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Pentium 4 Overclocked to 7.1GHz, Sets World Record

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the unstable-mutation dept.

Netmonger writes "This Japanese guy overclocked a Pentium 4 to 7.132GHz!! The system managed to calculate pi to 1 million decimal places in 18.516 seconds, setting the world's record." The article notes that a Pentium 4 had been overclocked faster earlier this year, but at that speed it was not possible for the machine to function beyond BIOS. Of course, they'd yet to try diverting power from the dilthium crystal reactor to the deflector array.

85 of 392 comments (clear)

  1. World record? by bcmm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    World record for the P4 or for a single x86 processor?

    --
    # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
    Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
    1. Re:World record? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes.

      He overclocked the Intel Pentium 4 670 processor with stock speed of 3.80GHz.

      The processor system bus was overclocked to 1520MHz.

      processor's voltage was pumped up to 1.70V, significantly higher than default setting; memory latency settings were CL4 3-3-4, memory voltage was set to 2.3V.

      Still no word on what his 3dmark2005 score was! (CPU and Total, of course)

    2. Re:World record? by 68K · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Exactly. I'm sure there are many supercomputers out there that can smoke this P4.

    3. Re:World record? by PsychicX · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My question is this. Tom's Hardware put a P4 under liquid nitrogen a while ago, put the northbridge chipset under a phase change compressor, and replaced the motherboard power converter in order to supply enough power to the chips, and they were only able to achieve 5.25GHz max. What did this japanese guy do different that gained him another 2.5 GHz? Is it entirely a result of using newer chips with new manufacturing technologies like Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI)? Or did this japan guy do something that Tom's didn't?

    4. Re:World record? by magarity · · Score: 3, Informative

      Calculating pi is a series of mathematical operations where you can't do the next one without the prior because you need the remainders. Supercomputers are super due to a heck of a lot of CPUs all working on different parts of a problem that can be broken into chunks. How exactly do you break a series of operations that depend on the priors into chunks for a supercomputer to rip through? So anyway, it looks like this calculating pi is a record in general, not for just a PC. It's a speed job for a single CPU.

    5. Re:World record? by keesh · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not true. You can get any digit in base 16 of pi without needing to know any other digit. This means you can get groups of digits in any base by only calculating a relatively small (maximum 16 * base) number of other digits in base 16 and converting.

    6. Re:World record? by pooly7 · · Score: 5, Informative

      That's not exactly true, you can compute the Nth binary digit of PI without the need of the previous one. Here is the guy who discover it : http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/pi/

    7. Re:World record? by BurntNickel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Calculating pi is a series of mathematical operations where you can't do the next one without the prior because you need the remainders.

      That's not entirely true. There exists a digit-extraction algorithm for computing pi starting at the nth digit, without the need to compute any other digits. The only catch is that it only works on base 16.

      --
      And the knowledge that they fear is a weapon to be used against them...
    8. Re:World record? by wfberg · · Score: 4, Informative

      Calculating pi is a series of mathematical operations where you can't do the next one without the prior because you need the remainders. Supercomputers are super due to a heck of a lot of CPUs all working on different parts of a problem that can be broken into chunks. How exactly do you break a series of operations that depend on the priors into chunks for a supercomputer to rip through?

      Use the BBP Formula. Pifast is just a benchark, like all benchmarks it's rather silly. The record is for PCs, the top 500 supercomputers are benchmarked using another silly benchmark (LINPACK).

      --
      SCO employee? Check out the bounty
    9. Re:World record? by MoonBuggy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm probably being very dumb here, but how come many machines on the pi_css5 page are doing it significantly faster than this? Is the method used in that program innacurate in some way?

    10. Re:World record? by shawnce · · Score: 2, Funny

      Likely "world record" in the same way that the hole in the wall, crappy food, taco place down the street is "world famous". ;-)

    11. Re:World record? by ArcticCelt · · Score: 5, Funny
      "The system managed to calculate pi to 1 million decimal places in 18.516 seconds"

      ...but still took 25 to open an Adobe Acrobat document!

