Slashdot Mirror

It looks like one video card is not going to cut it any more, at least for the hardcore gamers out there.

http://www.g4tv.com/freshgear/features/39129/USB_2 0_Versus_FireWire_pg3.html

http://www.barefeats.com/usb2.html"

http://www20.tomshardware.com/storage/20040402/fir ewire800-06.html

Those last two include FireWire 800 (1394b) and 400 (1394a)

Lian-Li make a sound-proof case. It's got sound padding round the inside and rubber seals round the door on the front.

It's not completely silent but it is a fair bit quieter, and it comes with a built in dust filter so it keeps the inside nice and clean too.

Yeah, like all those "neato" CPU's that will kill themselves and all your expensive equipment connected to it (ie. motherboard, cards, etc) if you remove the heatsink. It's a wonderful design for throwing away money.

The Opteron is the only one with thermal protection (versus Intel where every CPU since the P3 is protected). You're Athlon-64 will be more than happy to eat itself if your CPU fan dies.

No, it's not, but the fact that AMD is creeping into a market that Intel currently dominates, and AMD has already declared dominance in the gaming and server microprocessor market in 2004, so this could cause serious problems for Intel if the AMD chips turn out to perform better with less power than Intel's current offerings. Sure the processors are running at slower mhz speeds but as we all know a a slower mhz AMD processor can perform at the same level as a much faster mhz Intel processor

I just ran out of space on my old raid array (two 200GB drives in a gentoo linux machine with software raid 1 mirroring.) I also was inspired by the slashdot story about someone who did a iPod shuffle raid using a usb hub... and since I just ordered a mac mini, I wanted to do something similar, but with actual hard drives. The screenshots of the OS X raid configuration in the disk tool sold me on the idea.

I checked out Tom's hardware for hard drive enclosures that could power and connect some cheap 200GB Maxtor drives. link and decided on the Nexstar NST-350UF. Each enclosure is small, fanless, and has two firewire ports, so I can chain lots of drives as my raid array grows.

Newegg sells enclosures for about $45 and 200GB drives for about $105, so I'm starting off with 400GB raid5 (three drives) for about $350, and will be able to upgrade to 600GB for another $150 when I need to.

I'm anticipating a few problems... 7200rpm drives in fanless enclosures might not last very long... I ran them for 24 hours and they were pretty warm to the touch. Firewire adds a little latency on each access, and raid5 tends to access the drives as a set, so I might be creating a fast-as-oatmeal volume.

Wish me luck.

-Jim

SLI is apparently aimed at the same market as the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, and the Athlon 64 FX - namely, the crowd who views their synthetic benchmark scores as a sort of virtual penis. ...and the exceedingly small market of people that can build PCs without any budget limitations.

The current crop of video cards is hideously expensive. Where the last generation's flagship models weighed in around $500 at retail (the 9800 XT and 5950 Ultra), this new batch has seen the X850 XT Plantinum Edition retailing for $700 and the 6800 Ultra going for not much less. The "average" performers for this generation are in the high $200-$300 range.

Furthermore, SLI is a lot like SMP. First off, the game needs to actually be able to take advantage of it. Next, even if the game does, you're not seeing a linear performance boost; that is to say, if you've got a pair of 6800 Ultras, you're not going to see double performance. The rule of thumb is it'll boost performance by about 65% - sure, it's very substantial, but with the premium price on cards already, it's an even less worthwhile purpose. To top it off, you're going to be looking at an extra $50 or so on a motherboard with SLI, and who knows how much extra in cooling.

So, from a performance standpoint, SLI is obviously the king, but from a cost effectiveness standpoint, it's about as bad as it gets.

As for using SLI to level the performance field with mid-range and low-range cards, buying an SLI board with a pair of 6600GTs is going to run you, say, $600 ($200 for a mainboard, $200 for each card). That may actually be worth it, as you're going to drop the same amount of money on a 6800 GT & similar non-SLI board which will perform slightly worse.

But then, here's the problem with that: not only do games need to support SLI, but nVidia needs to write their drivers to support a specific game. Play a game that flies under nVidia's radar? Too bad, no SLI for you. Additionally, while a pair of 6600GTs perform marginally better than a single 6800GT right now, what's to say there'll be a great price point on this type of card for the next generation when you go to upgrade?

SLI's close to being worthwhile, but at the moment, I'd not bother with it. Maybe once the technology's more mature.

