool CPU-Z.

Launch the program, click the SPD tab, and select each of the slot numbers, in turn. You'll see details like the size of each installed memory stick, the maximum bandwidth (speed), memory latencies, even the RAM's manufacturer and part number.

There are no recommendations this time, but if you're adding more RAM then that won't be a problem - you could just shop for more memory sticks that match the specification of those you're running already. How many? That's another complication.

As a general rule, a simple PC running basic tasks can get away with only 2GB of RAM.

If you're doing anything faintly demanding, though - even just editing digital photos - then 3GB is a sensible minimum for 32-bit Windows. (You can install up to 4GB, of course, but Windows may see very little of the extra - our test PC tops out at 3.1GB.)

64-bit operating systems don't have these annoying problems, however, and may benefit from adding much more. The Crucial System Scanner earlier should have told you the total amount of RAM you can install.

Exactly how you add additional RAM will depend on your system, though. Return to CPU-Z, click the Memory tab, and check the "Channels" entry.

If CPU-Z says your motherboard is Dual Channel then this means it's able to compensate for RAM latencies by accessing your memory more intelligently. So your board will read and write to RAM module A, while simultaneously preparing to access RAM module B: there's still a delay in the second operation, but it no longer holds up your PC and everything is a little faster.

And Triple Channel motherboards just takes the process a step further, delivering smarter access to three memory modules to further improve performance.

For this Dual or Triple Channel system to work, though, you'll need to use identical memory modules: the same type of course, same speed, same latency, same everything. They'll need to be placed in the appropriate slots, as described in your motherboard manual. And these modules should also match the specifications of whatever you've installed currently. (Adding faster RAM is pointless as most motherboards will simply run everything at the speed of the slowest module.)

If you some reason you want to use a single memory module, though, or mix modules of different sizes (but the same speed) then your PC will still work: you just won't get the benefit of the Dual or Triple Channel speed boost.

THREE UP: DDR3 performs at its best in a triple-channel configuration

Faster RAM

Sometimes simply adding more RAM won't be possible. If you've only four slots and they're already filled with 512MB DIMMs, for instance, then you'll have to replace these with 1GB DIMMs to reach your 4GB capacity.

This does give you an opportunity to buy better performing RAM, of course. You might opt for DIMMs with lower latencies. The CAS Latency, or CL, is most commonly quoted, as it's probably the most important of the delays: the lower the CL figure, the faster your memory is likely to be. But if you're short on cash, don't spend too much on this. Very low latency RAM can be expensive, and it won't make that much difference to the general performance of your PC.

When considering the speed of your replacement RAM, it's generally best to go for the fastest that your motherboard will support. This might be an 800 MHz DDR2 DIMM, for instance, but for no particularly good reason these speeds will sometimes be quoted in terms of their bandwidth.

So 800MHz DDR2 RAM may also be described as PC2-8000, and 1600MHz DDR 3 might become PC3-12800. And if a site quotes only one figure, like PC2-8500, then as long as you remember that PC2 = DDR2 and that you divide the 8500 figure to 8 to get the MHz value (well, nearly - 1066) then you'll be able to translate between the two.

You might also come across RAM that's optimised for stability: ECC (Error Correction Code), Registered or buffered, perhaps. These are fine for servers or systems that must never fail, but they're also expensive, often slower than standard memory, and unsupported on most PCs. So unless you'll be using your PC to monitor a nuclear reactor, and you know your motherboard can handle these RAM variants, we'd give them a miss.

You should now have a general idea of what you want to buy, but there's still one question to be answered: which manufacturer is best? That changes all the time, but for clues you can always take a look at our memory reviews, while the computing components news pages will keep you up-to-date with the latest developments.

MSI has unveiled the N460GTX Hawx Graphics card, complete with what the components giant is calling Triple Overvoltage function.

The N460GTX Hawk is built with the same ethos as the company's R5770 Hawk and is designed to let overclockers reach 1Ghz on air.

The new Hawk has a 7+1 power design, V-Check Points, Active Phase Switching (APS), the Twin Frozr II dual fan thermal design and military class components.