      --

      Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
    12. Re:World record? by cperciva · · Score: 4, Informative

      Calculating pi is a series of mathematical operations where you can't do the next one without the prior because you need the remainders.

      Leaving aside the BBP algorithm which several other people have mentioned, you're mostly correct here.

      How exactly do you break a series of operations that depend on the priors into chunks for a supercomputer to rip through?

      But you're going a bit astray here. Large classical computations of Pi are exercises in performing big Fast Fourier Transforms; and there are very good algorithms for doing those in parallel. Using the AGM or a Borwein iteration, computing a million digits of Pi requires approximately 200 full-length FFTs plus some additional linear-time trivially parallelizable work.

      So anyway, it looks like this calculating pi is a record in general, not for just a PC.

      Give me a 4 processor 3.8GHz Pentium 4 system, and I can beat the reported time by a factor of two. If you can do parallel FFTs, you can do a parallel classical computation of Pi.

      --
      Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
    13. Re:World record? by jmak · · Score: 3, Informative

      Certainly not even for a single CPU. Performance of SuperPI (using Gauss-Legendre series) sucks by today's standards in comparison to the programs using Chudnovsky elliptic curve algorithm. QuickPI spits out 1 million digits in about 5 seconds on an Athlon-XP.

    14. Re:World record? by root_42 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes, but you still cannot do it in constant time. To compute the nth digit in base 10, you need at least quadratic time. So adding more CPUs to the calculation of Pi does not necessarily scale well.

      --
      [--- PGP key and more on http://www.root42.de ---]
    15. Re:World record? by ikkonoishi · · Score: 4, Informative

      I know you are joking, but try adobe liposuction

      It worked for me. I can open a pdf in less than the time it takes a politician to go from idealistic young upstart to corporate whore.

    16. Re:World record? by kesuki · · Score: 4, Insightful

      or course it doesn't scale well.

      quite frankly intel was supposed to be selling 6-7 ghz p4's around now... the fact that they can't but can be overclocked that fast is proof that the architecture was designed to run at those clock speeds, but that actually implementing that kind of clock speed would require insane cooling and power requirements that most sane people find unacceptable.

      --
      https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
    17. Re:World record? by suitepotato · · Score: 2, Funny

      They started Adobe Premiere on it yesterday and it is just about finished loading the plug-ins. That's record speed there.

      --
      If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
    18. Re:World record? by fireman+sam · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ah, I hate to tell you but politicians are always corporate whores.

      --
      it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
    19. Re:World record? by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I believe that since version 7, you don't need to do this since it does start up faster (I think it loads plugins on demand or something). It still works kind of sluggish though!

  2. But.,. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does it run... OSX86 ?

    Retep Vosnul

    1. Re:But.,. by uberdave · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Ah! Witness the emergence of a new Slashdot catchphrase.

      --
      "I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
  3. Slashdot memes by afd8856 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Getting ready for DNF?

    or:

    Couldn't get Vista Beta to boot?

    --
    I'll do the stupid thing first and then you shy people follow...
  4. Prove it by Danborg · · Score: 5, Funny

    Paste all the numbers here for verification please.

  5. That's cool but by notque · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How long can the machine last at that sort of overclocking? How much experience have others had with lifetimes of chips once you overclock them by a lot.

    --
    http://use.perl.org
    1. Re:That's cool but by Tx · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Fried a P4 1.8 running it at way over the recommended voltage for several months. But I doubt that guy is planning to run that thing constantly at 7.1GHz. He's got the bragging rights now.

      --
      Oh no... it's the future.
    2. Re:That's cool but by alragh · · Score: 5, Funny

      About 18.516 seconds by the looks of things

    3. Re:That's cool but by RipTides9x · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I kept a 1.0A Tualatin Celeron overclocked to 1.33Ghz for over 4 years running 24/7. (100Mhz FSB set @133). The only downtime was for cleaning/dusting of components. In order to get my overclock I, of course, had to crank the voltage up. But I had no problems with it running for so long on nothing more than a mundane aluminium Volcano7 HSF.

