Apple is set to release the newest addition to the OS X family, Snow Leopard, sometime this year. However, the slew of interface tweaks and cool new additions that have made OS X such a hot seller will be eschewed for features that will make your Mac a much faster system. Snow Leopard will be that plus a little more. Here's a look at three new features that might change how you use your Mac.

Multi-core utilization

One of the biggest features in Snow Leopard will be Grand Central, Apple's way of micromanaging multi-core processors. This is great news for any one using a Mac Pro or a grid of Xserves as they already have multi-processor configurations at their finger tips.

But the big problem with putting so many cores on a silicon chip is your operating system just won't know what to do with that much processing power. Grand Central is Apple's solution to this problem as it does two very important things: allows developers to better use today's new processor architectures and optimize OS X to scale across multiple processors.

Stripping out some of the geek talk to put things in perspective, you will be bragging about how many engines your car has (suspend your disbelief just for a moment, you can pick it up in the next paragraph) and not how much horsepower it has. For the geek in all of us, you'll be boasting how many cores your Mac has and not how high its CPU clock is.

Why it matters: Computers are advancing all the time but we're starting to reach the point where faster clock speeds don't mean as much as they used to. To combat the diminishing performance gains, processors are going multi-core and aren't slowing down. While four or even eight cores seems like something reminiscent of a towering, obsidian-clad supercomputer, it won't be long until your desktop and laptop have CPUs packing that many cores.

Snow Leopard won't show any speed improvements for the average user but it definitely paves the way for more advanced computing setups to be even more efficient. This doesn't mean you'll have a supercomputer any time soon, but smaller, multi-core devices like laptops and even the iPhone will catch up to desktops in terms of computing prowess.

OpenCL

Similar to Grand Central in that both deal with multi-core management, OpenCL will leverage the vast amounts of processing cycles inside a graphics processing unit. It sounds ambiguous and may have you thinking why this wasn't done sooner but CPUs are vastly different than GPUs when it comes to advanced algorithm calculations. Typically, the later outpaces the former.

Since a GPU utilizes a unique processing method to execute code, you can't run any ordinary application on it. You need an intermediary to translate data that only a CPU can understand into something a graphics processor can understand. This is where OpenCL comes in. Developers can tap into OpenCL to construct applications that can ship off a large amount of work to the GPU.

Why it matters: OpenCL in Leopard is going to matter as much as Grand Central, while both pave the way to more powerful and efficient computing. The difference: OpenCL is gaining much more traction and Applications are being coded to take advantage of the GPU such as Adobe CS4 which taps into a graphics chip for more fluid photo editing.

The biggest advantage won't be how much faster you can open Text Edit and type out an essay but rather more efficient computing. You'll slowly see some tasks transition from the CPU to the GPU such as video rendering, intense photo editing and number crunching. You'll see massive benefits in some portable devices as well since power hungry processes such as video decoding can be run on a GPU in a shorter amount of time with fewer cycles, saving your battery from having to be recharged as frequently.

64-bit compatibility

You might be thinking: "Isn't Mac OS X already 64 bit compatible?" That's only half true. But Snow Leopard will complete that transition with a full 64-bit kernel, meaning the hardware advantages of such a platform can be fully utilized by the operating system. Having a full 64-bit kernel means the older 32-bit architecture that you've been used to will be rendered obsolete in a few years but developers will be making sure their software runs on tomorrow's newest hardware. In a nutshell, 64-bit systems can access more stuff at a time than 32-bit systems. It doesn't stop there.

32-bit systems could only take advantage of four gigabytes of system memory; anything more than that and the system won't recognize it. 64-bit capable systems can allocate up to 16 exabytes of memory, or 17.2 billion gigabytes. We won't be hitting that limit any time soon and Snow Leopard's 16-terabyte memory support is more than what's needed today.

Why it matters: Despite RAM coming in capacities of only a few gigabytes, we won't be adding terabytes of memory any time soon. Cost and physical space are all limiting factors but we're slowly progressing. Snow Leopard and later versions of OS X could speed up programs by ending dependence on virtual memory, a kind of cheat that uses hard drive space when RAM runs low.