Hawk-eyed

"The N460GTX Hawk delivers unrivalled performance in thermal solution, power supply, stability and noise reduction," insists MSI's release.

But it is the 'World's First Triple Overvoltage Function' that will get the headlines, with MSI explaining that, when used with the company's Afterburner overclocking utility, "users can adjust the voltage of the GPU, the memory and the PLL."

"When compared to products of the same level from other manufacturers, the N460GTX Hawk offers superior overclocking potential.

"It is the world's first GTX 460 graphic card to successfully reach the 1GHz barrier when overclocking on air-cooling."

No price or UK release date as yet, but we'll keep our overclocked ear to the ground.

Logitech has announced the Wireless Headset H760, offering up to six hours of battery life.

The Logitech Wireless Headset H760 is billed as a comfortable, wireless entertainment device that lets you move up to 40 feet away from your computer.

"Our newest headset gives you the freedom to roam when you're connecting with your co-workers and loved ones, or when you just want to be entertained," said Marcus Harvey, Logitech UK Country Manager.

Easy

"Our plug-and-play wireless headset is easy to set up, easy to wear, and easy to use."

The Logitech H760 headset offers a built-in and quick-access audio controls to adjust volume, pause and navigate your playlists and a noise cancelling microphone which mutes automatically when swung away.

The navigation controls are compatible with Windows Media Player and iTunes.

ARM chief executive Warren East has suggested that a company buying the British chip experts out would be as likely as a tornado in London.

ARM has been linked with a multitude of companies – including Apple – and with high-profile deals with giants like Microsoft, and rivals like Intel and AMD, talk is likely to continue.

However, in an interview with PC Pro, East insisted that a takeover was unlikely.

"It's one of those things that's always there as a theoretical possibility," East said. "You know, tornadoes could strike London at some stage.

Independent thinkers

"We believe that the business model of ARM is tailored around ARM being independent, and that's what creates most value for the semiconductor industry and therefore for our shareholders," he added.

"We are a public company and therefore subject to same risks of being taken over as anybody else and we just have to live with that, just as Londoners have to live with the risk of a tornado at some stage."

ARM is officially UK's largest technology company by market value, and their latest financial results broke all market expectations.

ARM's second quarter results have shown just how well the British company is doing, with the company beating market expectations.

ARM-designed chips are becoming a common factor in consumer electronics, and the growing market for not only smartphones, netbooks and tablet computers, but also more advanced white goods has taken ARM to record pre-tax profits of £43.5 million.

Warren East, chief executive officer, said: "We are pleased to report strong underlying revenue and profit performance in the first half, in improved trading conditions compared with one year ago.

Strategy on track

"Our strategy remains on track for growth in mobile, non-mobile and new technology outsourcing," he added.

"Major semiconductor vendors and consumer electronics companies are making long-term commitments to using ARM technology in their future products.

"Freescale, Microsoft and TSMC all recently announced adoption of ARM's latest technology which will further increase ARM's market penetration, and royalty potential, in a broadening range of end applications.

"ARM continued to gain share in the quarter with shipments of ARM-based chips growing faster than the industry in all target markets."

Interestingly, just over two thirds of ARM's revenue comes from royalties, with 31% from licensing revenues.

ARM has recently announced deals with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (TSMC) and, impressively, Microsoft.

What are the best gaming upgrades for your PC today? How do you turn a whimpering little PC into the gaming goliath you want, nay, deserve?

Well, stick around because no matter what you can afford to spend, we've got a the best PC upgrade for you.

Obviously the key components we'll be looking at are the graphics card, CPU, motherboard, memory and your storage devices. Upgrading any of these will always help, and we're here to tell you which ones are right for you.

To get the most out of your machine you need to know first what you're mostly going to be using it for and secondly which components will deliver the best performance increase for the things you're going to do with it.

After all, there's little point in forking out £500 on a dual-GPU graphics card when all you're using it for is playing Farmville on a 1280x1024 screen.

Likewise sticking with 2GB of low-spec RAM and a dual-core CPU isn't going to be much cop for putting together the regular family holiday home movie or editing down your directorial opus. But for gaming on a tight budget, that's not necessarily a problem.