      With todays procs such an overclock might get a stifiled yawn from most people. But at the time that was pretty significant. I was limited from pushing it further only by the type of RAM I was running. In retrospect exotic ram and cooling would have probably let me push it alot further.

      The Tualatins were the most hardy and mature of the P3 line. Their life in the marketplace was cut short by the fact that clock for clock they could run circles around the first gen of Pentium4's running RDRam. Intel saw the writing on the wall, and not wanting to compete with itself, plans to take the Tualatins all the way to 2Ghz using DDR-Ram (rumored) were scrapped.

      In the end its not the processor that failed but the motherboard. Seems that pushing a system so far for so long does has its limitations. I was in the middle of transferring files from that computer over to another when the Tualatin system critical BSOD'd on me. Upon reboot I could still get into bios, but I quickly discovered it was a fatal BSOD, as both my IDE channels were gone. I could have easily got a non-Intel based replacement mobo, but there was no point in it as I was entrenched into the Athlon craze and had moved on several generations by that point.

      I ended up harvesting and parting out all the usable components, except for the processor itself, and old blue (named for its clear blue case) now resides, collecting dust, in my parents basement.

  6. Jesse James' calculator?? by gearmonger · · Score: 4, Funny

    Calculating Pi is good...but what FPS can it do in Battlefield 2?

  7. In related news.. by leathered · · Score: 5, Funny

    Overclocking experiment results in largest single release of thermal energy in Japan since 1945.

    Casualty figures as yet unknown.

    --
    For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
    1. Re:In related news.. by pwroberts · · Score: 5, Funny

      Some tasteful moderation there by whoever modded the parent "Flamebait"... ;-)

    2. Re:In related news.. by base3 · · Score: 2, Funny

      No shit. What the hell do we have here? Kamikaze moderators from the Imperial Japanese Air Force? Or a bunch of humorless fucking politically correct gits? Hard to tell. Anyways, I laughed my ass off. And no apologies to the simpering whiners out there who think I shouldn't.

      --
      One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
    3. Re:In related news.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Considering the two bombs dropped on Japan saved more lives, both American and Japanese, than they killed I find the comparisons to the holocaust and Indian slaughter to be simply ignorant of history. There were more lives lost in the fire bombings in Europe, but I don't see anybody complaining about that. It was an ugly war that was thankfully brought to an end.

      You should really use your head for more than a hat rack.

    4. Re:In related news.. by Xabraxas · · Score: 5, Insightful
      REALLY FUNNY considering we just had the anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Perhaps you want to joke about the Jewish holocaust or the slaughter of the Native American indians.

      It is really funny. Hell I even joke about the holocaust and Native American slaughter. Guess what, so do my Jewish and Native American friends. If you don't have a sense of humor then I pity you.

      I'm about as liberal as can be but I absolutely hate political correctness. It doesn't help anyone, it just gives some jerkoffs the opportunity to complain about trivial shit. If you really want to complain about something try taking a stab at shit that is going on now and affecting us now like the criminals in office and their illegal war, illegal torture, and illegal detention.

      --
      Time makes more converts than reason
    5. Re:In related news.. by joNDoty · · Score: 5, Funny

      One of my relatives died in the holocaust. It was a horrible, humiliating way to die -- he fell out of the guard tower.

      So please, don't ever joke about the holocaust.

    6. Re:In related news.. by birge · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Oh come on. It's so easy to excuse bad behavior by just claiming to do otherwise is politically correct. That's a cop out. Political correctness is when useful dialogue is stifled by group think. Not making jokes about Hiroshima is just about not being a complete insensitive asshole. You have to judge your civility by the feelings of others, not yourself, otherwise it's kind of pointless.

