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How is this better than AMD's 50x15 program and the PIC?

How is this better than AMD's 50x15 program and the PIC?

Intel: http://www.intel.com/business/bss/products/client/ vistasolutions/index.htm

AMD: http://www.amd.com/windowsvista

VIA: http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/vista/cpu.jsp

My problem is with the consistently mediocre reporting, when just a little bit more effort would get to primary sources, rather than this persistent blog banality culture.

I don't know about you but all this stuff about HT Technology and stuff is very confusing. Do I have that?

This just proves that Vista is unready for the desktop. I guess that's why they cancelled it. Har har! Har har. Har, har. *sigh*

Seriously, what exactly is DesktopBSD's website supposed to say? The thing you quote seems reasonable to me, anyone who doesn't understand it is unlikely to find any way of wording it useful anyway, unless it was worded in such a way that'd make it useless to an actual computer professional.

It's not like they'll be installing it. They'll be asking us to do it, as usual.

You can still get the last free version of Invision Power Board off the internet if you look hard enough. I have IPB v2.0.0 PF 3 running behind an Apache server on my LAN at the moment, and I have not paid a cent.

In other news, I was not aware that I owned both Invision Power Services and the WikiMedia foundation. Thanks for clearing that up, I feel better now. If you use our products and feel like you want donate to us, you can send all donations here.

I noticed that the motherboard only supports 8X while most graphics cards want 16. And strangely, the intergrated video is ATi even though the chipset is NVidia.

On recent desktop/workstation motherboards, PCIe x8 interfaces (using x16 slots) are usually a "hack" to get two PCIe x16 graphics cards working in SLI or Crossfire mode. Early dual-graphics chipsets didn't have enough PCIe lanes (around 20 per chip) to allocate for two true x16 interfaces. The newest ones do.

If you are looking at the Opteron 1xx series (for single CPU workstations), then you should know that they are Socket 939 (like Athlon64) and not Socket 940 like the other Opterons (dual CPU and up).

AMD Opteron Model Number Comparison

According to this, the 2.66 GHz Conroe will be released in Q3'06 at a price of US$530, in 1000-unit quantities.

With these prices, combined with the apparent performance and power differences (Conroe has a predicted TDP of 65W, compared to the FX60 at 110W), it looks to me like we'll finally see some heavy competition from Intel. Of course, a lot can happen between now and then - Intel have had manufacturing issues in the past, AMD have a new memory controller on the way and a 65nm die shrink due early next year, and can probably squeeze out two or even three speed bumps before Conroe really hits. Who knows, they might even drop their prices a bit.

Come Q3, I'll be sitting in the ringside seats with popcorn, ready to watch the fun :-)

My dad wanted to buy a Pentium 4 PC. I told him not to and recommended AMD. He still wanted to buy an Intel, and bought one. It used a heatsink with size like of a CD (third-party, not Intel), but the fan itself was reasonably quiet. The CPU's temperature rarely rose higher than 45C, which surprised me a lot - I thought it wouldn't get lower than 60C.
And notice how AMD presents their benchmarks:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInforma tion/0,,30_118_11599_11605~101503,00.html
An AMD CPU that's 23% faster that Intel's appears to be at least 2.5 times faster. That's because they are showing only the last 85%-125% of the scale.
However I'm still pro-AMD and anti-Intel.

Actually, current AMD CPUs (including the X2's I am talking about) DO have the cmpxchg16b instruction.

See: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResou rces/0,,30_182_739_7044,00.html

The first result for this search at google

http://www.google.co.in/search?q=amd+profiling

Gives this

AMD CodeAnalyst Performance Analyzer for Windows
(With Microsoft .NET profile support)

http://developer.amd.com/cawin.aspx

And this tool is around since atleast as long as when I first heard about "A company not called Intel which makes processors".

Seriously, quit your job and look for one in Mc Donalds. Or maybe starbucks is more popular in US these days.

Whatever, pick any, just outsource your job to me.

Intel announced their use of strained silicon back in 2002, and I'm pretty sure all new Pentiums for at least the last couple of years have used this technology. It's essentially certain that every Intel-based Macintosh already uses strained silicon in its CPU.