So, do you want the best gaming PC ever, need the best gaming upgrades? Or do you just want the single best upgrade component to give you the most for your money?

Stick around and let us show you the best upgrades for each of the five key areas. And don't worry, it doesn't have to cost the earth.

The humble CPU aint so humble any more. Sure the graphics card is the super-model of the components world, but you can always survive without one. You're not going anywhere without a processor...

Money no object - Intel Core i7 Extreme 980X - £816

Hands-down the fastest desktop processor available to us mere mortals is the supreme first Gulftown CPU from Intel. The six-core behemoth that is the Intel Core i7 Extreme 980X, with a full twelve threads of processing power at its disposal, is the pinnacle of desktop CPUs right now.

It was the first hexcore CPU of its kind, and despite AMD now matching it core-for-core it still remains the top of the tree. Thanks to the proprietary Hyperthreading tech the Intel chip can manage two instructions on each of its cores to AMD's one. As games development moves forward, and with the advances contained in DirectX 11, the more cores you have the longer life your gaming PC will have.

Read our Intel Core i7 Extreme 980X review

Price/performance king - Intel Core i5 750 - £159

The best quad-core gaming CPU is absolutely the Core i5 750.

The Nehalem architecture from Intel produced some of the most spectacular CPUs of the last few years, but also some of the most expensive.

By cutting some of the more extraneous features from the larger Bloomfield and Lynnfield Core i7s (such as Hyperthreading) Intel has managed to create a CPU that can match its more expensive brethren in the gaming field frame-for-frame.

The overclocking performance of the i5 750 too is quite legendary and it's not uncommon to be able to hit 4GHz on air-cooling alone. If you want quad-core gaming it doesn't come much better than this.

Read our Intel Core i5 750 review

Budget hero - AMD Phenom II X2 545 - £68

As a gamer there are still precious few titles that will take full advantage of the multi-threading performance of a hex or even quad-core CPU. So, if you're on a budget a decent dual-core chip, like AMD's Phenom II X2 545, will still stand you in good stead.

For future-proofing a quad-core will serve you well, but at 3GHz this AMD dualie will handle most of your gaming needs without breaking sweat.

The overclocking performance of the AMD chips may be a little trickier to unlock than their Intel compatriots, but some of these cheeky little chips do come with the option to unlock up to two extra dormant cores.

There's really no guarantee what chips will have stable cores to unlock so it's not worth basing your purchase on it, but if you are lucky then a cheap quad-core chip could be yours.

The motherboard is the basis for every PC in existence and is absolutely the workhorse of your rig. Making sure you have the right chipset to match your processor to is vital, and within those categories are a wealth of further options.

Money no object - Asus RoG Rampage III Extreme - £300

Right now the Rampage III Extreme is the best motherboard you can pick up based on Intel's top-performing X58 platform.

As well as looking like something torn straight out of the innards of the Starship Enterprise (one of the modern ones, not the Sixties, cardboard and Formica one), it's also an overclocker's dream motherboard.

It's the perfect accompaniment to the Core i7 980X, and any other X58 Core i7 CPU you can mention. the Asus P6X58D-E is worth a mention too as it can almost keep pace with the Rampage III Extreme and for half the price. Almost.

Read our Asus Rampage III Extreme review

Price/performance king - Asus P7P55D-E Pro - £164

To keep your i5 750 CPU company you need an LGA 1,156 motherboard and they don't come much better than the impressive P7P55D-E Pro from Asus.

This board will allow you to wring pretty much all the overclocking juice from your Intel Lynnfield/LGA 1,156 CPU and should do good things for RAM kit too.

As well as that you'll also get the latest word in interface technology; namely USB 3.0 and SATA6Gbps. Both these new boys offering transfer rates far in excess of what the tech they're replacing can manage.

Read our Asus P7P55D-E Pro review

Budget hero - MSI 870A-G54 - £79

Okay, £80 is still a bit on the pricey side for a budget motherboard, but when it's as good as this you shouldn't really question it.

You're a gamer and as such you're all about discrete graphics, so paying out for a motherboard with integrated graphics is a bit of a waste. Here MSI has saved a bit of cash dropping the integrated GPU and put it behind the top-of-the-line southbridge chip, the SB850.

