I read an article a few years ago about a "computer" built from molecules of chloroform. I think that it was tested by searching through a snapshot of the web to find a particular word. Bookmarks come and go, but I found a few articles on the subject: A Vision of Synthetic Prophecy Quantum Computing with Molecules The computing aspect of this is really cool, as it would make factoring Really Large Numbers a snap (because these computers would be massively parallel and would be execute many instructions in one step). These machines would have the ability to factor a 400 digit number in about a year. The networking applications of quantum computing are pretty interesting as well. If you can create two photons with opposite polarization, as soon as you measure the polarization of one, the state of the other is immediately fixed, regardless of the distance.
I know that this review is a review of non-production hardware. I still have to say that I'm very disappointed. Not so much in the numbers, but in the configuration of the system. Two points in particular:
(1) The L2 cache is only running at 1/3 speed. I don't care about the size of the cache, but to me this is a step backwards. The PIII 550 has 1/2 speed L2 cache. The Kryotech Kool K6-III 550 (a thermally accelerated K6-III 450) romps the both the PIII and the K7 in some benchmarks. Why? L2 cache - the Kool K6-III 550 has full speed, on die L2.
(2) An Ultra TNT2 video card was used, with older nVidia drivers. Near the end of the review, it's mentioned that there are newer drivers available with better 3dNow! optimizations. I think that either a 3dfx V2 SLI or V3 should have been used, since their 3dNow! drivers are better, or at the very least the newer nVidia drivers.
I still think that the K7 has potential. It had very high Business Disk and High-End Disk Winmark scores. This leads me to believe that the hardware _is_ capable. Don't write the K7 off until a shipping processor has been reviewed (and hopefully one with at least 1/2 speed L2 cache).
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I read an article a few years ago about a "computer" built from molecules of chloroform. I think that it was tested by searching through a snapshot of the web to find a particular word. Bookmarks come and go, but I found a few articles on the subject:
A Vision of Synthetic Prophecy
Quantum Computing with Molecules
The computing aspect of this is really cool, as it would make factoring Really Large Numbers a snap (because these computers would be massively parallel and would be execute many instructions in one step). These machines would have the ability to factor a 400 digit number in about a year. The networking applications of quantum computing are pretty interesting as well. If you can create two photons with opposite polarization, as soon as you measure the polarization of one, the state of the other is immediately fixed, regardless of the distance.
I know that this review is a review of non-production hardware. I still have to say that I'm very disappointed. Not so much in the numbers, but in the configuration of the system. Two points in particular:
(1) The L2 cache is only running at 1/3 speed. I don't care about the size of the cache, but to me this is a step backwards. The PIII 550 has 1/2 speed L2 cache. The Kryotech Kool K6-III 550 (a thermally accelerated K6-III 450) romps the both the PIII and the K7 in some benchmarks. Why? L2 cache - the Kool K6-III 550 has full speed, on die L2.
(2) An Ultra TNT2 video card was used, with older nVidia drivers. Near the end of the review, it's mentioned that there are newer drivers available with better 3dNow! optimizations. I think that either a 3dfx V2 SLI or V3 should have been used, since their 3dNow! drivers are better, or at the very least the newer nVidia drivers.
I still think that the K7 has potential. It had very high Business Disk and High-End Disk Winmark scores. This leads me to believe that the hardware _is_ capable. Don't write the K7 off until a shipping processor has been reviewed (and hopefully one with at least 1/2 speed L2 cache).
I don't think any of the New York Yankees are complaining...
actually, its probably www.blackhelicopters.org