      Just because you find it funny (and I have no problem with that) doesn't mean everybody should. Claiming knowledge of a few jews who joke about the holocaust is about the stupidest reason to excuse public joking about it. I know people who like to have others shit on their chest, but I assume you'd take offense if I came over and took a steamer on you. Would it make a difference if I said "Look, you politically correct prude, I know people who love this! So just shut up and take the poop."

      I'm sick of people who act as if anything can be a public joke and anybody who disagrees is a prude. If you think that kind of stuff is funny (as do I), great. Tell jokes with your friends. But not everybody finds it funny, and you're stupid if you don't know that, and insensitive if you do. My guess is people who lost parents in Hiroshima don't find it funny. So, not making public jokes is really about being considerate, something I hope hasn't gone out of style.

    7. Re:In related news.. by stimpleton · · Score: 2, Funny

      Ok, you'll love this then.... In any converstion where Sept 11 is mentioned, I urge you you to say:

      "Ah, September 11, the day that the song "its rainng men" came to fruition".

      --

      In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
  8. and people womder... by C0vardeAn0nim0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    why siberia's permafrost is melting @_@

    --
    What ? Me, worry ?
    1. Re:and people womder... by aktzin · · Score: 5, Funny

      Maybe this is what Sir Arthur C. Clarke meant when he said that supernovae are probably industrial accidents.

      --
      Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.
  9. More info and a pic or two by erick99 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd like to see a pic of the machine, especially the liquid nitrogen cooling stuff. I would also like to know if this machine ran for five minutes, ten minutes, melted?

    --
    http://www.busyweather.com/
    1. Re:More info and a pic or two by The+Hobo · · Score: 5, Informative

      Here you go Clicky

      --
      There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
  10. Booting Windows XP by kihjin · · Score: 5, Funny

    The maximum speed at which he could boot Windows XP operating system and perform memory testing was 6.60GHz.

    Funny, since, no matter how fast I OC a Windows XP box, the XP "loading bar" still moves the same old speed.

    --
    This slashdot-related signature is a stub. You can help kihjin by expanding it.
    1. Re:Booting Windows XP by PsychicX · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That's because it's limited by how fast your hard drive is, not how fast your processor is.

      Or did you think all of the data was stored in your L2 cache?

    2. Re:Booting Windows XP by magarity · · Score: 2, Insightful

      the XP "loading bar" still moves the same old speedM
       
      Get a solid state hard drive. Texas Memory Systems if you have serious cash; Gigabyte iRam if you're on a budget.

  11. pi=42 by Spodlink05 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Good job they didn't try that on an original Pentium, what with all those decimal places...

  12. actual link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Link to the actual forum posting, complete with pics.

    http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php ?t=70225&page=5&pp=25

    1. Re:actual link by doomtiki · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If you looks closely at the first screenshot, you will see that the system tempeture is 242 degrees Celcius (468 Fahrenheit).

  13. Apple was right! by Geckoman · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now we know why Apple switched to Intel! I can't wait for a PowerBook running one of these, complete with the Ghostbusters-style backpack pumping liquid nitrogen to my laptop!

    1. Re:Apple was right! by Man+in+Spandex · · Score: 2, Informative

      Apple calls it liquid cooling when in fact it's a bunch of heatpipes transfering the heat towards the radiator. Nothing too impressive.

      There are no reservoirs or tubes or pumps so its not "actually" liquid-cooled hardware unlike what most of us think liquid cooling is which involves the above.

  14. Diverting power from the dilthium crystal reactor? by exley · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, maybe, but they could really get some serious overclocking done if they just reversed the polarity.

  15. And people said by Drew+Curtis · · Score: 5, Funny

    that x86 would never hit 100MHz!

  16. Yeah but... by drfishy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...even at 7Ghz is still can't game any faster than a two year old Athlon 64 3200+... Why do games hate intel anyway?

  17. Still slower than G4! by porneL · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'll be missing "nah, that's just megahertz myth".

  18. Dry Ice Slot by gregor-e · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Somebody needs to make an auto-overclocking system that has a slot for feeding in bricks of dry ice.

