There are multiple phase-shifted clocks. These clocks run at 200MHz, but features of interest (edges) occur at 400 or 800 million times per second. The end result is functionally indistinguishable from an 800MHz clock.
Does it really matter how it is implemented electrically? Functionally it is identical. Phase shifted clocks give the same end result as a single fast clock, while removing MANY problems.
Could you explain WHY it is relevant how a 1.6GHz P4 performs? What matters is that while the Athlon64 only currently clocks up to 1.6 GHz, the P4 clocks at 3.0ghz. If you want to make an argument about power usage scaling with clock speed, you still have to compare the watts/MHz of the processor, while considering the instructions per clock and clock speed.
Also, you have to consider that by the time there is a lot of 64-bit code in use, there will probably be significantly more advanced processors available, this chip will be obsolete, and therefore its performance will be irrelevant. Obviously a good start in 64-bit code is important to generate interest in future versions, but for this early 64-bit processor, I really thing that 32-bit performance is by far the most important factor.
Maybe by proprietary they just mean that there was no satisfactory existing format, so they came up with their own? That doesn't necessarily mean they aren't making it "open". The article isn't clear about that.
Many may ask at this point, "If the processor does more work with higher clock speeds, why are there limitations on the clock speed - why can't one run a processor as fast as they want?". Although there are many factors that contribute to the answer to this question, the basic answer to this is heat. With every clock pulse, electricity flows through the processor. Because of resistance in the processor's pathways (think of it as a sort of electrical friction), some of this energy is converted to heat, similar to what happens when you rub your hands together very quickly. The higher the clock speed, the more often the clock pulses come, which means that more heat is generated at higher clock speeds. Because processors don't react well to the effects of this heat, testing is done to determine the maximum clock speed that they can run at safely.
That is not really accurate. While it is true that power and clock speed are approxmately linearly related (double the clock speed, double the heat output), the way the article explains the max speed is wrong. This implies that if you took a 2ghz P4 and clocked it at 2.4ghz, it would run hotter than a "real" 2.4ghz P4. This is not the case. All P4s will put out the same amount of heat at a given clock speed.
The actual reason that chips clock at different speeds has to do with precision of manufacture. I'm not really a car person, but I would imagine that better quality parts would let an engine go faster. If a spark plug has a problem, you might get misfires at higher RPMs (?). When a CPU is made, sometimes some of the wires are too thin, and because of the higher resistance it takes more time for enough charge to flow through the wire to get a 1 to change to a 0 (or vice versa). Now, you cannot clock it as fast or the CPU will produce erroneous results.
Another possible defect would be two wires ending up too close to each other. The faster a wire changes voltage, the more interference it creates in wires nearby. With the two wires closer than expected, they might start to experience "crosstalk", where the signal on one of the wires is affected by the other wire. At lower speeds, crosstalk is less of a problem.
There are many more things that cause variations in the max stable speeds of processors, but I won't go into them.
You might next ask, "What about the 'perfect' chips? Why can't they go faster?". The answer to that question is that even the best transistors can only switch so fast, and an electrical signal can only travel so far in a given period of time. When you're working with frequencies in the GHz, light can travel no more than a few feet, and the speed of electricity in wires is much lower.
The processors are then labeled with this clock speed, and they go out the door with a designation such as, "Pentium 4 - 2.4GHz". In this particular case, Intel has tested the processor and has determined that to run properly, it needs a clock that runs no faster than 2.4 billion times per second
The reason you can overclock is that Intel's tests are brutal. If they sell a processor as 2GHz and someone builds a computer with poor case ventilation and a cheap heatsink and low quality power supply in the sahara desert, the computer needs to be stable. Processors can run faster at lower temperatures (there are some equations describing the effects of temperature on various parts and generally higher temperature slows things down), so in a properly ventilated case with a good heatsink (and reliable power supply), the processor can operate reliably at higher-than-rated speeds.
It is important to note that just increasing the clock speed won't have as drastic of an effect on processor lifetime as many people say. What WILL have serious effects, though, is increasing the voltage. Why do overclockers like to raise the core voltage? More voltage means more current and stronger signals. In the thin wire scenario above, more voltage and more current means that even with the higher resistance,
This bug is REALLY annoying, unless you like clicking the wrong close button and losing all your tabs, or accidentally hitting ^Q instead of ^W and having the same effect. http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi? id=108973
If you use Moz, just highlight that URL and drag it to the address bar.
Here are some pretty old bugs about tabs that could use some fixes / votes. They aren't critical, but fixing them (especially the first one) would really improve usability.
This one is about the URL bar not being set when you open a link in a new tab - the problem occurs when the page doesn't load. You can't find out what the URL was that didn't load, so you have to find the link again on the page you opened it from. http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id =103720
This bug is about tabs and the status bar not properly updating when you switch tabs. http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id =104532
The 85Hz on a CRT is different. This is because the CRT flickers - and many people can perceive this flicker at 60Hz. However, 60fps is as smooth as it gets. An LCD has a constant light, so it doesn't flicker. All you need is 60 updates per second to redraw all the pixels, and then you get a smooth, flicker-free image.
Remote Desktop / terminal server is faster than VNC because while VNC does the rendering on the server, then transmits images, the MS software does rendering on the client (kinda like X does). This makes it much faster.
A lot of people will complain that linux shouldn't be copying Windows, but should be innovating. As someone who spends a lot of time using both systems, I am more comfortable with the Windows GUI than any of the linux desktops I've used. Maybe it is just because I have been using it since Windows 95, and the linux interfaces are all so different. No matter why I prefer it, the look and feel of an OS actually plays a large part in how much I like it.
I love the backend of *nix, but could never stand any of the desktops enough to use it as my primary OS. With this project, I can have an OS with a nice backend AND an aesthetically-pleasing, usable front end.
Sure this isn't innovating, but consider what is required to come up with a good GUI. Microsoft spends a LOT of money doing research to see what people like in a GUI, whereas linux innovation is often the result of one developer deciding, "Hmm, this feature is cool - I'll make a window manager do that". It isn't really reasonable to expect a better (for "normal" computer people) GUI from a group of developers than a company doing actual research.
Unfortunately, the server stopped responding after I got the home page, but the few tiny shots there show things like the Display control panel (an interface I really like and have wanted in linux for a long time), and explorer. If they have a few more control panels (Add/Remove programs, Network connections, and a subset of System), this might really be enough to get me to switch my primary OS.
Actually, Lexan / Plexiglas both conduct well enough to prevent static - they actually conduct well enough to cause problems if they touch the bottom of your motherboard. You need to make sure you have spacers/risers so that the motherboard isn't resting on the case.
Oops, forgot something. The hippocampus is responsible for what are called "explicit" memories - such as memories of events. However, there is a different memory called "implicit", which is responsible for things such a learned skills. You could teach someone to swim even if they had damage to their hippocampus, because swimming is an implicit memory.
No, actually, when you are typing, you are using something called "working memory", and it is different. Working memory is thought to reside in the prefrontal cortext (at the very front of your brain).
Patients with damage to the hippocampus would type their post normally, wake up the next day, and never remember writing it. HOWEVER, if you had one play tetris all day, then interrupted their dream stage and asked what they were experiencing, they will sometimes explain dreams about falling blocks or similar things.
The problem is just that the data doesn't go from RAM to the hard drive. The RAM itself works fine.
I have to disagree with your second point... I love mozilla as a browser, but I really don't like it for email or usenet. Is it so wrong to like one product for each feature?
I love winamp 2.x - it is an excellent music player. I don't like winamp 3.x - it is a crappy video player.
No, power consumption scales linearly with frequency. It increases with the square of voltage (you can see the voltage relation easily: power = IV = V^2/R)
Yea, but you have to remember that our distro depends heavily on AFS - a lot of critical files need to be accessed from the network, so it isn't really useful anywhere but here on campus. I hear even over broadband, it is pretty bad.
Here is a semi-detailed page describing what I did, with a list of pics here. The voltage regulator caps were blown, but I replaced them for a super-ghetto motherboard;)
Slashdot Mirror
There are multiple phase-shifted clocks. These clocks run at 200MHz, but features of interest (edges) occur at 400 or 800 million times per second. The end result is functionally indistinguishable from an 800MHz clock.
Click here... config page for mozilla :)
Does it really matter how it is implemented electrically? Functionally it is identical. Phase shifted clocks give the same end result as a single fast clock, while removing MANY problems.
