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Muscle Cars And Smokin' Chips
YetAnotherGeekGuy writes "IEEE Computer has an article this month, "The Zen of Overclocking" by Bob Colwell. In it the author compares overclockers to hot rodders (which, in my personal experience, are two sets with a significant intersection). More importantly he talks about the phenomenon, the culture, the attitude, and the natural tension between them and the industry in the quest for the right balance between performance and reliability. Thought-provoking, and some good one-liners. Enjoy!"
My dad and I were talking with some friends, and I realized a huge "generation" gap.
They were telling a story about the struggle to drop an engine into a classic muscle car without a lot of room.
My dad and I countered with a story about the problems with seating some RAM in a motherboard without a lot of room.
Computer Geeks - the gearheads of the future.
Glad to see that I'm not the only one who has been thinking that.
Ever since the first time I read about someone cutting a case open and putting plexi glass on the side with IDE cables in coloured tubes and neon lights that pulse to the sound of the games, the only thing I could think of at the time was the customized car scene.
I think you'll also find that the current crowd of 4 cylinder hot rodders are also the same kids who'll customize their computers.
Fascinating to see what once was the realm of geekdom now becoming quite mainstream.
Me too... I got more speed out of my 486 DX-2/66 by down-clocking it. The motherboard supported running at 50mhz (with no clock multiplier, this led to faster memory access).
c) The real overclokers, and the hot-rodders, who push the boundaries of their chosen field, and are really into getting the most performance from their machines.
d) Ricers. People with "Type R" stickers, big wings, windows in their cases, clear fans, and who think neon has any place apart from outside a strip-joint.
I kind of have a problem with this.
Yeah, i'll say that I could equate "ricers" with people who buy a windowd case for their celeron 1700 with onboard video. I'll give you that.
However, I always split up the overclocker-slash-hotrodder into two camps:
Muscle Cars - These people use Intel processors. Their processors are almost hopelessly inefficient, huge, expensive, not very intelligent, and run hot. However, they make it all up in raw speed (displacement / horsepower equal to clock cycles)
Street Racers - These people are the Honda crowd. They buy AMD's because they're cheaper and more intelligent. They know that the clock cycles don't mean as much when your processor isn't able to do as much with them. They value technology over raw power. However, technology only can go so far - currently, the 2.2L VTEC, even when boosted, can't compete with the 460 big block.
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First off, since the author worked for Intel over a long period of time, I wouldn't call him the most unbiased of observers... And his claim that he's just an engineer seems rather odd as well. The computer engineers I know are probably more interested in making things run as fast as possible.
Secondly, there isn't this automatic corellation between overclocking and instability. Sure, it's less stable if one takes it too far, but the way modern processors are made, most lower-speed processors are capable of running with their higher-speed brethren. Sure, if one buys the latest and greatest, it probably isn't going to go very far. But when the P4 and 2.4 GHz is identical to the one running at 1.8 GHz but for the multiplier, it's another story.
I overclock my processor and video card to avoid having to buy a more expensive component. I don't go too far, don't overvolt the processor too much, etc. So I don't have any instability issues. Yet I still run my components about 25% faster.
In my youth I was a hot rodder. Then race car mechanic and crew chief(on outlaw sprint cars). Now I'm a programmer who tweeks the components to get the best performance at home. Looks are ok but performance is the deal.
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I used to play in a band with a guitar player who was borderline obsessive about his equipment, particularly his guitar. He was constantly swapping out his pickups, trying new necks, bridges, nuts, and machine heads. It got to the point where he was replacing the capacitors and potentiometers in his guitar with precision components.
Don't get me wrong, he was an excellent player. None of this detracted from his practicing or performing. And this, I think, is the key: as good a player as he was, I believe that he felt that he was just a hardware upgrade away from excellence, at least in his own self-assessment.
For the most part, I think that most overclockers, hot rodders, or builders of Frankenguitars are hobbyists, for which these things are an end unto themselves. But there are a few people who do this believe that by building these things their skills, driving or gaming or shredding, will be unleashed, unencumbered by the limitations of their gear.
k.
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When I first overclocked my Packard Bell 486sx-20 to 33Mhz, I had no idea you could do it. I was just messing around with it. I didn't have a name for it.
I used to go to the local computer shows and tell all the vendors "Hey, you can run that 25Mhz chip at 33 if you just set the jumper." Nobody believed me.
Years later, when the internet started going and all the "pc review" web sites appeared, it became all the rage and they called it overclocking. Woo.
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The model T engine had a 2.8 liter engine and put out a whopping... 22hp.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
It's funny... My friends and I are into both cars and computers. I'm thinking of one friend in particular who has the fastest car in the crowd... he is also the only one among us who likes to overclock his stuff. It all started a few years ago when he had a motherboard that allowed him to set the speed with some jumper settings. He said, "Hmmm... This CPU is only supposed to go up to X mhz" (I think it was, like, 233 or something) "but let's put it on 300 and see what happens." Apparently, it worked fine, so he's been pushing his computers ever since.