    You want that render to finish before lunch? Just slide in a brick of dry ice and watch the steam come out the sides as your motherboard's temperature sensor gives the go-ahead to crank the clock up to 7 GHz.

  19. AMD64 by 42Penguins · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Even though they've made clockspeed less relevant, I'd kinda like to see this sort of extreme overclocking on AMD.
    Or does it already exist?
    All I know is I see all these liquid nitrogen P4s and think "wtf...where's amd?"

  20. Comparison by vorm · · Score: 2, Informative


    I tried the same test on my 2Ghz P4 Northwood with 768MB RAM. It took 1min 34sec to calculate pi to 1 million digits.

  21. Stardate 7234.1 by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Funny

    Spock: Our ship's computer is running too slow. I project we will collide with the Klingon cruiser in 2.3 minutes.

    Bones: You green blooded sonofabitch.

    Kirk: Bones... shut... up... Scotty, I need 7ghz... now.

    Scotty: I canna do it, cap'n. It'll blow the mains, and Windows 9000 will crash.

    Kirk: No... excuses... Scotty... just get me... 7ghz.

    Scotty (resigned): Aye, cap'n.

    Uruha: We're getting in a signal for Starfleet Command. It's Admiral Gates.

    Kirk: Put... him... on...

    Admiral Gates: Here at Microsoft we believe in innovation. Thus we are sending you SP23482378485847825727347198874741 which will allow Windows 9000 to interact with an overclocked Pentium without making rude sounds and the voice of the computer changing from Majel Barrett to Carrot Top. Let me demonstrate.

    Spock: Admiral Gates, it appears that your demonstration computer has exploded, taking out a large chunk of the planet Earth.

    Scotty: Cap'n, we've got 7ghz now!

    Kirk: Good work, Scotty. Sulu... reboot... the... computer.

    Spock: Captain, it appears there's a penguin on the main viewer.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    1. Re:Stardate 7234.1 by thumperward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Whoever modded this funny should take a long, hard look at themselves. And never tell jokes again.

        - Chris

  22. athlon 2400+ using FASTPI 1M places in 4.4 secs by t35t0r · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Comment taken from the website:

    "18.516 must be wrong. My athlon 2400+ did
    1 million places of PI using FASTPI in 4.4 secs.

    Maybe the number should read 1.8516 secs.
    That would be more in line with factors of
    speed differences between my 2400 and
    the P4 system."

    1. Re:athlon 2400+ using FASTPI 1M places in 4.4 secs by bhtooefr · · Score: 2, Informative

      FASTPI != SuperPi...

    2. Re:athlon 2400+ using FASTPI 1M places in 4.4 secs by fregaham · · Score: 2, Funny

      Funny... I always thought all PIs were created equal...

    3. Re:athlon 2400+ using FASTPI 1M places in 4.4 secs by TheLink · · Score: 3, Informative

      He was using super pi.

      Some stats: http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1 815&page=3

      http://www.planetamd64.com/lofiversion/index.php/t 5459.html

      I'm not sure about fastpi. But pifast appears to allow 2-4GHz computers to do 10 million digits of pi in about 30 seconds.

      --
  23. What's the big deal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny
    The 68000 in my Amiga 500 ran about that fast.

    Oh wait, did you say GigaHertz?

  24. Now at 7285.1 MHz by Ixalon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Someone has already clocked up an extra 150MHz!

    Calculating 1m decimal places of Pi now down to 18.093s...

    http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php ?p=1001108#post1001108

  25. Vista requirements by Medieval_Thinker · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...and in related news, Microsoft has revised the minimum processor requirements for Vista.

  26. Intel by ziggyboy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm sure some Intel chip designers have already tried all sorts of cool shit with their processors even prior to their release. I know I would if I had worked there.

  27. Re:Does it really matter? by databyss · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hey, my 486dx computer had a turbo button on it!

    I'm sure it would've smoked this P4 thing...

    Besides... 486 is 121.5 times bigger than 4!

