...an extremely wide execution core and a 16-stage (integer) pipeline that, while not as deep as the P4's, is nonetheless built for speed.
For those not planning to read the article, I wanted to mention the following so you do not get the wrong impression. The speed that the article refers to (of a long integer pipeline, like a 16-stage or like the Pentium IV's 20-stage) is clockspeed, not necessarily actual performance. The P4's super long pipeline, for example, allows it to run at higher clock speeds, but less work gets done in the same number of clock cycles. This is the "braniac" vs "speed demon" philosophy (with a high clock speed but low instructions-per-clock representing "speed demon") and neither is necessarily better than the other (though one is obviously better for the marketing dept.) Just don't assume that "built for speed" always means "built to be fast" -- a confusing but important distinction.:-)
I've had light emitting silicon for years, though I admit it is not quite as flexible as this newer technology. Most of you probably do and don't even know it. Simply remove your Athlon heatsink, and for a brief period, the chip will emit a reddish glow. It is pretty, but DO NOT touch.
Perhaps the Y2K problem passed without incident exactly because of these fixes. There was software that remembered the data as only two digits, and some of it did need to keep track of the entire year, though the "19" was assumed. We will probably never know.
This is offtopic to moderate accordingly, but I wanted to point out that the game "Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos" used Lagrangian extensively as an important part of the game, as well as many other concepts in "real physics" that so many games ignore, either because the developers don't care or don't know. This was a point of respect to the game, but that it is huge, well designed, has a great plot and well-written character development helped too. It is, however, one that requires patience (Very LARGE area to explore.) and Windows (Unfortunately, it does not run in WineX at all.)
It's not just your own code, corporations pay a lot of taxes as well.
This is less and less true every day. You are aware that many companies, including General Motors (one of the biggest companies in the world) haven't paid corporate "income" taxes for years? There are some very juicy corporate tax laws which allow corporations to reduce and in some cases eliminate most of their taxes by using such tricks as funelling it to their employees under certain guises. Interesting stuff.
That is the whole point of AGP--to be a port in which the I/O of other devices would not effect the performance of the video I/O. Additionally, if the AGP port shared bandwidth with anything, it wouldn't be a port, it would be a bus.
Cas, or StorageReview.com's forums, created a 324 bytes Windows 2000 PE executeable. It completely blew away all of mine, the smallest of which were about ~700 bytes.
Gas turbines (perhaps not the exact same thing as the article is talking about) were tested decades ago in cars. While they produced more power and created mostly non-toxic exhaust (i.e. you can live in an atmosphere of gas turbine exhaust for hours or more, but only a few minutes in conventional gas engine exhaust), they fuel efficiency was found to be terrible. 1.5-3MPG. If the two techs are the same, it looks like this problem has been largely solved.
As an added FYI, the Army's M1 tank uses a diesel turbine that produces >1200HP (not that horse power is really a very useful measure of power, but I don't recall the torque numbers), but its gas mileage is... Not that great.:)
Certain car companies are apparently still interested in the technology though, regardless. (not goatse.*, I promise)
This device sounds great, but what many people I know and myself have been looking for is an affordable device which you plug in to a power outlet, then plug something (say, a computer) into the device, and get a simple readout of how many watts are being used, then we could use Ohm's law to find how many amps are in use. This would be extremely convenient for testing the real power usage of new PC components, major appliances, etc.
This is a feature of very few processors, and is considered "bad"(tm) and "Not a Good Thing"(tm) by many microprocessor designers. Why that is, I have never heard a satisfactory answer for. Now, the x86 architecture allows access to partial registers by addressing, say, "ah" rather "ax" or "eax" (which are 8, 16, and 32 bits respectively). AFAIK, the PowerPC architecture does not directly support the use of segmented registers, so you would have to use dirty hacks like verious bitwise operations (clearing part of a register with AND, using the remaining part in math, putting the result (after a bitshift) into the other half of the register, etc. Nasty. No particular advantage, either. