Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

"Fastest PC in the World" Runs Athlon at 800MHz

Posted by Roblimo on from the toys-to-lust-after dept.

Errant Knyght writes "Not sure if it is true, but if it is...I want one." The Tom's Hardware writeup seems believable; lots of specs, pictures, even ordering info. KryoTech, the company that makes it, puts a refrigeration unit under the PC case and cools the uP to -36 degrees C before it fires up the rest of the unit. Looks like fun.

28 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Fast gets slower every few months by Thomas+Charron · · Score: 2

    Last I read the page:

    http://www.accsdata.com/drffreeze/Dr%20Ffreeze.h tm

    He didn't get all THAT much of a speed improvment, and with MANY drawbacks.. Water was condensing on the cooler, and dropping into the oil, right onto the board.. ;-P

    Also check out:

    http://www.wizard.com/users/scfoster/public_html /

    Looks MUCH more promising..

    --
    -- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
  2. Re:you thought fans were noisy by Bhagera · · Score: 2

    ok, i should qualify that statement a little... but i'm not going to

    --

    Hypothetically, anything hypothetical is possible.

  3. Re:Clock rate... what the bid deal ? ? by Christopher+B.+Brown · · Score: 2
    There was a review a month or so ago in Computer Shopper for the Kryotech model that is "merely" equipped with a souped-up K6-III.

    I agree with you that it seems to be a "cool idea" looking for some sort of clue in order to actually be valuable.

    It's doing IDE I/O, which means it's not going to be a "barn-burner" from an I/O perspective; all that it really has is a CPU that will doubtless be outmatched by whatever comes out a year from now, with the serious cost of having to pay for a really serious cooling system.

    The market sector I'd see it being "hot" in would be that of computer graphics. That is a sector where the priority is forcibly on CPU power.

    I think I'd want to use a high end graphics card ($300+) and 256MB of RAM to let the machine really shine.

    I didn't see the previous model (K6-III) as being terribly viable; the Athlon feels "less overpriced," but still somewhat pricey for relatively little value.

    The merit may come next year when faster Athlon CPUs can get their speed doubled, thereby providing some more massive performance enhancements. Speeding up one CPU may be of little value, but doubling the speed of an SMP box to provide a couple "Gigahertz" worth of power may well be worth $1K for the cooling system...

    --
    If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
  4. .. what a waste by NovaX · · Score: 2

    For most people, this is worthless. For those running Alphas, your running them for the CPU (generally). For an x86 chip, most tasks where you'd care about a lot more CPU is for servers or high-end workstations, where the software is why you have the machine.

    So, you want more performance for your x86? For what? Upgrading the other components will free the CPU. If you go scsi, and even cheap, low end
    scsi drives, your CPU gets a boost (UDMA has reduced it, but it still is noticable). SCSI you can carry over to your next upgrade. CPU being eaten by graphics? Hate to tell you, but why spend a few hundred on a cooling unit (where 50mhz on x86 ~ 5% performance gain), instead of a new graphics card?

    You can lust after it... but its a waste of money for most people. Now if it kept the system cool too, that would make it a bit more desirable. I can't tell you how painful trying to fix heat problems (from SCSI mostly) can be.. but then again, buying smartly kept my system humming along at acceptable speeds. (and designing your own home-brewed $60 system cooler is fun!)

    --

    "Open Source?" - Press any key to continue
  5. Kryotech's cooling system by the_tsi · · Score: 3

    It's old news. :) They've been shipping supercooled boxen for over a year. The 800mhz athlon they've been hyping for a few months now; it's about time Tom got one and reviewed it. Speaking of Tom, anyone else think the quality of his site has gone down very quickly in about the past 18 months? I haven't seen a big motherboard roundup or anything useful for a while. I don't give a flip about the seven-chapter analysis of 32 video cards that's taken three months to come together; we need more variety. I've tried to find a replacement tech website to fill my needs, and the closest thing I can find is Ars Technica, but occasionally they have reviews by people who either don't understand the technology or are just plain cheap (not "economical") about using it. Don't say AnandTech... there's just too much attitude spewing out of that site. :) -Chris (Footnote: KryoTech's PCs may very well be the only worthwhile product to *ever* come out of South Carolina... :P )

  6. 900 mHZ by Accipiter · · Score: 3
    With the speeds of processors getting faster and faster, we're going to reach a problem with they hit 900 mHZ. Your processor will interfere with your Cordless phone. (Read: This is no joke!)

