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AMD Athlon MP 1800+ Processor Review
Lars Olsen writes: "Amdmb.com has posted a review of the new AMD Athlon MP 1800+ processor -- a big speed jump for the dual Athlon processor family with the new processor running at 1.53GHz. There are also 1600+ and 1500+ Athlon MPs available as well right away at stores around the World.
Dual AMD Goodness is now running just as fast as its desktop counterpart ! Here's a quote: 'Those of you who want to jump into the dual processing Athlon world will finally be able to do so with the knowledge that your processors are the top speed that the Athlon family has to offer. And for anyone who already has a Tyan Thunder or Tiger MP board and a pair of Athlon MP processors, you may just want to pop a couple of these new Athlon MP 1800+ CPUs in your system to boost performance.'" Some of the comments following yesterday's "dream system" article addressed dual-Athlon complications, so make sure you read before you buy.Update: 10/15 15:14 GMT by T : Check below for LinuxHardware.org's take on this chip, and Athlon MP systems in general as well.
Augustus writes "LinuxHardware.org takes a look at the Athlon MP platform under Linux and the newly released Athlon MP 1800+ is included. Covered in this article is not only the technology and performance of the AMD-760 MP chipset and the Tyan Thunder K7 motherboard but we also look at why anyone would consider a multi-processor system."
Well at least I can still count on my fingers how many GHz we have achieved. I suppose when/if these quantum-based computers come about (on a large scale), I'll have to have an infinite number of fingers all representing the possible states of the processer
Hey all you /. people with a fab, here's a fun idea to piss off intel and AMD. Make the clock/speed irrelationship totally obvious.
:)
Imagine an x86 compatible processor that runs at a clock speed of 50ghz? That's right, fifty BILLION hertz! Now, that clock only ever hits a counter that lets the 8086-compatible processor cycle once every half to full second. You could get a whopping 1-2 IPS
You'd be able to make millions selling 8086's that use the first 640k of a bunch of 128 meg chips, and the first 40 megs of a 400 gig hard drive. Think of the possibilities!
"Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
Even if it was the Athlon "Bill Gates Special Edition?"
- Freed
"Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love." -Turkish Proverb
For your convenience, here is a list of other things you should avoid buying because they have "fatal flaws":
You're right, they could cut their polygon count down to a quarter of what it is now, precache almost everything (quadrupling the amount of hard disk space used) and probably use 50% of the CPU they use now. Game developers really are into severely optimizing their code, especially those programmers dealing with graphics; They're usually trying to find ways to optimize every single action.
On the other hand, as others have pointed out, the only way to really optimize the hell out of something is to write it in assembler. That makes any large codebase pretty much unusable.
The biggest thing game developers could do right now to improve game performance is to use really excellent multi-res in a game. Multi-res is a process where, when used to its fullest, lets you start with very high polygon models for everything, and the game engine will reduce the polygon count one vertex at a time, in some cases all the way down to a single polygon. When done right this will let you draw amazingly complex scenes without slowdown; The computer can tell more or less what you're looking at and decide what needs lots of polys.
Unfortunately, even those games which are using multires are using a low-rent version where they pre-reduce the vertex count, so you still "pop" from model to model. It's getting better, though.
The best thing about multires of course is that you don't have to precompute things, like BSP-based schemes, and that it will make the best use of your graphics hardware, while still running well and looking good on lower-end hardware. On the other hand, your graphics card had better handle lighting pretty damned well. Since you can get a GEForce MX400 card for less than $100 (Or a GF2 for about $150) that's really not much of an issue these days.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
My grandmother was compiling X the other day on her P166 and she's like, "Goddammit! Git me one of those Amdy Altheron processors!"
-J
Is there any software currently available that requires this kind of speed?
Windows.
Is Intel paying you directly or thur alternative sources? ;) Yeah, it was fantastic at E3 when they couldn't show me a Black and White demo on the P4 when it kept blue screening. That was fantastic! Anyway, go ahead, pay twice as much, get 2/3 of the performance in a server. I'll happily serve a million plus sessions a month on my little Athlon 900.
ignorance is bliss. googlefiberatx.com