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Intel Slashes Computer Startup Times

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the an-end-run-around-the-bsod dept.

An anonymous reader writes "At Intel's Developer Forum in Taiwan, Intel introduced a new Non-volatile caching technology called 'Robson'." The new Robson cache technology allows computers to start up almost immediately and load programs much faster. Intel declined to comment on the specifics of how the technology works only saying that 'More information will be revealed later'.

2 of 435 comments (clear)

  1. If this kind if thing is a concern by cxreg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    you're booting too often

    --

    God Fucking Damnit
  2. Boot times by ashground · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Actually, yesterday I took a stopwatch to my computers to compare their boot times (comparing my new PowerBook G4 1670 with 1gb of RAM and my old Athlon 1700+ desktop with 768mb of RAM).

    Both computers are running a similar load of software at boot. The PC boots with Palm Desktop, Rainlender, and a web server (Abyss) while the Mac boots with Quicksilver and a web server (Apache). Other than that, everything else is pretty standard--audio drivers, video drivers, tablet drivers, and so on. Most of these things are present on both computers. The Mac is a month or two old, the PC hasn't been formatted in two years or so.

    Everything timed at home with a stopwatch.

    First up--the amount of time it takes from pushing the power button until you have a usable login screen.
    Mac--139 seconds
    PC--38 seconds

    Next--the amount of time it takes from entering your password until you have an idle workspace (on Windows, this was when things stopped loading in the system tray, on OSX this was when the Finder menu appeared completely).
    Mac--50 seconds
    PC--9 seconds

    So, complete boot time (plus whatever time it takes to enter a username and/or password)...
    Mac--189 seconds
    PC--47 seconds

    Finally--the amount of time from the time you click "shutdown" until your computer is powered off.
    Mac--53 seconds
    PC--11 seconds

    So, the time it takes to do a complete reboot...
    Mac--242 seconds
    PC--58 seconds

    Instant-on would be fantastic if it could recover from crashes. There's nothing more frustrating than waiting three minutes for my laptop to boot.