Funny thing about reliability vs. performance, too: Among our group of friends, he has had the most hard drive disasters, and has also had the most transmissions break in his car (physically break--as in a loud BAM!!! from power-shifting too much). Both are mechanical systems... I wonder if there is any correlation.
On the other hand, there are programmers who don't know a screwdriver from an impact wrench, and there is the story I recently read about how new cars' computer codes frustrate mechanics. Most of these guys are purely mechanically inclined. I think there is a serious need for people in each of these two industries to familiarize themselves with the other.
Ok, that's enough rambling.If you're really hip you don't overclock your CPU - you undervolt it, so that you can make your rig super silent by skipping the fan on your CPU cooler.
The cost and chance of theft are the main factors. My Jag costs several times what the wife's VW does on insurance.
Overclocking and engine tweaking are very much alike because they are both almost completely pointless and significantly reduce the lifetime of the machine.
The main reason to get a performance car is handling. It does not matter what you do to the engine, the ability to turn corners will not improve.
Of course there is a lot that can be done to improve the handling of a US built car, most have abysmal suspensions and terrible steering. My wife used to drive an Omni that her father had given her. The thing felt like it was close to tipping over when you went round an off ramp. Somehow it managed to have understeer AND oversteer at the same time. It was like there was whiplash in the steering, first the thing did not want to turn, then the back end would kick round. This type of behavior was happening at like 30 to 40 mph. Later she was given a Horizon (same car) of the same vintage - just as bad.
I don't think the SUV craze cold have happened the same anywhere else. You have to start with a tollerance for bad suspensions to end up paying $60K for a delivery truck with leather seats.
Given the choice of speed or handling I will pick handling every time.
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Now let's come back to the cost to performance analysis from a different angle; Something other than drag racing. It is downright expensive to make a Mustang handle well. First of all only the top end models have come with IRS, and without IRS you don't have handling on uneven surfaces, period. You can argue the point, but when you're making camber switches (as in, the road comes up one way and falls down another) under power, you need IRS. Second the car is heavy and you simply need to reduce that weight as much as possible. The more weight you want to drop, the more it costs. Meanwhile Japanese cars made twenty and more years ago (240Z, anyone?) can outhandle the most modern Mustang GT - and that's not even the example of prime handling.
So, the point is, it's a question of what you want and what you want to spend on it. You can spend $35,485 to get a Mustang Cobra SVT (390HP) or you can spend $31,670 on a Subaru WRX with 300HP, spend the other $3k on chip, turbo, cam, and fuel system upgrades, bump it to around 375-400hp, and go blow away the mustang. The point is that for the same price as a stock american car you can cleanly improve a japanese car to the point where it will kick the shit out of the american one.
Now if you are into hobbyist hot rodding, which is to say on the cheap, then American cars have the distinct advantage of being inexpensive, numerous, and pre-smog (for Californians.) There's just not that many interesting early Japanese cars. There's the 240Z, for example, and they are fairly numerous, but there's not THAT many of them. But the other advantage of American cars is that there's a lot of them around here, and they tend to use the same or similar parts over their lifespans. For example in a lot of these motors you can get a crank out of a motor that used the same block with a different bore and stroke, and the heads off a third motor which also used the same block, and make some frankenstein motor with high compression utilizing only stock parts found in a junkyard, and doing some machining/having it done. The machining jobs are necessary on any kind of vehicle so that's no shock. I'm probably going to have the reciprocating assembly on my 2.4 liter balanced; forged rods and pistons are expensive! I can't imagine buying eight forged rods and pistons, plus all the other hardware. It costs enough to do a four cylinder.
So, in summary: Muscle cars don't handle. The ones that think they do are wrong. They do have their advantages, especially for straight-line driving, but please do try to remember that weight works against you and some of the most insane drag race times (outside of top fuel) have been set in CRXs. Of course, they had american engines in 'em... But then again Jun has a 1,600 horsepower nissan skyline, and it still looks like a (really slick) street car. Argh, I'm getting tangiential again. If you want to go fast in a straight line cheap, American cars do that better than anyone. If you want to go fastest around corners though, Japanese is the only choice.
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The big difference is that when you're racing a car it's usually an adrenaline rush. I have yet to have a huge adrenaline rush from squeezing an extra 100 MHz out of my 1.8 GHz athlon xp.
I absolutely LOVE to race cars. However, it's irresponsible and dangerous on the street. I can't afford the tickets/jail time and the track is too far away. Soooo... I rarely race. Every once in a while if I'm out on an open road I'll do a 0-100 just to keep the memory fresh or take the corners at speeds well above the posted speed limits. But I'm married with responsibilities and not an endless pile of cash so modding PCs is safer and much much much cheaper.
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