Could you explain WHY it is relevant how a 1.6GHz P4 performs? What matters is that while the Athlon64 only currently clocks up to 1.6 GHz, the P4 clocks at 3.0ghz. If you want to make an argument about power usage scaling with clock speed, you still have to compare the watts/MHz of the processor, while considering the instructions per clock and clock speed.
Also, you have to consider that by the time there is a lot of 64-bit code in use, there will probably be significantly more advanced processors available, this chip will be obsolete, and therefore its performance will be irrelevant. Obviously a good start in 64-bit code is important to generate interest in future versions, but for this early 64-bit processor, I really thing that 32-bit performance is by far the most important factor.
Maybe by proprietary they just mean that there was no satisfactory existing format, so they came up with their own? That doesn't necessarily mean they aren't making it "open". The article isn't clear about that.
Many may ask at this point, "If the processor does more work with higher clock speeds, why are there limitations on the clock speed - why can't one run a processor as fast as they want?". Although there are many factors that contribute to the answer to this question, the basic answer to this is heat. With every clock pulse, electricity flows through the processor. Because of resistance in the processor's pathways (think of it as a sort of electrical friction), some of this energy is converted to heat, similar to what happens when you rub your hands together very quickly. The higher the clock speed, the more often the clock pulses come, which means that more heat is generated at higher clock speeds. Because processors don't react well to the effects of this heat, testing is done to determine the maximum clock speed that they can run at safely.
That is not really accurate. While it is true that power and clock speed are approxmately linearly related (double the clock speed, double the heat output), the way the article explains the max speed is wrong. This implies that if you took a 2ghz P4 and clocked it at 2.4ghz, it would run hotter than a "real" 2.4ghz P4. This is not the case. All P4s will put out the same amount of heat at a given clock speed.
The actual reason that chips clock at different speeds has to do with precision of manufacture. I'm not really a car person, but I would imagine that better quality parts would let an engine go faster. If a spark plug has a problem, you might get misfires at higher RPMs (?). When a CPU is made, sometimes some of the wires are too thin, and because of the higher resistance it takes more time for enough charge to flow through the wire to get a 1 to change to a 0 (or vice versa). Now, you cannot clock it as fast or the CPU will produce erroneous results.
Another possible defect would be two wires ending up too close to each other. The faster a wire changes voltage, the more interference it creates in wires nearby. With the two wires closer than expected, they might start to experience "crosstalk", where the signal on one of the wires is affected by the other wire. At lower speeds, crosstalk is less of a problem.
There are many more things that cause variations in the max stable speeds of processors, but I won't go into them.
You might next ask, "What about the 'perfect' chips? Why can't they go faster?". The answer to that question is that even the best transistors can only switch so fast, and an electrical signal can only travel so far in a given period of time. When you're working with frequencies in the GHz, light can travel no more than a few feet, and the speed of electricity in wires is much lower.
The processors are then labeled with this clock speed, and they go out the door with a designation such as, "Pentium 4 - 2.4GHz". In this particular case, Intel has tested the processor and has determined that to run properly, it needs a clock that runs no faster than 2.4 billion times per second
The reason you can overclock is that Intel's tests are brutal. If they sell a processor as 2GHz and someone builds a computer with poor case ventilation and a cheap heatsink and low quality power supply in the sahara desert, the computer needs to be stable. Processors can run faster at lower temperatures (there are some equations describing the effects of temperature on various parts and generally higher temperature slows things down), so in a properly ventilated case with a good heatsink (and reliable power supply), the processor can operate reliably at higher-than-rated speeds.
It is important to note that just increasing the clock speed won't have as drastic of an effect on processor lifetime as many people say. What WILL have serious effects, though, is increasing the voltage. Why do overclockers like to raise the core voltage? More voltage means more current and stronger signals. In the thin wire scenario above, more voltage and more current means that even with the higher resistance,
That is a REALLY good idea.
Ah, found the other one that I wanted to post.
? id=108973
This bug is REALLY annoying, unless you like clicking the wrong close button and losing all your tabs, or accidentally hitting ^Q instead of ^W and having the same effect.
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi
If you use Moz, just highlight that URL and drag it to the address bar.
Thats kind of strange, since autoscroll works great on 1.3, and it scrolls smoothly horizontally and vertically.