    --
    Hmmm witty sig or funny sig? Maybe elitest techy sig!
  28. RTFA, please, by hummassa · · Score: 4, Informative

    it's just two paragraphs for $DEITY sake.
    Ok, I'll tell you, lazy boy: besides cooling with liquid N2, they tweaked the processor and the memory voltages.

    --
    It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
  29. Re:wow... by bhtooefr · · Score: 2, Informative

    On a *SERIOUS* note, it's about as fast as a 3.5 or 4GHz Pentium M by my estimates...

  30. Re:Does it really matter? by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 4, Funny

    How how would they be able to do this without Scotty?!?!

    Easy. They reversed the polarity. You can fix anything by reversing the polarity.

  31. Deflector Array? by Tom7 · · Score: 2, Insightful


    I think it might be more profitable to redirect the power to the processor.

  32. According to his calculation... by TCQuad · · Score: 5, Funny

    All the numbers were 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 0.

  33. Re:Hahaha... by SigveK · · Score: 2, Interesting

    To be fair, the grandparent do have a point.
    If the clock period is less than the propagation delay of the transistors in the processor, the processor will not meet its critical deadlines, and the results will be unstable.

    However.
    If that was the case, I doubt it would be able to run much at all, let alone an operating system.

  34. Re:wow... by Dogtanian · · Score: 4, Funny

    By my estimates, it's about as fast as a Cray-2, but I may be pulling that out of my ass.

    You intend pulling a Cray-2 out of your ass?!

    Are you a fan of the Goatse man by any chance?

    --
    "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
  35. My only question is.... by LordPhantom · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... will it meet the min. specs for Duke Nukem Forever?

  36. Re:The "dangers" of overclocking. by mOdQuArK! · · Score: 3, Informative
    If your instructions take longer to execute than the number of cycles available to them, it just can't do the work and you get junk in your registers.

    Your statement is true on its face, but do you really understand why this guy could get his chip to overclock so high? He's not cooling it in LN2 just to keep it from melting (although that is certainly very important).

    At low temperatures, typical silicon transistors operate much faster, and wires have less impedance, thus allowing a properly-designed chip to operate correctly at a much higher frequency than it would normally be able to achieve.

    It's certainly not useful for a user who wouldn't have a constant source of LN2 available, but the fact that it can be done makes some interesting engineering scenarios possible.

  37. And some luck. by btarval · · Score: 4, Informative
    They also must have gotten lucky with the CPU. Back before Intel started adding their stupid locks to limit overclocking, it was painfully obvious that the production run played a factor. And even within the production run, there were always CPU's within any given batch that were better than others.

    The last set of great overclocked CPU's were the Celeron 300's. Many of those went to 450-500 MHz with no problem. A very few could be made to hit 600 MHz, though it is questionable on how reliable they were at that point. Certainly reliable enough to calculate the value of PI quickly; but you wouldn't want one for reliable web server.

    Granted, some of the one's which could do 450-500 MHz were made for that speed, and then sold as 300's. But certainly not all of them.

    The bottom line is that cherry-picking your CPU's helps lead to a better chance of success with overclocking.

    --
    The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
  38. World record? LOL by acidblood · · Score: 2, Informative

    That may be a SuperPi world record, but definitely not the overall record: Steve Pagliarulo's QPi can compute 1 million digits of Pi in 6.68 seconds in a Pentium 4 1.6 GHz box. You read that right.

    BTW, the same computer takes 189 seconds to compute 2^20 (~1 million) digits using SuperPi. Among the community of Pi-calculating programmers, it's well known that SuperPi is terribly slow. I don't know why overclockers still hang on to it when most programs out there for calculating Pi are faster than it.

    --

    Join the NFSNET. Our prime goal is making little numbers out of big ones. http://www.nfsnet.org/

  39. Designed to run at 7Ghz? by cbreaker · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The chips run at 7Ghz with crazy stupid cooling like liquid nitrogen.

    I don't see this as proof that they were designed to run this fast. 4Ghz, maybe (and only from new technologies that came to surface AFTER the P4 was originally designed) - any super high speed claims that were made were entirely marketing.