As an aside, TFA only talks about "squeezing" silicon, but it's actually possible to either tighten or loosen the lattice. CMOS uses complementary pairs of NMOS and PMOS transistors, and for best results you (normally) want to strain the silicon in opposite directions for each -- though NMOS generally has slightly better characteristics to start with, so IBM may have decided to apply the strain only to the PMOS transistors (or the article may simply be incomplete, and they're really doing both, just like Intel and others do).

OTOH, AMD has been using SOI (also since they went to 90 nm). I'm reasonably certain that all their current x86 processors use this technology. Their dual core processors certainly do, though some of their low-end processors may not use it (I'm afraid I've lost track of which cores use what technology anymore).

What IBM has announced is (apparently) successfully using both of these technologies in the same chip. AFAIK, that hasn't been done in an x86 CPU before, but it's not entirely new either. One thing that should be kept in mind is that x86 CPUs are (mostly) built for the mass-market -- that means using fabrication technology that you can dependably produce in large quantities with decent yields. The IBM POWER series chips have a drastically smaller market and substantially higher price tags. A yield level that's perfectly reasonable for that market would virtually put an x86 supplier out of business. As such, both Intel and AMD are somewhat conservative in what they use in production chips, as opposed to what they can manage to do under lab conditions and such (though their volume also lets them put lots of money into R&D to really push the technology as well).

1. The Xen Project is the leader

2. Intel VT

3. AMD Pacifica

Wake up! A big change is coming...

AMD's Cool 'n' Quiet technology supposedly intelligently scales.

In addition, you can already do things such as underclock video cards, and disable certain boards such as NICs and sound cards via software. I can't see why it couldn't be added to a power management function.

You are correct about the flatpanel one AFAIK.

check out the Cool'n'Quiet technology in the AMD64 processor line.

Just a quick question ? Have you installed the AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core drivers ? You can find them on AMD's site.
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResou rces/0,,30_182_871_13118,00.html
I run a Windows XP Pro SP2 with these drivers on an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ with no issues.

AMD Athlon(TM) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor Driver for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Version (exe) 1.2.2.2 - Allows the system to automatically adjust the CPU speed, voltage and power combination that match the instantaneous user performance need. Download this Setup Installation program (EXE) to automatically update all the files necessary for installation. This package is recommended for users whom desire a graphical user interface for installation. This .EXE driver is a user friendly localized software installation of the driver designed for end-users. This driver supports AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core processors on Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2003 SP1.

Why not sell the general public a version of this for $200

AMD's Personal Internet Computer had a similar goal of bringing cheap computing to the world. They're sold in the US for USD199.

Is a USD100 laptop do-able?

"this marks one of the first times that Intel released a processor with known bugs"

Every chip Intel has ever shipped has had errata. This isn't unique to Intel, of course -- every chip ever shipped has had errata. The only news here is that apparently people have found a lot of bugs in this specific chip fairly quickly. But Mac users are a demanding bunch...

http://www.amd.com/epd/desiging/tsdocs/2.erratashe /index.html lists AMD's errata sheets.
http://www.rcollins.org/Errata/ErrataSeries.html documents some Intel errata from the late 90's.
http://mysearch.intel.com/corporate/default.aspx?c ulture=en-US&q=errata&searchsubmit.x=12&searchsubm it.y=8 searching for Errata on Intel's site returns 6,520 hits (most for errors in documentation). This is to their credit -- everyone makes mistakes, and documenting them benefits everyone.
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/search/MainSERP.js p?QueryText=errata&RELEVANCE=false&showAllCategori es=false&srch=1&assetLocked=false&pageSize=5&Selec tedAsset=Product+Pages& and FreeScale has a ton of errata documentation as well.

You get the idea.

You are correct that an order-of-magnitude increase in device count can be largely accounted for by increases in cache size, as caches account for the majority of the device count.

However you are erroneously using this fact to somehow indicate that gigantic increases in microarchitectural complexity that have not occurred. They absolutely have, even to well-grounded p6-based architectures like Core Duo. As someone who has worked in pre-silicon verification for microprocessor projects at both of the big players in the x86 world, I can tell assure that pre-silicon (and post-silicon) verification teams are struggling to keep up with complexity. This probably comes as no surprise to anybody who reads Slashdot, even if that person has a software background.

A second point. Physical layout libraries, although they do shorten the design cycle, enable quicker bug fix turnaround and help with backend design, do not reduce logical complexity or improve the verifiability of a processor.