Here are some pretty old bugs about tabs that could use some fixes / votes. They aren't critical, but fixing them (especially the first one) would really improve usability.
d =103720
d =104532
This one is about the URL bar not being set when you open a link in a new tab - the problem occurs when the page doesn't load. You can't find out what the URL was that didn't load, so you have to find the link again on the page you opened it from.
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?i
This bug is about tabs and the status bar not properly updating when you switch tabs.
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?i
The 85Hz on a CRT is different. This is because the CRT flickers - and many people can perceive this flicker at 60Hz. However, 60fps is as smooth as it gets. An LCD has a constant light, so it doesn't flicker. All you need is 60 updates per second to redraw all the pixels, and then you get a smooth, flicker-free image.
Remote Desktop / terminal server is faster than VNC because while VNC does the rendering on the server, then transmits images, the MS software does rendering on the client (kinda like X does). This makes it much faster.
desktop proeprties
explorer
notepad
start menu
Sorry to reply to myself... the server is responding again - these screenshots are AWESOME. :)
:-)
Check out the Control Panel
Maybe it is time to put linux on my desktop.
A lot of people will complain that linux shouldn't be copying Windows, but should be innovating. As someone who spends a lot of time using both systems, I am more comfortable with the Windows GUI than any of the linux desktops I've used. Maybe it is just because I have been using it since Windows 95, and the linux interfaces are all so different. No matter why I prefer it, the look and feel of an OS actually plays a large part in how much I like it.
I love the backend of *nix, but could never stand any of the desktops enough to use it as my primary OS. With this project, I can have an OS with a nice backend AND an aesthetically-pleasing, usable front end.
Sure this isn't innovating, but consider what is required to come up with a good GUI. Microsoft spends a LOT of money doing research to see what people like in a GUI, whereas linux innovation is often the result of one developer deciding, "Hmm, this feature is cool - I'll make a window manager do that". It isn't really reasonable to expect a better (for "normal" computer people) GUI from a group of developers than a company doing actual research.
Unfortunately, the server stopped responding after I got the home page, but the few tiny shots there show things like the Display control panel (an interface I really like and have wanted in linux for a long time), and explorer. If they have a few more control panels (Add/Remove programs, Network connections, and a subset of System), this might really be enough to get me to switch my primary OS.
Actually, Lexan / Plexiglas both conduct well enough to prevent static - they actually conduct well enough to cause problems if they touch the bottom of your motherboard. You need to make sure you have spacers/risers so that the motherboard isn't resting on the case.
Oops, forgot something. The hippocampus is responsible for what are called "explicit" memories - such as memories of events. However, there is a different memory called "implicit", which is responsible for things such a learned skills. You could teach someone to swim even if they had damage to their hippocampus, because swimming is an implicit memory.
No, actually, when you are typing, you are using something called "working memory", and it is different. Working memory is thought to reside in the prefrontal cortext (at the very front of your brain).
Patients with damage to the hippocampus would type their post normally, wake up the next day, and never remember writing it. HOWEVER, if you had one play tetris all day, then interrupted their dream stage and asked what they were experiencing, they will sometimes explain dreams about falling blocks or similar things.
The problem is just that the data doesn't go from RAM to the hard drive. The RAM itself works fine.
I have to disagree with your second point... I love mozilla as a browser, but I really don't like it for email or usenet. Is it so wrong to like one product for each feature?
I love winamp 2.x - it is an excellent music player. I don't like winamp 3.x - it is a crappy video player.
This page is not sponsored by Google, affiliated with Google and will probably get me in trouble.
I definitely think he'll get in trouble - he's way too close to Google (and Google's Froogle).
No, power consumption scales linearly with frequency. It increases with the square of voltage (you can see the voltage relation easily: power = IV = V^2/R)
The CMU Robotics club actually has a project to make a pancake flipping robot :)
Yea, but you have to remember that our distro depends heavily on AFS - a lot of critical files need to be accessed from the network, so it isn't really useful anywhere but here on campus. I hear even over broadband, it is pretty bad.
Here is a semi-detailed page describing what I did, with a list of pics here. The voltage regulator caps were blown, but I replaced them for a super-ghetto motherboard ;)
That isn't possible with FTP unless the user is using some commandline app where the user has to enter all the FTP commands.