    Since most new cordless phones transmit at 900 mHZ, having a processor generating the same frequency would cause problems. When the waves from the phone and processor collide, it could cause each signal to cancel the other out, nullifying them both. So how is this problem solved? 900+ processors will actually be built with shielding. Sounds crazy, but it's true.

    A bit offtopic, but just a tidbit of info for everyone.

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

    --

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
    (If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't. :P)

    1. Re:900 mHZ by technos · · Score: 2

      We still use for our VERY critical inhouse legal databases. It has yet to let us down, really, but it is a total bear to deal with if you started in any newer *nix.

      Most people find it funny that I still have a Xenix box, (quad full height 320M HD) on my desk.

      --
      .sig: Now legally binding!
    2. Re:900 mHZ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3

      Hmm...so how come when I was in college, and everyone on the floor had 900Mhz phones, I couldn't tap into their conversation? Where was my interference? And why didn't my 25Mhz Mac screw up my 25Mhz cordless way back in the day? Hmm...Ponderous.

      (a). 900 Mhz phones are digital. This makes it impossible for someone to listen in on them with a $300 Rat Shack scanner. Even if you get the digital transmission and try to play it back, it won't work. 900 Mhz cordless phones use super-light encryption. Once broken, yeah, then you can hear it. And I just have $1000 itching a hole in my pocket for it... (not). And even if you had a 900 Mhz phone, there are at least 25 channels. And even if all 25 channels were used, and your phone decided to stomp on someone's signal, then it would sound like this:

      FSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH.

      either that, or a modem like sound. I don't know, and I really couldn't care less...

      (b). Your mac was sheilded, since it was FCC approved. RF doesn't leak from sheilded boxes.

      (c). If your mac wasn't sheilded (ie... Usually very old, seems old machines got away with FCC ratings, even when their sheilding sucked.) then your phone didn't work at 25 Mhz. There is a very high chance it didn't work at 25 Mhz. I don't have my frequency book handy, but I beleive 25 Mhz is used for RC Planes, boats, etc... I know the 47-49 Mhz or so band is used for old Portable phones, Walkie-Talkies, etc... Public, (d). Take a C64. Turn it on. Turn on a radio to about FM 104.5 Mhz, and set it on top of the disk drive. Access the disk drive (LOAD "*",8,1 [return]). Then come back to me with your revised theory.

      (e). For the final insult, take your computer to a local Ham radio operator's place. Take the cover off, turn it on, and leave... This will make them want blood... ;-)

      Note: I'm not suggesting RF leakage from computers is horrendous, just that it exists. It is infact, not as big a deal as (non radio operator) people might at first think... I keep my case off, and our TV antenna works just fine, TYVM. :-)

    3. Re:900 mHZ by substrate · · Score: 4

      This is why computers are in cases and are tested to be compliant with FCC regulations (as long as they're still in the case, the case hasn't been modified etc). We've passed through similar bandwidth sharing episodes before, such as when CPU's first hit the 100 MHz domain. Thats FM radio.

    4. Re:900 mHZ by technos · · Score: 3

      Odd.. I don't seem to remember any problems with my OC'd 386 and my 48 mhz cordless phone.. ;-)

      --
      .sig: Now legally binding!
    5. Re:900 mHZ by ChrisDolan · · Score: 2

      I disagree that your CPU would interfere significantly with your cordless phone. The phone uses an amplified signal powered through an antenna while the CPU is not amplified and (hopefully) has no antenna other than its own wiring. I can foresee that the phone might negatively influence the CPU (although it should be designed to resist interference regardless of its specific frequency), but the CPU interfering with the phone seems much less likely.

      There was a recent Slashdot article about deliberately generating a transmission with your system, but apparently it isn't simple!

  7. Re:you thought fans were noisy by m3000 · · Score: 2

    I haven't heard one myself, but my dad was looking at one in some computer shop, and he said it was pretty quiet. He said it was quieter than our current one, which isn't too loud. It was one of the major concerns for my dad because we are hopefully getting one of those in the Spring, so we wanted to make sure it wouldn't keep my parents up when I'm using it at 3 in the morning :-)

  8. Re:Clock rate... what the biG deal ? ? by m3000 · · Score: 2

    That's just what Tom tested it at. If you buy the system, you can put whatever you want on it. The thing only comes with a mobo, chip, cooling system, and case. You add the other stuff. Whenever we get one, we'll take our current SCSI Ultra 2 Wide out, and put in in the Kryotech one, put in 512 MB of RAM, and a GeForce card, and then I'll have one kick ass machine. :-)

  9. Re:Only Windows 98 and NT. What a crime. by m3000 · · Score: 2

    They do that because most games and gamers use Windows, and so that pertains the most to them. These sites are for the high speed power users, and most people like power for one thing, games. They are just serving their market.

  10. Definition of a "PC" by Jordy · · Score: 2
    So what exactly is a "PC". Is an Alpha workstation a personal computer? What about Alpha distributors which market their low-end systems as PCs?

    Apple used to constantly put out "Macs vs PCs" advertisements, but recently they've changed their tune and they consider Macs PCs.

    Apple has been putting out a lot of hype about how their system is the first "PC" to be under export law, but Alphas have been under restricted export law for years.

    AMD's Athlon appears to be faster than the G4 from what little benchmarks I've been able to find, but I don't believe the Athlon is under export law, which I find a bit odd.

    FOLDOC says a PC is:
    A general-purpose single-user microcomputer designed to be operated by one person at a time.
    So I guess being a PC depends on the OS, not the CPU. Does that mean a Windows machine setup for multiple logins is no longer a PC?

    Who knows.

    --
    --
    The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
  11. I've worked with Kryotechs before. by dox · · Score: 2


    My summer job was with a school system that had just purchased 24 Kryotech systems runing amd k6-3's at 500mhz. (i even got a kryotech t-shirt out of it)

    here's my thoughts about kryotech:
    They are great to brag about, but they are rarely clocked significantly faster than whats already on the market, or soon to be on the market. Tom himself said that he could run the Athlon K7 at 750mhz with no additional cooling. I don't see the huge advantage to dishing out 1,000$ or more for a barebones systems that will be matched by the CPU makers within months.

    On another note: Kryotech told my employers that they would have 1ghz machines out by the end of the year. I'm actually suprised they're not out already considering that tom had no problems clocking Athlons to 750mhz. And yet they supercool the 800mhz chip to -30C (i'm not sure about the Athlons but our machines were running -45C to -47C)

    -dox

    Never underestimate the power of a small tactical nuclear weapon.

  12. Jeez by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2
    Am I the only one who finds this stupid? I mean, supercooling computers like that. When you could just use equally powerful processors that emit less heat.

    The G4 emits 8 watts. It doesn't even need a fan. The PPC just works smarter.

    An IBM sales rep used to tell me his favorite sales line when persuading universities to change their crays into AIX boxen (with power processors): Ask them what the cooling cost them every year. Ask them if they could put the saved space into better use.

    Having to excessively cool down your computer just isn't very cool.

  13. So...? by Curt · · Score: 2

    This kind of thing is never a big deal. Two or three years ago at Macworld SF some company showed off a 550MHz PPC processor (crud, thats as fast as the ffastest g3 availible right now, and at a time of 200-300MHz pentiums and macs... well it was ahead of its time) . Had some fancy-schmancy cooling system too. Company died off in a month or so, oh well.

    Other notes of interest:

    My Voodoo1 (running at 50MHz) has very little radio shielding. Can't listen to the radio and play quake at the same time...

    G4'd still beat the Athlon, I'm fairly sure. I dopn't know everything about them, but unless they have a radically different design aproach from the normal pentium or whatever, they don't touch a g4.

    I was explaining this one day to my friend.

    G4's use a core-based design approach. In the most basic terms, it's "kinda like a multiprocessor system." I was told by my friend that the normal processor basically does one thing at a time.