Improved design tools can help, but mostly with smaller design teams like you have for ASICs where the verifier is the designer. In a major microprocessor project, verification engineers can find no substitute for understanding the details. That is hard for any human to do, and it is only getting harder.

Do not fool yourself into minimizing the effect of complexity.

Also, do not fool yourself into thinking that only Intel has sizeable errata sheets. For a long time it was hard to find AMD's equivalent sheets, but they have started being more forthcoming. See Opteron "Revision Guide", which contains the errata sheet. There are some fairly frightening errata in there as well.

I'm not GP, but here you are: Revision Guide for AMD Athlon(TM) 64 and AMD Opteron(TM) Processors, 85 pages PDF, the "product errata" starts page 13 and the product errata cross-reference table itself is 4 pages long, the following pages being the descriptions of the various errors.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white _papers_and_tech_docs/25759.pdf

I didn't bother to actually count the number of unfixed or no fix planned glitches / bugs in there, so I don't know if it actually validates the 80+ the grandparent claimed, but there are quite a few known bugs in A64 and its HTT bus.

In fact there are going to be any CPU released, even stuff like Power / Itanium / USpark are going to have errata like this. Microprocessors are inredibly complex equipment, and 100% stable and glitch free under all possible conditions just isn't going to happen. Who ever submitted this story is blowing this entirely out of proportion. The link is already Slashdotted so I haven't gotten a chance to read what the bugs / glitches are, but I would be good money a normal user could go through the entire life of their Core Dou Mac and never notice one. These are typically very small gliches / bugs that occur under very specific conditions, and are meant more for hardware manufacturers to be aware of than they are to warn a user there could be problems with their chips.

publishing them publicly I think is a good move on Intel's part, but they do run this risk where people don't understand that this is a completely and utterly ordinary and expected thing to happen.

It looks like AMD keeps errata listings for their chips in the "AMD Dev Central Vault" which requires a registered login... so it may not be possible to do a direct link (at least I couldn't find them after searching). I assure you AMD chips have errata to varying degrees and in generally the same numbers as just about ever other chip vender (see my other post for an example listing).

http://developer.amd.com/documentation.aspx

Here is AMD's errata: http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white _papers_and_tech_docs/25759.pdf.

Cheers,

Saad Mahamood.

At least 136 in the Athlon.

Google html of the pdf:
http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:HFDm3zBojEcJ: www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers _and_tech_docs/25759.pdf+amd+athlon+errata&hl=en&c lient=firefox-a

Amd's original (pdf!)
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white _papers_and_tech_docs/25759.pdf

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white _papers_and_tech_docs/25759.pdf And as an aside, it took two seconds (actually .08) seconds to look up on Google. Maybe try that next time.

You do realize that there is an 85 page PDF of errors in the AMD64, right?

you forgot the link to that. (I shamelessly copied it from AC's post, why he posted it with score:0 is mystery to me - no one would notice it. He indicated that #113 worth looking at).

The errata for the AMD Opteron is 85 pages long . I once spoke with a chipset designer and he told me that the Opteron errata was especially long with some convoluted workarounds, compared to other CPUs he's worked with.

And AMD has no bugs in their chips? Here's the Athlon 64 Revision History document off of AMD's own website:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white _papers_and_tech_docs/25759.pdf

There's a lot more listed there than for the Core Duo so far, and quite a few marked as "Won't be Fixed" and are scary sounding. Here's an example of a rather nasty looking ordering bug that results in system hang:

Downstream non-posted requests to devices that are dependent on the completion of an upstream
non-posted request can cause a deadlock in the presence of transactions resulting in bus locks, as shown in the following two scenarios:

1. A downstream non-posted read to the LPC bus occurs while an LPC bus DMA is in progress. The legacy LPC DMA blocks downstream traffic until it completes its upstream reads.

2. A downstream non-posted read is sent to a device that must first send an upstream non-posted read before it can complete the downstream read.

In both cases, a locked transaction causes the upstream channel to be blocked, causing the deadlock condition.

Potential Effect on System
The system fails due to a bus deadlock.

Revision Guide for AMD AthlonTM 64 and AMD OpteronTM Processors. Just for balance. (only two of them are really interesting, #113 is one of them IIRC)

This is what AMD did with their PowerNow!(TM) technology. It dynamically adjusts CPU power consumption based on CPU load. According to AMD, it can reduce CPU power at Idle by 75%. I know on my laptop, I can hear the fan speed up and slow down based on the load on the CPU.

AMD has the Alchemy http://www.amd.com/us-en/ConnectivitySolutions/Pro ductInformation/0,,50_2330_6625,00.html which look pretty nice. How they compare to the XScale/Arm family is up for debate.
I would love to see AMD try something really bold. How about say 8 of these Alchemy core on a chip? The 500mhz core only uses 1.2 Watts so 8 cores would = 9.6 watts. Even if you managed to put 64 on a single die it would probably be close to the what single P4 uses now. Just imagine how well it could work for some server applications like Web serving, mail, or even a database server. Yes it would suck at single threaded tasks and it would lack an FPU but for some applications that wouldn't matter.
For those applications that need floating point or vectors it might be possible to add some Cell like vector units that would be shared by the cores.
Think of it as a connection machine on a chip. Or a single chip Beowulf Cluster. I doubt that AMD will do it. After all we all know that X86 has won :(

...press release...blah blah...

Have you never read a press release before? Not only did you ignore what the parent was bitching about, but you're ignoring every other press release ever written. For instance, since we're talking about 64-bit dickwaving, here's AMD's version:

Specifically designed for gamers, PC enthusiasts and digital content creators, the AMD Athlon 64 FX processor is the most technically advanced and highest performing 32-bit and 64-bit PC processor in the world. Systems based on the AMD Athlon 64 FX processor enable a "cinematic computing" experience that is immersive, interactive and provides a new level of realism not available today except from DVD-quality films.

Are you going to suggest that the former (Apple's) is somehow misleading where the latter (AMD's) is not? "Cinematic computing"? Please.

And if you think Steve Jobs' "The 64-bit revolution has begun and the personal computer will never be the same again." is bad, try this from Hector Ruiz, CEO of AMD: "The growing number of people looking for cinema-quality PC performance that transforms imagination into reality can now fully realize their dreams."

If people are reading this kind of crap and taking it seriously, they're idiots independently of what kind of computer they use. On the other hand, I can fault people less for believing that "64-bit makes it go faster" than I could "64-bit transforms your imagination into reality."

Never mind that everything running on the CPU was compiled for 32bit and the 64bit claims applied only to address space and some of the narrow-purpose altivec stuff;

Everything that shipped with the computer was 32-bit, yes. See also 90% of AMD64 systems. It's still a 64-bit processor. Still runs 64-bit code concurrently with 32-bit code. Still ships with 64-bit libraries. Still runs 64-bit Linux. You're looking for lies, but all you're finding is marketing. And if you want to complain about marketing, I'd start by asking AMD what the hell "cinematic computing" is, or ask Intel how NetBurst makes the internet faster.

Um, yeah, how about that second source 8088 chip they made in 1982. What a screamer!!! And who remembers the glory days of the Am386 and Am486?!? :)

For most of its life, the P4 wasn't "underperforming", it was as fast - if not faster - than the Athlon.

Uh, you can't "over inflate" a clock speed. It is what it is.

"PR" numbers, OTOH...

It always amazes me the number of people who say "clock speed doesn't matter" then immediately turn around (often in the same sentence !) and say "$CPU is faster than the Pentium 4 at the same Mhz".

The PR rating is a number that relates to the original Athlon, not the P4.

And that's as fair of a comparison as possible.

Your comparison is unfair, inaccurate, and incomplete. You didn't include any links to where you got your numbers, overstated the Core Solo's power, and didn't include the Celeron M (which is based on the Pentium M core) or Core Duo. You also neglected to include the low power versions of the Intel CPUs.

Here's my attempt to make your comparison more fair and complete:

AMD (W = Thermal Design Power)

• LP mSempron 3300+ (2.0GHz) 25W
• Turion MT-40 (2.2GHz) 25W
• Turion ML-44 (2.4GHz) 35W
• LP mAthlon 64 3000+ (2.0GHz) 35W

vs Intel (W = Thermal Guideline)

• Celeron M LV 383 (1.00GHz) 5.5W
• Celeron M 360 (1.4GHz) 21W
• Celeron M 390 (1.7GHz) 27W
• Pentium M LV 778 (1.6GHz) 10W
• Pentium M 765 (2.10GHz) 21W
• Pentium M 780 (2.26GHz) 27W
• Core Solo T1300 (1.66GHz) 27W
• Core Duo T2600 (2.16GHz) 31W

And that's as fair of a comparison as possible.