    --
    - It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
    1. Re:Designed to run at 7Ghz? by InvalidError · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It does prove that propagation delays within the P4 have enough margin to go well beyond 4GHz. Trace propagation delays do not change much from -200C to +100C but CMOS transistors' and copper traces' conductivities do improve quite a bit.

      So the devil's in the transistors and trace losses. I wonder how this will pan out at 65nm... smaller transistors are potentially faster but they have to be large enough to drive the nets and the loads these nets represent scale less than linearly with process technology. Static power is also likely to increase substantially.

      I would not be surprised if phase-change cooling became common within the next 10 years, along with CPUs designed and manufactured specifically to run in sub-zero environments for the mid/high-end. I am having a hard time imagining progress much beyond 65nm (maybe 45nm) without phase-change: leakage, conduction losses, thermal noise and other temperature-dependent parameters will be major show-stoppers. Getting closer to atomic transistors is trimming noise and leakage tolerances.

      Well, someone could be even more "crazy stupider" and repeat the experiment using either liquid helium (much more expensive than nitrogen) or hydrogen (kinda flammable/explosive)... they could probably reach 8.5GHz this way.

  40. The future is asynchronous! by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Cooling and power requirements aren't the only issue, since at those types of frequencies you are likely to be interfering with radio frequencies, unless you have really good shielding.

    The real future is asynchronous CPUs, that are actually clockless. They generate much less heat and consume much less power. The only reason that they aren't replacing the current batch of chips fast, is that all chip design and testing processes are built around clocked CPUs.

    A few articles on the subject:
      - Will Self-timed Asynchronous Logic Rescue CPU Design?
      - Computer Chips Without Clocks

    --
    Jumpstart the tartan drive.
  41. As Voltaire said... by neuroking · · Score: 2, Funny

    Ah yes, they need to..

    "Bounce the graviton particle beam
    off the main defector dish.
    That the way we do it lad,
    we're making shit up as we wish.

    The Klingons and the Romulans,
    they pose no threat to us!
    Cuz if we find we're in a bind,
    we'll just make some shit up!"
    - Voltaire (without the spelling mistakes :)

  42. Not really. Plouffe is behind it mainly. by gilboooo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    While Fabrice is a respectable person, he did not invent this formula. One of the most responsible persons for this discover is called Plouffe. The complete formula name is the Bailey-Borwein-Plouffe and the most interesting way is how they did "discover" it : Mathematica did with input from them and it was a surprise for them when it spitted out the formula.

    http://www.google.fr/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http %3A//www.lacim.uqam.ca/~plouffe/articles/Miraculou s.pdf&ei=XFL-QuroJY7QQe6vkYUC

  43. Doesn't Count by Dun+Malg · · Score: 2, Insightful
    The article notes that a Pentium 4 had been overclocked faster earlier this year, but at that speed it was not possible for the machine to function beyond BIOS.

    I'd say that not getting out of BIOS doesn't count as actually successfully overclocking at that speed. That's like saying you raised your car's compression to 150:1 successfully, with the one shortcoming being that the head shattered into fragments when the first spark plug fired.

    --
    If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
  44. Hiroshima and Nagasaki wasn't about winning ... by Qbertino · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... the war but about showing Stalin who was boss. Japan was about to surrender and everybody in charge knew it. (Japan was just slowpoking because the emporer was looking for a way to surrender without him/Japan "losing face" - a *very* important thing in japan). Arguably the bomb minimized those japanese concerns and speeded up the process.
    The other reason the bomb was used is the usual simple one: Because the US military had it. They had a new toy and were happy to still have a reason to use it.
    And BTW: Nagasaki was an "accident". Well, sort of. The sky wasn't clear and the bombers couldn't see groung zero clearly and had strikt orders not to drop in that case. But the pilot couldn't open a valve on a fuel tank on the bomber, so they still had to drop the heavy bomb in order to make it back to base.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca