Slashdot Mirror
Overclockers Top 6GHz With A 3.6GHz-Rated P4
sH4RD writes "The 6GHz barrier has been broken by two guys, a little LN2 (liquid nitrogen for those not as chemistry inclined), and an Intel Pentium 4 (Prescott) 3.60GHz. Check out some icing and some proof of speed. Better yet take a look at how fast it calculates pi. Also be sure to check out the original announcement."
I sure hope they were using Gentoo, because if not they couldn't take advantage of those incredible speeds with some hot -O3 -funroll-loops action :P
:P
In all seriousness, this is pretty amazing, but I can't really see the usefulness. For sheer geek pride, sure, why not? But as far as I can tell the expense involved outweighs any gain in performance; for probably half of what these poor folks spent getting a P4 to run stably at 6 ghz (and it doesn't even sound super-stable from what I've read) they could've probably bought a couple more CPUs and had a proper SMP system instead. Regardless, I admire their tenacity and mourn for the warranty on their poor CPU
So P4's double clock their ALUs - that means that ALU is shifting at > 12GHz.
Welcome to measuring your operations in picoseconds.
With winter coming and the price of oil approaching $50, you can now safely turn off your heater and just point the vent of your 6Ghz P4 into the middle of the room...or maybe run a venting system off of it connected to the heat ducts in your house...
ok, yes, doom 3 has some pretty high sys requirements to run smoothly, but isn't this going a wee bit overboard?
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
So it tops 6 GHz, but they only calculate pi at 5.4 GHz? Sounds like the only thing it can run at 6 GHz without crashing is CPU-Z...
I think we need to stop making our computers go so fast. We're only making things easier for Skynet.
GE/S/P a- e++ y-- r-- s:++ d+ h! X+++ t++ C+ P+ L++ E W++ w M-- V? PS+ P+
I hope it's a substantial improvement over my machine... Seems like I've been waiting forever for it to finish...
but don't worry I got a copy.
3.
1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679 8214808651 3282306647 0938446095 5058223172 5359408128 4811174502 8410270193 8521105559 6446229489 5493038196 4428810975 6659334461 2847564823 3786783165 2712019091 4564856692 3460348610 4543266482 1339360726 0249141273 7245870066 0631558817 4881520920 9628292540 9171536436 7892590360 0113305305 4882046652 1384146951 9415116094 3305727036 5759591953 0921861173 8193261179 3105118548 0744623799 6274956735 1885752724 8912279381 8301194912 9833673362 4406566430 8602139494 6395224737 1907021798 6094370277 0539217176 2931767523 8467481846 7669405132 0005681271 4526356082 7785771342 7577896091 7363717872 1468440901 2249534301 4654958537 1050792279 6892589235 4201995611 2129021960 8640344181 5981362977 4771309960 5187072113 4999999837 2978049951 0597317328 1609631859 5024459455 3469083026 4252230825 3344685035 2619311881 7101000313 7838752886 5875332083 8142061717 7669147303 5982534904 2875546873 1159562863 8823537875 9375195778 1857780532 1712268066 1300192787 6611195909 2164201989
3809525720 1065485863 2788659361 5338182796 8230301952 0353018529 6899577362 2599413891 2497217752 8347913151 5574857242 4541506959 5082953311 6861727855 8890750983 8175463746 4939319255 0604009277 0167113900 9848824012 8583616035 6370766010 4710181942 9555961989 4676783744 9448255379 7747268471 0404753464 6208046684 2590694912 9331367702 8989152104 7521620569 6602405803 8150193511 2533824300 3558764024 7496473263 9141992726 0426992279 6782354781 6360093417 2164121992 4586315030 2861829745 5570674983 8505494588 5869269956 9092721079 7509302955 3211653449 8720275596 0236480665 4991198818 3479775356 6369807426 5425278625 5181841757 4672890977 7727938000 8164706001 6145249192 1732172147 7235014144 1973568548 1613611573 5255213347 5741849468 4385233239 0739414333 4547762416 8625189835 6948556209 9219222184 2725502542 5688767179 0494601653 4668049886 2723279178 6085784383 8279679766 8145410095 3883786360 9506800642 2512520511 7392984896 0841284886 2694560424 1965285022 2106611863 0674427862 2039194945 0471237137 8696095636 4371917287 4677646575 7396241389 0865832645 9958133904 7802759009
9465764078 9512694683 9835259570 9825822620 5224894077 2671947826 8482601476 9909026401 3639443745 5305068203 4962524517 4939965143 1429809190 6592509372 2169646151 5709858387 4105978859 5977297549 8930161753 9284681382 6868386894 2774155991 8559252459 5395943104 9972524680 8459872736 4469584865 3836736222 6260991246 0805124388 4390451244 1365497627 8079771569 1435997700 1296160894 4169486855 5848406353 4220722258 2848864815 8456028506 0168427394 5226746767 8895252138 5225499546 6672782398 6456596116 3548862305 7745649803 5593634568 1743241125 1507606947 9451096596 0940252288 7971089314 5669136867 2287489405 6010150330 8617928680 9208747609 1782493858 9009714909 6759852613 6554978189 3129784821 6829989487 2265880485 7564014270 4775551323 7964145152 3746234364 5428584447 9526586782 1051141354 7357395231 1342716610 2135969536 2314429524 8493718711 0145765403 5902799344 0374200731 0578539062 1983874478 0847848968 3321445713 8687519435 0643021845 3191048481 0053706146 8067491927 8191197939 9520614196 6342875444 0643745123 7181921799 9839101591 9561814675 1426912397 4894090718 6494231961