Your comparison is unfair, inaccurate, and incomplete. You didn't include any links to where you got your numbers, overstated the Core Solo's power, and didn't include the Celeron M (which is based on the Pentium M core) or Core Duo. You also neglected to include the low power versions of the Intel CPUs.

Here's my attempt to make your comparison more fair and complete:

AMD (W = Thermal Design Power)

• LP mSempron 3300+ (2.0GHz) 25W
• Turion MT-40 (2.2GHz) 25W
• Turion ML-44 (2.4GHz) 35W
• LP mAthlon 64 3000+ (2.0GHz) 35W

vs Intel (W = Thermal Guideline)

• Celeron M LV 383 (1.00GHz) 5.5W
• Celeron M 360 (1.4GHz) 21W
• Celeron M 390 (1.7GHz) 27W
• Pentium M LV 778 (1.6GHz) 10W
• Pentium M 765 (2.10GHz) 21W
• Pentium M 780 (2.26GHz) 27W
• Core Solo T1300 (1.66GHz) 27W
• Core Duo T2600 (2.16GHz) 31W

And that's as fair of a comparison as possible.

Your comparison is unfair, inaccurate, and incomplete. You didn't include any links to where you got your numbers, overstated the Core Solo's power, and didn't include the Celeron M (which is based on the Pentium M core) or Core Duo. You also neglected to include the low power versions of the Intel CPUs.

Here's my attempt to make your comparison more fair and complete:

AMD (W = Thermal Design Power)

• LP mSempron 3300+ (2.0GHz) 25W
• Turion MT-40 (2.2GHz) 25W
• Turion ML-44 (2.4GHz) 35W
• LP mAthlon 64 3000+ (2.0GHz) 35W

vs Intel (W = Thermal Guideline)

• Celeron M LV 383 (1.00GHz) 5.5W
• Celeron M 360 (1.4GHz) 21W
• Celeron M 390 (1.7GHz) 27W
• Pentium M LV 778 (1.6GHz) 10W
• Pentium M 765 (2.10GHz) 21W
• Pentium M 780 (2.26GHz) 27W
• Core Solo T1300 (1.66GHz) 27W
• Core Duo T2600 (2.16GHz) 31W

And that's as fair of a comparison as possible.

Your comparison is unfair, inaccurate, and incomplete. You didn't include any links to where you got your numbers, overstated the Core Solo's power, and didn't include the Celeron M (which is based on the Pentium M core) or Core Duo. You also neglected to include the low power versions of the Intel CPUs.

Here's my attempt to make your comparison more fair and complete:

AMD (W = Thermal Design Power)

• LP mSempron 3300+ (2.0GHz) 25W
• Turion MT-40 (2.2GHz) 25W
• Turion ML-44 (2.4GHz) 35W
• LP mAthlon 64 3000+ (2.0GHz) 35W

vs Intel (W = Thermal Guideline)

• Celeron M LV 383 (1.00GHz) 5.5W
• Celeron M 360 (1.4GHz) 21W
• Celeron M 390 (1.7GHz) 27W
• Pentium M LV 778 (1.6GHz) 10W
• Pentium M 765 (2.10GHz) 21W
• Pentium M 780 (2.26GHz) 27W
• Core Solo T1300 (1.66GHz) 27W
• Core Duo T2600 (2.16GHz) 31W

Yeah, .NET alternative, whatever. Wake me up when I can actually run the current Oracle database release on the current hardware from Sun! We just bought a bunch of Sun's new dual-core AMD boxes and we have to install Linux on them to run Oracle 10g in 64-bit mode -- Solaris AMD64 support is supposed to come "in the first half of 2006." Kind of sad considering the way Sun and Oracle sing each other's praises all the time. Scott McNealy even spoke at an Oracle conference over a year ago about how Solaris 10 was the Oracle platform of choice! Um, yeah, right, if it actually worked it might be.

Read about the benefits Intel ascribes to 64-bit software here. "Processors with Intel EM64T support 64-bit capable operating systems from Microsoft, Red Hat and SuSE." And you won't be able to run them.

There are some applications where a 64-bit CPU can perform FOUR TIMES more work in 64-bit mode than 32-bit mode. One of these is big integer multiplication. Check out Is 32 bits really better than 64?": "If we instead would compare an Athlon XP and an Athlon 64, the latter would be almost 4 times faster. Why 4 times and not just 2 times? Because a 64x64=>128 bit integer multiplication actually performs 4 times more work than a 32x32=>64 bit integer multiplication!"

If you want a low power 64-bit CPU consider an AMD Turion based notebook. Check out this article and its conclusions. In particular, "A lot of people see Dothan's 27W TDP & Turion ML's 35W TDP and assume that Dothan is automatically lower power. Intel computes thermal design power as 75% of the maximum load on the chip, while AMD's TDP rating is derived from the absolute worst case power dissipation of the chip. Part of the total system power is also incorporated into AMD's TDP, as the memory controller is located on-chip. Intel's memory controller is built into the chipset and thus draws power not calculated as part of Dothan's TDP. Also while Turion 64 is at idle (800MHz clock speed), it's performance is likely to be higher due to the higher bandwidth data bus. All of these factors contribute to Turion 64 being more power efficient under low load circumstances."

And the -MT Turions have even lower power consumption: AMD Turion 64 specifications.

My next notebook will not be constrainted to only running x86-32 software.

I agree completely. Why on earth go with a 250Mhz arm for the processor? That's 5 year old tech at least. For maybe 50 bucks more they could be running AMD Geode x86 at 1Ghz at least. The thing would be a PC you could hold in your hand. You wouldn't have to port anything to it. Every linux distro would work straight from the iso images. Wine and Windows XP would run on it. And software you could buy at CompUSA. All major GPS software would work on it. It would be a no-compromises handheld.

the MT-40 turion is 2.2ghz at less than 25W
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInforma tion/0,,30_118_12651_12658,00.html

compare that with intel's P-Ms which go up to 27W
http://processorfinder.intel.com/

then factor in that the turion wattage includes the very hot memory controller and the PM doesn't, since its on-die for amd chips but on the chipset for intel chips.

therefore amd has the power/heat lead in laptops. they've had it in everything else for a while now.

Actually, in the last couple of models, AMD has been making huge strides in reducing the heat dissipation of their models, beating intel pretty often. Wikipedia has an article showing some of the heat dissipation details..: Wikipedia.
But then again, given that the specs of the notebook show it to be a 500 MHz machine, it is true that the Intel chips of that time were more thermally efficient as show by these websites: Intel CPU thermal ratings and some others including many AMD cores. But then again, we have the AMD Geode that consumes max of 4 watts at 500 Mhz. So... it's really something that AMD is just as competent at I presume.

Some Anonymous Coward wrote:"why the US is in the forefront of technological innovation and Argentina is not." The US used to be in the forefront of technological innovation. That is long past. Now the US is in the forefront of litigation. M$ comes to mind. Bloat and obsolescence are honoured in the US. Check out Asia. M$ is in rapid decline there. The top reason for businesses to switch to Linux is that their competitors have switched and they are at a disadvantage without using Linux. M$ is selling 20th C products in the 21st C. That doesn't fly well. The rest of the world will eat them for lunch. Look at automobiles. The US is still using gas guzzlers. Look at steel. etc. Look at Intel. They are selling their chips at a very high price compared to AMD for similar performance and using more power, too. Intel is going down because the world can see they are second rate. Both of these US corporations do most of their business outside the US and are essentially global e.g. http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/manufacturing/ manufacturing_at_a_glance.pdf http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/AboutAMD/0,,51_ 52_502,00.html The cyclotron going to Alaska is sixties technology. It produces only a little gamma radiation if C12 blocks are used to prevent neutron emission. It should have some concrete shielding or be placed underground. Very little chance of environmental contamination. Internal parts may be readioactive.

Eh?

The SEC Safe Harbour statement and disclosure is pretty much boilerplate that appears almost everywhere.

Sounds like someone needs one of these!

IF one knows that one wants a machine that will run "new" release programs in 3 years, that means AMD64, rather than 32-bit
( compatibility-problems, as-in programs simply not running, have been found on the Intel implimentation of x86_64 )

That cuts down the field greatly.

THEN, one looks at whether the thing is guaranteed to be wordprocessing-only
( or equivalent non-taxing, ie NO multimedia-rendering or vid-conferencing, ferinstance ),
and one can sanely go with single-channel-RAM ( socket 754 ),
rather-than dual-channel-RAM ( socket-939 or socket-940 )

THEN once looks at what kind of expandibility one may need, later. . .
Video-card?
No-longer does AGP count ( they aren't making top-end ones anymore, and soon won't be making middle-of-the-road ones, either! ),
so one requires PCIe ( PCI-Express ) 16x on the motherboard.

Does one want to be forced to find a firewire-card to add-in later? or does one want everything built-in?

Does one want the ability to add-in PCIe add-in cards for, say, high-end-audio, or for video-capture, or for ANYTHING?

one needs PCIe slots, then, too ( PCI is going the way of the dodo )

All in all, the one mobo I know-of, that at-the-moment covers it ( including a 4x PCIe slot, for later! ),
is by MSI http://www.msicomputer.com/index2.asp

Unfortunately, it's got a fan on the chipset,
so it's an on-when-one-uses-it cheap workstation-board,
rather-than an always-on everything-server-board
( fans die after however many running-hours they happen to survive )

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?mode l=K8N_Neo4_Platinum&class=mb

Abit's got one that is missing the PCIe 4x slot, but that has no chipset-fan, called the
Abit AN8 Ultra
http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/techspec.php?c ategories=1&model=278

Right, that's the mobo, howabout the CPU?
syncronous-with-the-RAM is a good rule

IF the mobo can deal-with PC3200 RAM ( these 2 can ), then that means the RAM's communicating-speed is 400MHz ( rather-than, say, 333MHz )
Since there isn't any valid thing as 1/3 of a wait-cycle ( it's either 0 or it's 1, with computers ), I want the CPU's actual physical speed to be a multiple of that, like say 2000MHz.
That gets the speed, so what choices are there?
cheap, and I wasn't able to get-one, is the
SDA3400DIO28W Sempron 3400+ Socket 939 ( the "3400+" is the approximate equivalent in Intel-speed, known-as its "rating" )
More expensive, and having more on-chip cache-memory, is the
2.0 GHz 939-pin Athlon 64 3200+
Ultimate capability would-be the X2 chip ( 2 Athlon64 cores in one chip, so when one program is swamping one core, the system still responds )
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInforma tion/0,,30_118_9485_13041%5E13076,00.html
shows that cheapest multiple-of-400MHz X2 chip is the "3800+" and the highest-end is 2.4GHz "4800+"
Hit http://www.pricewatch.com/ to discover what sane-prices are for the things, but be sitting-down when you see the highest-end ones. . .

Case? Aluminum. That keeps hard-drives cooler ( whole case acts like a nice-big heatsink ).
Make decorations for it using pipecleaners & a hot-melt-glue gun, if you want. . . : )

Video-card?
IF you want quiet, go for ATI rather-than NVidia ( fan-speed, I'm talking about, here ),
and if you want cheap, grab some X300 or something,
the higher-end cards the X800 XL is a very good bu

Only 39 days left for the AMD vs. Intel dual core duel. Help them and sign the petition.

AMD has also published why they think that Intel will not participate...

Only 39 days left for the AMD vs. Intel dual core duel. Help them and sign the petition.

AMD has also published why they think that Intel will not participate...

According to Gateway executives, their company has paid a high price for even its limited AMD dealings. They claim that Intel has "beaten them into 'guacamole'" in retaliation.

Companies listed in AMD's lawsuit as being strong armed by Intel include Dell, Sony, NEC, Hitachi, HP, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Gateway and Supermicro. Believe me, AMD did not bring this lawsuit without merit; Intel has been strong arming computer makers, motherboard makers and retailers to not carry or to limit AMD products for years. And bringing the suit has forced Intel to ease up on their tactics and opened up the market. Supermicro refused to make motherboards for Opteron, now they do. Shelf space at Best buy has increased for AMD products since the lawsuit; Gateway bought emachines and now carries AMD again, etc.

Here's AMD's press release on the lawsuit.
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoo m/0,,51_104_543~99713,00.html