And that means the added joy of USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps.

It's also got some impressive overclocking credentials too, with decent auto-overclocking tools to take the pain and time out of doing it manually.

This is the superstar of any gaming PC, and the most important upgrade for any gamer looking for the best framerates out of their PC.

Increasingly though it's not just about the gamers. With more and more desktop software like video editing, photo manipulation software and even web browsers, now taking advantage of the power of your GPU it's starting to become an important upgrade for everyone.

Money no object - AMD Radeon HD 5970 - £500

The best, fastest graphics card you can buy right now is still AMD's Radeon HD 5970.

Packing two full DirectX 11 GPUs onto one slab of PCB has created a graphics card that's proved practically impossible to beat. NVIDIA has tried, but it's Fermi GPU suffered from yield issues which led to it being slower than it had hoped it would be.

It's getting on a bit now in GPU terms, but the HD 5970 is still the fastest card if you can afford it.

Read our AMD Radeon HD 5970 review

Price/performance king - Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 1GB - £199

Nvidia's newest graphics card, the GTX 460 1GB is the best sub-£200 card on the market right now.

Quite simply there is no other card worth buying in the £200-£300 pricepoint as the GTX 460 1GB can keep pace with anything up to AMD's £300 Radeon HD 5870.

It's based on a brand new spin of Nvidia's first graphics Fermi GPU, the GF 100, and is a far more streamlined package that enables it to have more headroom than a convention hall filled with persons of diminished stature. It's this overclocking headroom that allows the card to safely hit speeds that leave AMD's competing Radeon HD 5850 in the dust.

Read our Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 review

Budget hero - AMD Radeon HD 5770 - £115

As a gamer you should really be looking to spend a minimum of £100 on a new graphics card if you want any hope of future-proofing and AMD's Radeon HD 5770 will do that for you.

With a full 1GB of GDDR5 and a DirectX 11 capable GPU, the HD 5770 is a great little card and no mistake.

It may not have the clout at the top resolutions, but if you can afford a display that outputs at 2560x1600 then what are you doing trying to power your £1000 display with a £100 card?

At the more standard desktop res of 1680x1050 though you'll happily hit over 30fps, at full settings, on pretty much any game you care to mention.

At just over a ton, this card's a bargain.

What memory upgrade you choose will really be dependant on your platform of choice. With an X58 motherboard you really need to fill at least three of the DIMM sockets in order to get the full benefit of triple channel memory, while everywhere else you can make do with dual channel alone.

Money no object - Corsair 6GB Dominator DDR3 - £155

Traditionally Corsair is the name on gamer's lips when they think of memory, and the Dominator range does just that, dominates.

With low latency memory options to squeeze every drop of memory bandwidth out of your motherboard, it's the go-to guy of memory manufacturers.

You may not be filling every single slot in your mobo with this kit, but realistically right now there is little benefit to be gained from upping the gig count beyond the 6GB mark.

Read our Corsair 6GB Dominator DDR3 review

Price/performance king - OCZ Platinum 4GB DDR3 - £122

The price/performance king of the dual-channel memory market is undoubtedly OCZ right now.

Despite more of a focus currently on the SSD market, the Platinum series from OCZ is still a force to be reckoned with. Running at 1866MHz it's a speedy solution at a decent price.

With a little judicious overclocking too you can boost them up to 2,200MHz too, and that'll help any game fly.

Budget hero - Kingston 2GB 1600MHz DDR3 - £50

Right now you can still get away with having just 2GB of RAM in your gaming machine, and this budget kit from memory supreme Kingston will do just fine.

Running at an impressive 1600MHz it's got the performance clout and for only £50 it gives a lot for the money.

If you're also upgrading your operating system to a 64-bit version though then we would have to recommend upping the count to 4GB, but on 32-bit systems you can game quite happily with a couple of gigabytes.

With the advent of the solid state drive (SSD) the traditional spinning platter hard drive is facing competition for the first time in a long while. The incredible speed compared with the old school HDD makes them the only real upgrade if you're talking in performance terms

On one hand they are incredibly fast at certain functions, but on the other they come in low capacities at an incredibly high price. More worrying though is the performance degradation that many have experienced (including your's truly) using SSDs over time.

Most of those performance issues though stem from the memory controller used. At the moment SSDs using the latest Sandforce memory controller are showing to be the most stable, and things will continue to improve as this new technology matures.

Money no object - Corsair Force F100 100GB - £320

Of course £320 is a lot of money to spend on a storage drive, especially when you're only getting a seemingly paltry 100GB of space to play with, but the latest Corsair SSD is a bit of a speed demon.

Based on the latest Sandforce memory controller you're getting read and write speeds that will make your bog standard hard drive slink off into a corner and have a breakdown.

What does that mean in real terms though? Well, importantly for us gamers it means fast boot times and lightening quick game and level loads. Trust us, you'll notice the difference.

Price/performance king - Kingston SSD Now V+ series 128GB - £230

Again £230 is a huge amount of cash for a 128GB drive, but the performance of this Kingston drive is consistently up near the top.

It's not quite as pacey as the Corsair drive, but it's also nearly £100 cheaper and with a little more spare capacity after formatting. The V+ series is running on a different memory controller, a Toshiba created one, but still retains the important Windows 7 TRIM command for keeping performance degradation at bay.

Budget hero - Samsung 1TB Spinpoint - £48

When you're working on a budget loading times can quite happily be swapped for increased storage, and you'll be hard pushed to get more of an increase than upgrading to a full 1 terabyte of storage space.

With the larger, more modern drives too performance is slightly improved. Obviously you'll never hit the sort of speeds you can muster with an SSD but you'll also not want an SSD that costs £50.

Because it'll probably fall over and lose your data after five minutes. But that will scarcely matter because you'd only be able to store five Word documents on one that cheap anyways...

But a 1TB drive for less than £50 is a bargain and will happily hold your entire Steam back catalogue without breaking a sweat.

When it comes to PC components, newer is almost always better. But unlike processors or video cards, new PC memory technologies don't come along very often.

Also known as random access memory or RAM for short, PC memory often remains relatively unchanged for several years. DDR2 memory, for instance, first appeared in 2004. But only in the last 12 months has DDR3 taken over as the mainstream memory type for most new PCs. If you factor in existing systems, DDR2 is still the dominant memory technology.

What's more, the benefits of new memory types aren't always clear cut. Back in 2004 when Intel introduced support for DDR2, AMD's Athlon processors remained the highest performing despite relying on plain old DDR memory. Put another way, you shouldn't choose a PC based purely or even mainly on the type of memory it uses.

DDR2 vs DDR3

But just what are the pros and cons of DDR2 and DDR3? Is it desirable or even possible to upgrade from the former to the latter? The first thing to appreciate is that the two memory types are completely incompatible with each other. Everything from voltages to timings and signalling is different.

Fortunately, they're physically incompatible, too. A repositioning of the slotted groove on DDR3 sticks and sockets means you can't accidentally insert the wrong memory into you motherboard. Of course, a change of physical form factor also means the minimum requirement for changing memory types is a new motherboard.

However, you may need a new CPU, too. Some Intel CPUs for the LGA775 processor socket from the Core 2 era are compatible with both DDR2 and DDR3. Likewise AMD processors for the AM3 socket are DDR3 compliant and some will also drop into older AM2 boards and work happily with DDR2 memory. To find out whether you can hold onto your processor, check the product information at www.amd.com and www.intel.com.

Say hello to DDR3

The most obvious reason to upgrade to DDR3 is speed. Where DDR2's effective frequencies officially span 400MHz to 800MHz, DDR3 kicks off at 800MHz and extends all the way to 1,600MHz. It is possible to buy memory sticks that go beyond these official ranges. 1,066MHz DDR2, for example, was a popular frequency for performance PCs a few years ago.

But broadly speaking, it's fair to say that DDR3 is twice as fast as DDR2. More speed, of course, means more bandwidth. And bandwidth tends to mean more CPU performance. After all, if a CPU is left twiddling its thumbs waiting for data to arrive from main memory, it's not going to get much work done.