    And this is pretty much confirmed by some fact sheets on Intel's site explaining how a 600MHz pIII does 600 million floating point ops/sec. (600MillionHertz=600million ops)

    The g4 does this differently. Every part of the rpocessor (of course including the floating point unit and AltiVec) can do more than one thing at a time. It has two interger units. That should be self explanitory. It has a 64-bit fpu, than can do 1 64-bit calculation or 2 32-bit and so on... It has 128-bit Altivec which can do 1 128-bit, 2 64-bit, 4 32-bit, 8 16-bit or 16-8 bit. You can then see where Apple got their THEORETICAL max or 4 gigaflops, but it can hold that 1 gigaflop too, which is the big deal.

    All PPC instructions are the same size, tradionally. 32-bit. It's part of being a RISC chip, it helps performace some, standardized size(s) of these instructions. A few variants now, but not a big deal, compared to what is normally done on the dark side....

    Pentiums and compliant processors do instructions of multiple sizes. Pretty much any size, really, and then they are broken down to smaller sizes... The theoretical max is 600Million for the PIII comes from this. But it cant even hold that, that's the theoretical max (who knows the minimum ops?) while the g4 theoretical max is 4 billion, and minimum 1 billion.

    Now I know I went on this tirade abouut pentiums, but frankly, can Athlons be much different? The pentiums are/were a pretty normal CISC architecture. So a 800MHz athlon probably pushes out a very maximum of 900million ops, being extremely generous, most likely 800million. Max.

    It can claim to be the fastest PC (personal computer, as opposed to a 1GHz Alpha Monster) by clock cycle alone. Very true. But this does not measure the real potential power of the processor. Theoretical and minimum ops show that.

    MegaHertz is an outdated form of speed measurement with things like the core-based design. Basically its like comparing a multiprocessor 500MHz system to a normal 600MHz or 800MHz or whatever single processor system. Are quad PIII 500's or a single 800MHz better? Still can be disputed, depending on what is being run, but one surely has more potential pwoer.

    And hey with CodeWarrior already able to do the Altivec stuff, and the libraries out there for months now, they can take advantage of that g4. No problem.

    -Curt out.

    "Hey there was in eyelash in my nose!?"
    "How did you know there was an eyelash in your nose?"

  14. A Round up of hardware sites(Re:Kryotech's co....) by Xamot · · Score: 2
    These are the sites I've heard of and check. I have a few more URL's, but they are only cover specific types of hardware like one for 3D boards, BX mobos, AMD chips, etc. Note these aren't really in any order of preference, but I do read Ars and Sharky the most.

    --

    --
    ?
  15. Re:Through the radio by davidmacq · · Score: 2

    Hehe, This is actually your video card saturating your bus. The video card manufacturers set them up to get the best possible performance, but the sound cards trickle their data across the bus, and when your video card sends data across it affects the sound. Some manufacturers have an option to disable this. Sorry I can't explain it in more detail. I found this out by reading FAQs for winamp, but the Winamp page is less detailed and I can't get the links from Winamp because I'm behind a firewall. If your interested in fixing this check the third party Winamp homepages.

  16. TOM!! by Signal+11 · · Score: 2
    I can't believe it. Ever since he started adding banner ads and going commercial, that site has been on the express route to hell. The latest insult is that I can't even view the reviewed computer because his site toys around with the HTTP_REFERER field that any respectable privacy-enhancing firewall and proxy will filter. It seems most sites when they go commercial lose alot. Slashdot seems to have been the exception so far - it hasn't changed a bit (except that Rob now has more time to break things and make the site inaccessible. *g*)...

    HEY TOM! Wake up - there's alot of us out here at work that can't bypass our firewalls easily. You want us to all view your pretty advertisements right? Stop meddling with the http referer then - it's not a mandatory part of the HTTP protocol! Fooooooo....

    --

  17. User upgradable by technos · · Score: 2

    As complicated as it looks, these puppies (and their older models) are user upgradable. Granted, you have to order the new chip from Kryo, but thats excusable. All it amounts to is clamping down the compressor (some of them came with autoclamping connectors) and unscrewing the super cooled chip. Go ahead and buy the overclocked 800. When the 800 comes out, Kryo will have it overclocked to 1.1G, and they'll be more than happy to sell it to you sans compressor/case.