5679452080 9514655022 5231603881 9301420937 6213785595 6638937787 0830390697 9207734672 2182562599 6615014215 0306803844 7734549202 6054146659 2520149744 2850732518 6660021324 3408819071 0486331734 6496514539 0579626856 1005508106 6587969981 6357473638 4052571459 1028970641 4011097120 6280439039 7595156771 5770042033 7869936007 2305587631 7635942187 3125147120 5329281918 2618612586 7321579198 4148488291 6447060957 5270695722 0917567116 7229109816 9091528017 3506712748 5832228718 3520935396 5725121083 5791513698 8209144421 0067510334 6711031412 6711136990 8658516398 3150197016 5151168517 1437657618 3515565088 4909989859 9823873455 2833163550 7647918535 8932261854 8963213293 3089857064 2046752590 7091548141 6549859461 63
Memory-bound applications will not show significant improvement. At 6 GHz, most applications become memory bound since memory becomes extremely slow in responding to the 6 GHz processor.
Has anyone liquid cooled the G5 and the Opteron driven them to 6 GHz? I bet that the G5 could crush the Pentium in performance since the G5 has a powerful floating point unit.
As the AC already said, it's not stable at 6Ghz, from the article:
:)
Not bench stable - just a screenshot record
The CPU powersupply seems to require quite a bit of modding in order to bench past 5.4GHz.
In other news, Microsoft increases Longhorn's recommended requirements to 7GHz.
No kidding. I could have told them that it was 3 and they would have saved so much time and money.
Waitaminute, waitaminute, waitaminute! They timed how long it took to calculate PI? That implies that it *FINISHED* calculating pi!
Now, THAT's "News for Nerds. Stuff That Matters"
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
Memorizing pi is easy, once you've learnt the pattern.
Why on earth would they go to the expense of an LN2 based system when they could just open a few windows.
Mozy, free online backup service
--
Looks like one of these doodads to me:
c z-booster.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory/display/o
Liquid nitrogen boils at -195.8 degrees C, which is cold enough to freeze propane into a solid (there's a fun experiment for you). Further, liquid nitrogen is not flammable, and presents no hazards other than asphyxiation and freeze damage. Nitrogen already makes up 80% of the air we breathe, so unless one works in an enclosed space with plenty of NL2 boiling off, it's tough to die from asphyxiation.
In other words, LN2 is colder, and won't blow up on you. I've used it for years, and have yet to get hurt by it. A little respect goes a long way.
MHz *does* matter. A 3GHz Opteron should be 2x as fast as a 1.5GHz Opteron (of course, that doesn't take into account the rest of the system - memory bandwidth, disk bandwidth, etc.)
The "MHz Myth" referrs to the fact that MHz is a poor metric to compare CPUs with. It's fair to compare a 3.2GHz P4 Prescott to a 3.6GHz P4 Prescott and expect that the 3.6GHz chip will be faster. What doesn't make sense is to comare a 3GHz P4 to a 2.4GHz Opteron and claim that the P4 is faster.
They're Finnish.
They don't need liquid nitrogen. Couldn't they have just put their PC outside?
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
I wrote a paper on Type I superconductivity (appears in metals when cooled to a few K of zero; ceramics are a totally different beastie) in school and got diverted into reading up on ultracryogenics for a few weeks - apparently at temps that low, you get all sorts of problems like extreme brittleness and differing rates of thermal expansion, the latter being a fairly major issue in designing an ultracryogenic system. There's a good chance the CPU die, wires, and case would all tear away from each other and destroy the thing. Not to mention that lead superconducts at 7.196K; i wonder what resistanceless solder would do to a mobo...
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Actually, he could be serious. There's a very simple formula for any arbitrary digit of pi in base 16.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
I wonder why people are more inclined to use something temporary like a liquid nitrogen bath, instead of keeping the LN2 cool with a stirling cryocooler. I mean, sure, a 6 gigahertz computer is neat and all, but what use is it if you can't take it to a LAN party?
I'm not too familiar with the terminology used in the cooling world, but 15 watts of cooling power at 77 kelvin (-196 deg C / -321 deg F) sounds like quite a bit of cooling power to me. I've often wondered why Stirling technology isn't used in air conditioners.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.