Indeed, bandwidth limitations are likely to become critical for future CPUs as more and more data hungry cores are added. Admittedly, the latest CPUs from both AMD and Intel have integrated memory controllers with at least two channels. Combined with DDR3 data rates, the result is plenty of bandwidth for anything up to and including the newest six-core chips. But as processors appear with eight and more cores, bandwidth will once again become a crunch point for PC performance.

More power, less juice

The other major difference between DDR2 and DDR3 is operating voltages. DDR3 continues the recent trend by reducing voltages once again. Where DDR memory typically runs at 2.5V, DDR2 is commonly 1.8V and DDR3 operates in the 1.3V to 1.6V range.

As for the question of whether DDR3 makes for a tangibly quicker PC with today's processors, there's no easy answer. One complicating factor is that DDR3 has tardier latencies than DDR2 which can lead to slower performance in some scenarios. For the record, memory timings are usually quoted as four-entry specifications such as 7-7-7-20, each number referring to the number of cycles required for a certain memory operation.

However, if the difficulty and expense of adding DDR3 support to most existing PCs and the limited performance improvement make for a dubious upgrade, one thing is for sure. DDR3 support is a must for any new PC.

Intel is already planning for the devices of 2015, with the chip giant telling TechRadar that it keeps its concepts of the future grounded in immutable habits of everyday life.

Intel's Wendy March, a people and practices expert who works in the future technoogies research branch of Intel labs, explained that silison development is still a slow process, which means that Intel has to look ahead.

"We're looking at least five years ahead, but often in the five to 10 year span," she said.

"That starts to be a little strange because what's really going to happen in five years, even beyond three years, is quite hard to predict.

"But the development of silicon is a slow process we do plan a long way out for that."

The lunch of 2015

Intel Labs is already thinking about the world of 2015, but the company is keen to ground its research in the knowledge that people's everyday lives will not change that dramatically.

"Quite recently we were working with planners and architects for our architecture for 2014 and 2015 and thinking 'what will everyday life be like?'" added March.

"I think it's a very interesting balance that we bring from our ethnographic process in grounding future concepts in real life environments.

"Even in five years we're likely to still be having lunch so if you think about what your day is going to look like there are still certain things that you will be doing that you will want to do, but the way you are going to be doing them and the devices that are going to support you will be different, and that's what we think about."

Social trends

March explains that planning for future devices and services is more about keeping an eye on social trends, rather than trying to back a particular technology horse.

"Most of [tech development] is evolutionary," said March. "You can see certain trends happening, but there are shifts happening; there are technologies that just appear out of nowhere that you can't predict.

"So Facebook comes up and you are like 'oh, well who'd have known?'

"We're not crystal ball gazers; we can't say in five years this is definitively going to happen, but we can see the way that tech starts to unfold and the way in which some social trends are happenings."

AMD has welcomed the increasing influence of ARM in the chip market, believing that the extra competition will benefit everyone.

AMD's vice president of marketing Leslie Sobon told TechRadar that ARM and the legion of products taking advantage of the British company's chip designs are driving more innovation from the traditional computing giants.

"The X86 and ARM competition is fascinating," said Sobon.

"[It brings] new competition, different competition, different technology, different form factors and the end user will benefit from all of that."

On their toes

"It keeps everybody on their toes, it drives for greater competition and it makes everybody better, so it's a good thing," Sobon added.

"We're all going to win - both the ARM industry, and the X86 platform - but most importantly the end user is going to win."

The X86 architecture has been dominant since the late 1970s - a staggering amount of time in the world of computing - with Intel's 8086 setting the standard for the likes of AMD, VIA and Cyrix.

However, ARM's large mobile market share is beginning to spill into computing – with a trickle of devices likely to become a flood of netbooks and tablets in the coming years.

AMD believe that its 'Fusion' product has the potential to revolutionise the tablet market when it arrives in 2011, with the APU offering the processing power to make things like Flash processing and high quality video a breeze.

Fusion is AMD's attempts to bring its ATI graphics processors and the CPUs that established its reputation together onto a single die offering an accelerated processing unit, or APU.

With the Apple iPad's huge early sales showing the public desire for tablet computers, AMD's vice president of marketing, Leslie Sobon, told TechRadar that the company was already thinking about this type of device.

"That's all going to come to life in a very compelling way with the Fusion product," said Sobel.

"Think about the advantages you get from a power performance and a form-factor perspective when you can take GPU and CPU and put them on the same die.

"You get enormous power efficiencies which is going to enable, not only things like tablet and slate, but these great experiences when you use it."

Flash - will save every one of us?

Sobel believes that being able to cope with things like the much maligned Flash content that is rife on the internet, is crucial – and, obviously, a feature that Apple's iPad lacks.

"The form factor is one thing but you have to be able to have a great experience with a tablet," added Sobon.

"Multi-task, watch flash videos; there are things you are going to want to do as a user.

"People know what they want and web video is pretty much in the top three of every wish list.

"They might not think of it as web video – they certainly dont think of it as Flash - all they know it when they go to YouTube they want it to work.

"They don't want it to flicker and all the better if they can get it in HD or upscale it and that kind of thing."

Google has reportedly bought a startup created by former members of PA Semi who jumped ship when the company was bought by Apple – sparking talk of the internet giants building its own server processors or even considering launching its own tablet.

According to Fudzilla, Google has snapped up AgniLux, and will probably be tasking the chip specialists with designing a more efficient processor for its thousands of servers.

However, with Chrome OS coming, suggestions of a Google tablet have inevitably started – something that looks highly unlikely.

Not hardware makers

Eric Schmidt reiterated several times through his speech at the Atmosphere Cloud Computing that Google was not looking to make the hardware for Chrome OS devices, merely offering the operating system.

Google hardware does exist, of course, although the Nexus One is made by HTC, which might well suggest that a Google branded Chrome OS device is not out of the bounds of possibility.

In the meantime, the purchase of a chip design team is much more likely to be focused on Google's continuing search for more efficient server farms.

However, just before we drain all the fun out of the story, should Google dip its toe into chip production then the prospect of Google hardware in the long term would certainly be more likely, if still straining credibility.

Nvidia faces manufacturing problems which could mean a shortage of its new Fermi chips later this spring.

The graphics chip specialist admitted that it was facing potential parts shortages earlier this week.

Smaller, faster, cheaper

The chips are manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) via a 40-nanometer manufacturing process, which makes the chips smaller, faster and cheaper than those produced via the older 55-nm process.

Jen-Hsun Huang, Chief Executive of Nvidia, speaking at an analyst meeting at the company's Californian HQ said: "From a supply perspective, we wish we had more 40-nm capacity.

"We are working with TSMC really closely. They are doing a fab job. Yields are improving. Capacities are improving. But we are finding it hard to keep up. Everyone is clamoring to have Fermis out the door. We are working really hard to get Fermis out the door."

Gross profit margins on 55-nm chips are about 30 per cent, while those on 40-nm chips are around 40 per cent.

Asus has unveiled its Cine5 PC speaker, promising accurate 5-channel surround sound in small room.

The Cine5 is designed for what Asus terms 'personalized spaces' such as study rooms and to that end it is a all-in-one, compact speaker using Asus' "Embracing Sound Theatre HD" technology.

"This patented technology leverages on a discrete 5-channel output to deliver full audio surround, which users can experience whenever they are directly in front of the speaker," explains Asus.

FPS accuracy

"In a First Player Shooter game, the Cine5 provides precise sound location that improves shooting accuracy and heightens gaming thrills.

"The Cine5 also revives 5-channel audio from any down-mixed 2-channel source—for a high-fidelity, multi-channel sound during PC gaming or movie sessions."

The Cine5 apparently offers 15dB more than speakers of similar size and the multi-driver configuration should aid higher-frequency responses.

Asus has yet to announce a price, but the Cine5 has a UK release date of the end of March.

Nvidia has launched its next-gen Ion chip, intended to bring HD gaming graphics to netbooks and nettop PCs.

Officially announced at CeBIT this week, Nvidia is firmly targeting the small-form computer market with the second-generation of the Ion. Director Of Marketing David Ragones explained to TechRadar just why this iteration of Ion will make an impact.

