The bit-tech Awards 2006

Innovation

Innovation of the Year: Intel Quad Core
Notable mentions: SLI Memory, Nintendo Wii, GeForce 8800 Series, Windows Vista

And so we come to our final category, for the biggest or most important technological leap in 2006. We have seen all sorts of cool new technology this year, and we wanted to recognise a couple in particular that have been significant.

Let's look at the hardware. SLI Memory is in there for introducing overclocking and advanced memory timings to the masses. Whilst it has had a small impact on the enthusiast world so far, anything that helps more people understand our arcane hobby and brings people into the enthusiast community is a good thing.

Also from NVIDIA is the 8800 series, the first DirectX 10 compatible GPU. Not only is it ready for Crysis and whatnot, but it also goes like the clappers in DX9 games. The unified architecture might be aping ATI, but it seems to get everything right, so kudos to the guys in green.


Obviously the Nintendo Wii is in here. With its motion sensitive controller, it could be one of the most important things to happen to gaming in a long time, and it certainly seems to be hitting the appeal of the mass market. On the other hand, it could be a big gimmick that we're fed up of within 6 months - only time will tell.

Windows Vista finally arrived this year, and will mark a massive change in enthusiast computing over the next year or so. However, since it's not really on sale until January 30, we'll check back in on it next year.

All of which leaves us with our winner for this year - Quad Core. Well, by this we really mean multicore. Intel demonstrated an 80-core CPU back at IDF this year, and really hammered home the way system architecture is moving. Whilst AMD may have bought up ATI to start on its own multicore strategy, Intel is going it alone and already has prototype chips. Quad core is the first step towards massively parallel processors that incorporate many different subsystems on them, making computing faster and more stable. We will see more and more units aggregated on to the CPU, making some of the more outlandish tech that we love more mainstream. Gabe Newell said that this was the most important innovation since 3D cards, and we tend to agree here at bit-tech. The future is multicore, and Intel has gone great guns to get well on the way in 2006. Congrats!

Conclusions

We hope you've enjoyed this look back at 2006. It's clearly been a great year for technology, with some big advances being made in all areas, as well as having a nice little shelf of new games to play. We'll be back in the new year with everything you'd expect, and more - so stay tuned, and Happy New Year!