I hardly see how they will blow by sony if sony is going to use the Cell processor designed to get many teraflops. Links: Tom's Hardware about Cell Processor Cell Processor Explained Google News on Cell Processors Forum Topic about Cell Processors

XBMC (Xbox Media Centre) already does this. Tom's Hardware reviewed it a while ago. The CVS version has a lot more functionality now. I use it. Whatever Intel will come up with, I guarantee you that it will be in the hundreds of dollars. XBMC is here now, and the XBOX is cheap. Also, if it does not have the functionality that you want, you can contribute. If the XBOX does not have the hardware that you want, you can add it.

providing the performance of a typical 7200RPM desktop drive.

My next project is with a laptop screen and an overhead projector with a one of those builders halogen lights

Em, you've been beaten to it

(Well apart from the OTT bulb :)

Tom's Hardware also has "The Mother of All CPU Charts." Which is also a good read with many benchmarks.

It is crazy how far we have come.

-The only sig I have is a cig with a good single malt.

Actually, most PSU's die before they are out of spec

Interestingly, this has been getting better over the past few years.

And yes, Antec's have been the best pretty consistently. I did have a Verax that I swore by for a long time, until I plugged in a floppy disk drive one pin over to the side. To it's credit, the PSU died quickly and didn't damage any of the other components. I would still probably have a Verax if you could find them anywhere, as they were very low-airflow friendly.

Actually, most PSU's die before they are out of spec

Interestingly, this has been getting better over the past few years.

And yes, Antec's have been the best pretty consistently. I did have a Verax that I swore by for a long time, until I plugged in a floppy disk drive one pin over to the side. To it's credit, the PSU died quickly and didn't damage any of the other components. I would still probably have a Verax if you could find them anywhere, as they were very low-airflow friendly.

Actually, most PSU's die before they are out of spec

Interestingly, this has been getting better over the past few years.

And yes, Antec's have been the best pretty consistently. I did have a Verax that I swore by for a long time, until I plugged in a floppy disk drive one pin over to the side. To it's credit, the PSU died quickly and didn't damage any of the other components. I would still probably have a Verax if you could find them anywhere, as they were very low-airflow friendly.

I could misunderstand what power consumption means.

But this is where I got my numbers (from memmory and it was actually 40 watts)

here

If I am mistaken I would like to be corrected.

As reported on /. a while back. "Record Attempt: The 5 GHz Project"

Tom's Hardware had a roundup of 15 power supplies in January of 2004. Tom's review included things that trusted reviews left out such as noise levels. Tom's review can be seen here

Toms Hardware had a review a year ago. I've been happy with the Antec they reviewed. You know what they say, the best power supply is the one you never notice :-)
Review

That's the real problem with hyperthreading.... You really need 2 seperate caches or a muhc much larger one.

The jokes about the heat these puppies will pump out couldn't be more appropriate. An article at Tom's states that the Smithfield core has a thermal design power of 130W making it by far the hottest x86 CPU ever seen.

In contrast, AMD's dual core offering will offer no increase in TDP over their present single core designs.

Yeah, I found that confusing and made me take the rest of the article with a grain of salt.

Tom's Hardware and the Tech Report both had better reviews in my oppinion.

Heh. THG had a "First Look" three weeks ago. Whatever generates revenue, I suppose.

I didn't read the article (or the rest of the /. comments), but hard drives make much more sense than any optical storage medium in certain cases.

Media will always wear out, regardless of what type it is. When you have huge amounts of data to back up, it's much nicer to be able to copy it to the latest greatest storage medium quickly and efficiently. Thousands of CDs/DVDs even with an automated "disc changer" would take a hell of a lot longer to transfer than a bunch of servers with hard drives.

With a hard drive solution, you can just build a new server with new drives and copy everything over from the old one as fast as the hard drives and network allow. Couple this with RAID and multiple servers in different physical locations and you have a pretty damned resilient data archive. ... and just for fun, here's an (old) example of people using hard drives for large scale backups.

http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20030425/index .html

Actually, according to tomshardware
an athlon-xp 1800+ falls between a P4 2.2 and a P4 2.4 northwood in grunt. Going by the synthetic benchmark, the 1800+ is approximately 50% faster than the PIII 1.2.

That said, your radeon gpu will absolutely butcher the S3 using shared system memory. Depends on what your doing with the laptop as to which would be faster for your needs. If it's general desktop use, you would be better off with the walmart one with a memory upgrade. (Assuming it does come with USB, which I've never seen a laptop without). Sorry.