"The netbook market has exploded in the last few years. 40 million units will go through the market this year – they are complementary PCs as a second on-the-go device.

"The way we see it is that there are two segments [of this market] defining themselves: the standard netbook, with basic functionality, and the Ion segment, which allows HD playback and game playing."

This is a key facet to Ion: the ability to pimp out a netbook so that you can use it for more than basic web browsing and word processing.

So much so that Ragone sees Ion as the magic formula to bring alive Intel's Atom N450 (Pine Trail) platform.

"Pine Trail has had a muted response since launch. If you add Ion to PineTrail, however, you deliver a much better experience.

"Ion is all about HD video – whether it is Blu-ray or YouTube, you are going to get a great experience. If you want a premium experience on a netbook – you can get this with Ion."

One of the major factors behind Ion's graphical prowess is that it uses Nvidia's Optimus technology. This is essentially an on-switch for GPU use.

If, say, you point your browser to YouTube while using an Ion laptop it will automatically switch on the GPU to tackle the Flash-heavy video content.

This cuts the CPU some serious slack and ups the performance of the computer over 10x, according to Nvidia.

But it's not just Flash that Ion can boost. According to Ragone, Ion will bring another level of functionality to netbooks and nettops – and this starts with the ability for netbooks to ship with Windows 7 Home Premium, instead of Windows 7 Starter: "If you want a premium experience with Windows, Ion is the best way to do this."

As we were slightly worried that the Ion chip would awaken even if you had a tab open with, say, a Flash banner, Ragone was keen to note: "The GPU is not tab aware, but app aware. It won't be turned on through Flash banners but sites that use a lot of flash, like YouTube."

Despite the next-generation Ion chip being significantly different to the earlier iteration of the Ion, Nvidia is reticent to rename the GPU. This won't be a problem for consumers, assures Ragone: "Branding-wise, it will continue to be called Nvidia Ion. It shares the same brand generation to generation. So, no we aren't calling it Ion 2.

"It will be known as Nvidia 'next generation' if we need to talk about the latest edition and put it into context."

The first wave of Ion next-gen Ion PCs have already been announced, with the Acer 532G. Other devices to house the latest Ion chip include the Lenovo C-Series all-in-one PC, Asus EeeTop ET22010 and the Zotac ZBox Mag2 – details of which will are still to be released.

Expect a barrage of more announcements as CeBIT trundles on.

AMD has posted a $1.18 billion (£727m) profit for the last quarter of 2009 – with Intel's blockbuster payment of $1.25 billion (£770) giving the company a huge year-on-year turnaround.

Intel paid out the whopping figure to bring an end to legal action over its tactics in keeping market dominance, and without that money AMD would have dropped back into the red for the quarter.

But even taking that into account, the report represents a huge turnaround year on year, the last quarter of 2008 saw a $1.4 billion loss (£863m).

Positive

It's a positive sign for AMD which has done superbly with its DirectX 11 cards – getting to market well ahead of its rival Nvidia, which has yet to start selling its own DX11 wares.

"AMD's quarter marks another milestone in our transformation and underscores our growing momentum," says AMD Chief Executive Dirk Meyer.

"We're pleased with our progress."

It appears that Intel's integrated graphic processor will be targeted at World of Warcraft and Bejewelled players rather than the hardcore gamers, with a slide from the company outlining the strategy for the 'Intel HD'.

Integrating the graphics processor into the CPU is going to be a key theme through 2010, with cheaper solutions for the consumer likely to flourish.

An image leaked at Donanimhaber.com and reported on Tom's Hardware shows off the target audience of what is termed Intel HD.

Discrete choice

In fairness, the top level gamers are unlikely to be particularly dismayed by the news; Intel's much vaunted Larrabee graphics ideas have been shelved already, and it is Nvidia and AMD's ATI that have the lion's share of the market.

By targeting casual and mainstream gamers – as it terms them – Intel will not need to compete with the raw power that is emerging in DirectX 11 cards, although the basic level that people expect is likely to continue to grow.

Of course, more news will almost certainly surface at CES 2010, with Intel planning a whole raft of announcements.