    --
    .sig: Now legally binding!
  18. Clock rate... what the bid deal ? ? by ndfa · · Score: 3

    They use 128Megs of RAM, and an EIDE drive ?

    Am i missing something here or has INTEL marketing done such a good job that people who should be thinking of ways to improve performance in other ways are just taking part in the rat race for more clocks ? ?

    EIDE, now thats something that i find funny, if you are going to do soooo much to a system, at least have the decency to put in a nice Ultra2Wide drive in there. I dont care what numbers say, SCSI still makes a lot of difference!
    Secondly, how about some more memory please ? ?

    then comes the question that is it really worth the darn hastle ? things going to be slow in a few months anyway, why waste money on a few clocks if you can spend it wisely on otherthings ?

    Dont get me wrong, in practice its cool to see what a processor can push, but we have seen it too many times. Its bad enough that all the marketing hype is about "xxxMhz".... sure, lets put a 600Mhz, Celery, with slow RAM, a crapy vdo card, slow Drive, and call it top of the line!

    On most things a system with well chosen components will outperform (in the real world) one that has just a faster processor!!! why we keep getting these "supercool" things is a mystery to me.....

    I am not trying to start a war here, i am just saying that maybe articles like this should include a fair warning to users about alternatives to FASTER processors!

    just my .02$


    --
    Non-Deterministic Finite Automata
  19. Re:Through the radio by mistered · · Score: 2

    No, not necessarily. I think the poster is talking about analog noise being picked up by the (usually) crappy soundcard output stage, or even worse, by the microphone input. I have a Xitel storm platinum (Aureal, get your act together with Vortex2 Linux drivers!) which has a pretty decent analog section, but if I crank my amp I can hear noise when I scroll in Netscape or do other things.

    Granted, video cards *can* saturate the PCI bus and starve your soundcard of the bandwidth it needs, but this kind of interference will come through even if no sound is playing.

    --
    Enjoy your job, make lots of money, work within the law. Choose any two.
  20. Not quite the fastest in the world... by Wonko42 · · Score: 3

    I know this is kinda' mean, but...er...this isn't such a big deal. I work for Chipzilla and people here were playing with processors over a year ago that did well over 1GHz without too much extra cooling. More than the usual amount, of course, but nothing supercooled. The systems were slightly unstable, though, and they were purely for testing new manufacturing processes. More than that I can't say, since I wasn't directly involved in the usage of the machines. All I know is, I'd have loved to put a distributed.net client on one of those babies...

  21. Oh yeah, it's true, but by jht · · Score: 3

    ...but it's real old news. Kryotech has made kits to supercool Alphas and Pentiums, so the Athlon isn't much of a leap for them. I think the Alpha folks had Kryotech on stage with them at Microprocessor Forum or some similar event this year to do the Alpha at 1 GHz demo.

    Tom covered this back in early August, when he was in yet another "I'm better than you, puny humans" phase - he wrote an article announcing that he had figured out how to overclock Athlons, but that he wasn't going to tell anybody becouse it was just too technical for mere mortals. After a suitable interval of being flamed by the universe, he spilled the beans a couple of days later.

    Tom's has gotten a little less interesting of late. I think part of that is because the hardware scene has been relatively static lately, - Athlon is the first radically new thing in a while as far as motherboards/processors go in the Wintel space (I'm not counting G4, guys - Tom doesn't cover that!).

    - -Josh Turiel

    --
    -- Josh Turiel
    "2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
  22. You should see it running with some decent video.. by Thomas+Charron · · Score: 2

    This is an older article. The one that REALLY impressed me was when they tested three popular 3D cards in this pupy.. Take a look at this link

    --
    -- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
  23. That Refrigeration unit is wasted by R3 · · Score: 2

    Processor cooling? Pffftt!
    I am pretty sure that the small fridge on the bottom could easily handle more than that. KryoTech should come up with Renegade Deluxe case that has a round slot (preferrably motorized) on front where one could insert a 32oz can of beverage of choice (Dew, Jolt, beer) for cooling. It would also include cross-platform Cool Alerter (TM) software that would monitor the temperature of the drink and notify you when the drink is ready.
    Now, *that's* the case I would buy!