Whether the Mac Mini does better than the X-Box or not, the point is a GF3 (Tweaked, got some GF4 tech in it for the X-box) is better than a 9200. The difference in architecture/processors is one thing, but to say the Mac Mini's graphics card is purely better is wrong, shared bus or not.

As I much as I hate to link to Tom's Hardware, I feel I must. So go here and read. The GF3 in the XBox is basically a Ti500, and the 9000 is the 9200 (9200 is 9000 + 8xAGP, like that makes any difference).

Oh look, I don't see the ATi card beat the Ti500 anywhere.

Uhh.. what about Tom's Hardware?

-1 for you!!

Certainly none of the desktop-replacement Wintel laptops I've seen have that little volume--they're gargantuan. In fact, the only thing that would equal it is, well, a Mac laptop.

Well, then, perhaps you haven't seen this little gem?

It's quite small. It's light - definitely NOT "gargantuan".

And, It's full-strength. I bought one a year ago to replace my Athlon 2000+ - and it's suprprised me at how adept it is at it. I run Fedora Core 3 on it, and with VMWare, I routinely run 3 or 4 OS's at a time - and it handles it all with grace.

It amazes me to see so much in such a small package. Complete with Gb ethernet, 802.11g, and just about every other connection option possible built in. (No floppy - but the macs you're comparing this to don't have one either, and in any event, I've never missed it)

And, it seems that my observations are supported by other indendent scrutiny.

So, what's that you say?

Has intel even committed to keeping its single core chips to under 100 Watts?

I think not

Yamaha's CD writers burned a readable pattern into stock CDRs years ago. It was pretty readable! And the fact you didn't need special media made it practical.
This was in 2002, so I can't get excited about a 2005 burner that requires special and more expensive media.
You can read one review at Tom's Hardware archive.
http://www6.tomshardware.com/storage/20020927/yama ha-02.html

More important to me than the right mouse button is the mouse wheel. That is somthing that is hard to live without, and somthing that even the most brain dead person should be able to figure out.

But really, just cause Apple makes it, dosnt mean its good. Who would really rather have a one button mouse over 2-buttons-with-wheel goodness. Besides total idiots or pepople who use their foot to move the mouse, I can't see a good reason to use the one button. Especily among slashdot nerds with their 1337 skillz.

Check out some mouse pr0n

The Sonoma platform will be followed by the Napa platform. Napa will be followed by the Santa Rosa platform (Santa Rosa is a city in Sonoma County, not a wine region). According to Tom's Hardware, the platform preceding Sonoma had the code name "Carmel."

I bet this is all very uninteresting and off-topic. Go ahead and mod me down if appropriate.

And heat is the LAST thing we need in the CPU right now with this sort of heat issues on the top end. It's getting harder to keep these things stable as it is-- adding another major heat source right in the CPU would assuredly push past the line of what standard cooling can handle.

I dont think the Radeon 9200 is better than GeForce 3.
According to Tom's VGA Charts:
GeForce3 > Radeon 9000 Pro
and
Radeon 9000 Pro > Radeon 9200
Therefore, Geforce 3 > Radeon 9200. Its not a definite comparision but its what I found. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I dont think the Radeon 9200 is better than GeForce 3.
According to Tom's VGA Charts:
GeForce3 > Radeon 9000 Pro
and
Radeon 9000 Pro > Radeon 9200
Therefore, Geforce 3 > Radeon 9200. Its not a definite comparision but its what I found. Correct me if I'm wrong.

As I had mentioned in a previous comment, the front side bus speed is the biggest limiting factor on Pentium M processors. The day we see an 800MHz FSB Pentium M is the day the direct MHz comparisons will apply (i.e. 1.8GHz P-M vs. 1.8GHz A64). Even the Tom's Hardware Guide review of the new Sonoma chipset for P-M shows fairly marginal gains and proves the FSB is the limitation, PLUS they do the stupid thing here and put in DDR-2 which does little for performance but increases system costs.

Naah, the G4 won't get hot enough for that...

In that case he would want a PeeCee with one of these in it. They could connect the CPU via heat pipe to a griddle on the top of the box. Mmmmm.... hope you like your bacon crispy!

Imagine this with a high-performance SATA raid controller [1] [2], in an enclosure barely bigger than the 4 hard drives alone.

Someone knows here to buy this motherboard? What about practical experience with this sort of configuration?

Imagine this with a high-performance SATA raid controller [1] [2], in an enclosure barely bigger than the 4 hard drives alone.

Someone knows here to buy this motherboard? What about practical experience with this sort of configuration?

Actually, the CPU speed has a lot to do with graphics speed. If you look at recent performance charts for nVidia's high end GPUs in SLI setups you will find that their performance levels off unless you run the absolutely highest resoultion with top filtering and antialias settings. In fact, the high end cards are still CPU limited at the highest settings for many but the most recent games. [Tom's Hardware Guide]

In addition, programmers will always find things to do with additional CPU power. Ray traced occlusion culling to reduce the number of polygons sent to the GPU is one idea if you have extreme amounts of processing power just sitting around. That in turn would allow you to use extremely advanced pixel shaders as overdraw is almost eliminated. It would also allow you to add a few more polygons to every scene, knowing that most polygons are correctly culled.

The Pentium M, which is one third of the Centrino (the other two being the 855 chipset and the wireless LAN) is based off of the Pentium III. Tom's Hardware has an interesting write-up here.

If you want an odd analogy, try this:

Apple (well, IBM) has two processor varients: the G4 and G5. Intel had two processor varients as well: the Pentium 4 and the Itanium. Its an over simplification, but bear with me as it's about to get a whole lot more weird.

Imagine if the Itanium was so popular that it was selling enough to where dell was starting to use it in their budget machines. The only systems that were still using the P4 were the laptops and other ultra-condensed systems because the Itanium put out too much heat.

Let's say that Intel put's out the Centrino (Pentium M/Banias/whatever) in this environment. The public that's been demanding an Itanium laptop would tear it apart. There would be cries of "This is a step backwards!" and "I ain't using no P3 laptop in this day and age". It would take a marketing miracle to get this to sell.

Apple and IBM know that when people want a G5 laptop, you don't try to sell them a G3, even if it is a very advanced G3 that's better in many ways than your G4.

SOI is not patented by IBM. Only certain components of IBM's SOI technique are patented. Their most important patented SOI component is their SOI FET Design to Reduce Transient Bipolar Current.

Intel will most likely use their own SOI technology without needing "permission" from IBM.

Tom's Hardware has some good information about thermal loss. Notice that an idle AMD Winchester (SOI Athlon 64) loses only 3.2 watts, while the more recent P4 chips are losing > 34 at idle.

Notice that you compared the "Cool 'n' Quiet" versions of the AMD Winchester to the older P4s (D0 stepping) without Enhanced Halt State. The same page you referenced shows a 3500+ Winchester without "Cool 'n' Quiet" technology losing 11.1 watts when idle and a "more recent" 3.4GHz P4 550 chip (E0 stepping with Enhanced Halt State) losing 13.4 watts.

This number changes at load to 30 watts for the Winchester and 100+ watts for the P4.

Only for the fastest (3.8GHz) P4. The previously-mentioned 3.4GHz P4 550 (E0 stepping) loses 73.6 watts and a slower Prescott (3.0GHz) loses 59.3 watts.

I know the new Winchesters are a lot cooler than the new P4s at load, but you seemed to be greatly exaggerating in your comparison (especially at idle).

SOI is not patented by IBM. Only certain components of IBM's SOI technique are patented. Their most important patented SOI component is their SOI FET Design to Reduce Transient Bipolar Current.

Intel will most likely use their own SOI technology without needing "permission" from IBM.

Tom's Hardware has some good information about thermal loss. Notice that an idle AMD Winchester (SOI Athlon 64) loses only 3.2 watts, while the more recent P4 chips are losing > 34 at idle.

Notice that you compared the "Cool 'n' Quiet" versions of the AMD Winchester to the older P4s (D0 stepping) without Enhanced Halt State. The same page you referenced shows a 3500+ Winchester without "Cool 'n' Quiet" technology losing 11.1 watts when idle and a "more recent" 3.4GHz P4 550 chip (E0 stepping with Enhanced Halt State) losing 13.4 watts.

This number changes at load to 30 watts for the Winchester and 100+ watts for the P4.

Only for the fastest (3.8GHz) P4. The previously-mentioned 3.4GHz P4 550 (E0 stepping) loses 73.6 watts and a slower Prescott (3.0GHz) loses 59.3 watts.

I know the new Winchesters are a lot cooler than the new P4s at load, but you seemed to be greatly exaggerating in your comparison (especially at idle).

AMD is using a technology patented by IBM called SOI (Silicon on Insulator)... IBM is very unwilling to allow Intel to use this technology to solve their heat problems....

Tom's Hardware has some good information about thermal loss. Notice that an idle AMD Winchester (SOI Athlon 64) loses only 3.2 watts, while the more recent P4 chips are losing > 34 at idle.

This number changes at load to 30 watts for the Winchester and 100+ watts for the P4.

Looking back and comparing it to a P2-450 I once owned... the Winchester numbers are close.... and that machine had no fan (just a very large heatsink).

I'm not sure you could have a fully-loaded Winchester without at least some type of active cooling... but certainly the CFM required across a good heatsink would allow you for an almost silent fan.

Article doesn't say when this was written, but we're already beyond 3.4 ghz. You can but a 3.6ghz on Pricewatch right now and Tom's Hardware announced a 3.8 ghz being released way back in November 2004, so I don't know why the author is saying 3.4ghz is the top of the line currently and Intel will release a 3.73 ghz in 2005.

When was this written, early 2004?

I do have to laugh a little at it: "This article will appear in Dr. Dobb's Journal, 30(3), March 2005. A much briefer version under the title "The Concurrency Revolution" will appear in C/C++ Users Journal, 23(2), February 2005."

With the author saying "3.4 is out now and 3.73ghz early 2005" while everyone's upgrading to a 3.8 that's been out since 2004 it's gonna make that article look very old and inaccurate.

Of course, the submitter's reference to the Celeron was a joke (Turion = Asparagus, Celeron = Celery). I mostly agree that AMD has kicked Intel's arse in budget CPUs in the past. But I don't think AMD currently beats Intel in every budget segment.

Consider Anandtech's conclusion from a Sempron vs. Celeron test they did last July

Also consider current pricing (from Newegg) for the Sempron and the Celeron D. In Anandtech's benchmark results, the Socket 754-based Sempron 3100+ did beat the Socket 478-based Celeron D 335 in most of the bechmarks that count. However, the Sempron 3100+ costs $123/$108 (retail/OEM) while the Celeron D 335 costs $109/$89. The benchmarks also showed that the Socket A-based Sempron 2800+ ($109/$99) was about even with the Celeron D 335, but would you choose an aging Socket A platform (PCI, AGP, IDE, 333MHz FSB) over a modern platform (PCI Express, SATA, 533/800MHz FSB) that you can get with the Celeron D?

Of course, we're talking about building our own desktops, which is very different from what the big-name computer makers offer. Us home builders would choose nForce or 915 chipsets for Sempron and Celeron D CPUs. HP and Dell are more likely to offer VIA/SiS/ALi chipsets for Semprons and 865/845 chipsets for Celeron D. Ugh.

If I was building a budget desktop, I would choose a Socket 775-based Celeron D over a Socket A or Socket 754-based Sempron. I value the whole platform just as much (if not more) than the CPU itself. If AMD made a Socket 939-based Sempron, I'd reconsider.

I'll be interested to see how this unfortunately named "Turion" chip compares to the PentiumM.

Back to the article's topic (notebook CPUs), it looks like AMD will not have an answer to Intel's Celeron M. The Celeron M is based on the Pentium M core and performs almost equivalently clock-for-clock in Tom's Hardware benchmarks. Also note that Intel's Sonoma platform (533MHz bus, PCI Express, DDR2, GMA900 graphics, HD Audio) is about to be lauched.

Remember, RAID is your friend
http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20041006/image s/board-w-cards.jpg
why use one drive when you can use 32...

12/16ms optimal response time, yeah, which usually means from absolute black to absolute white. From any of the intermediate colours to another intermediate colour the times are going to be drastically slower. http://www.tomshardware.com/ has a couple of articles related to LCD response time and why the manufacturer's stated time is useless, since it is so far away from the response time of the display in practice.

You may be able to see traces of work being done on the top of the CPU, in the L3 and L4 bridges.

They are laser-cut at the amd factory to set the multiplier, and to be modified, the bridges which were cut would need to be filled in, and a conductive material painted on top.

This it how it's done, only in this case it is the L1 bridges that are joined, so that any multiplier can be set on the motherboard. You could do it with the L3 and L4 bridges to change to a set multiplier, which is probably what they do.

The bridges which were already joined but needed to be disconnected would be cut/drilled, I imagine that they wouldn't be using a laser like AMD do.

"There is often a misunderstanding in the market that leads to the misconception that Linux [driver development] is difficult," Tippett said.