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Intel Demos 4.7-GHz Pentium
richmlpdx writes "Silicon Strategies has an article about Intel's latest demo...
"Providing a sneak preview of its future developments, Intel Corp. here today demonstrated its fastest microprocessors to date--a 4.7-GHz chip for high-end desktop PCs.""
The answer is yes and no. For any application that is doing massive ammounts of number manipulation on a small and colocated set of data (i.e. cachable) you will see performance at approx 4.7x10^9 operations per second. This is for the most part completely unrealistic since today's data applications usually operate on large quantities of data that are spread out through memory. For the average case, the computer will operate at somewhere over the speed of the Front Side Bus (FSB) which is still running close to the same speed it has been running at for the past 4 years. You will indeed notice a speed increase due to any computations that do not require the use of the FSB, but it will probably only be around 50% faster as opposed to 400% faster. The intuitive reader will note that the jump from a 100MHz to 400MHz processor was also limitted by the FSB and thus did not acheive a 400% increase in speed.
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky
Hmm.. Well, AMD's Barton core that's supposed to be released in October or so still use a .13 micron die (mostly "just" 512Kb L2 cache and 333Mhz FSB). And I thought that was the core they were going to live on until the Hammer processors. :-/
:)
.09 micron Athlon XP's and Clawhammer models overlapping each other throughout 2003, although it *seems* unlikely since the Clawhammer (at least the initial models) also use a .13 micron die. Much like if the tech isn't quite there yet for affordable prices.
Sure, they *could* manage to start manufacturing the Truly Final Non-Hammer Core sometime in mid-2003, but by then the Hammers should be out (?) and I'd definitely go for and AMD Athlon (Clawhammer) 3400+ in Q1 2003. Mwhaha
But they might plan on having
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I think the P3 pipeline had 10 stages, while the P4 had 20. So the problem with branch predictions are the Pentium 4's problem. ;-)
But what about the P4's Hyper Pipeline tech that allow it to do 3 pipeline stages per clock cycle? The P4's Branch Prediction Unit (BPU) is also said to be improved by around 30% when compared to the one found in the P3. Perhaps these improvements even things out a bit while still making it easy to achieve high clock speeds?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Does rapid improvement in processor technology cancel out the need for developers to learn how to write better code on a particular platform in order to achieve the maximum possible benefit from Information Technology?
No, that's
It's no longer practical to hand-code assembler for speed: chances are your C compiler will do it much better than you can and in a fraction of time, too. Nowadays if you get the basic algorithms right your compiler should do all the rest. (And if it doesn't, go contribute to gcc until that does.)
You must keep in mind that on these old (archaic =P ) systems you referred to in your post every program was tiny, so optimizing the whole program to waste no CPU-cycles was still feasible.
Nowadays it would be pure madness to even attempt to optimize a program the same way as 'back then'. Programs simply have become too large (size and features) and too complex to begin optimizing them in the same manner.
Not to mention the fact that the average system in use today is simply overkill for 99% of all applications.
Sure, it would be possible, but would it be worth it? It would cost lots of money, take more time of larger development teams, driving up the costs of software.
Optimization is a good thing, but only up to a certain point, beyond which it just doesn't make any sense.
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Right you are. And any editor worth his salt might have noticed that this news is several weeks old. The article is dated (09/09/02 06:04 p.m. EST)
This was part of Paul Otellini's keynote at the Intel Developer Forum. Just the boys in the lab showing that they can overclock with the best of them.
No, the point is that Intel's showing off of an overclocked CPU that is just barely stable at approximately 4.7Ghz and the news media is reporting it as if this was going to be a readily available packaged processor rating within a short period of time.
In reality it is more like reporting that Kyle over at [H]ard|OCP managed to get a few samples of P4 CPU's to run at 4.68 Ghz for a few minutes without it crashing.
There is nothing evil about Intel overclocking their own hardware, but it is getting totally misrepresented as an actual new product. Which it is not.
Once more unto the breach dear friends...
So, when I said two out of three ain't bad, I meant there is no way in hell an anniversary PC would give you a choice of OSes. Microsoft just wouldn't permit it.
p.s. No, it's not that funny. I have no idea why it's easier to get slightly humorous posts modded up to a 5 but posts with serious thought and hopeful insight in them never get modded up or often get modded down by someone who just doesn't agree with you.
Whatever, not like it all matters anyway...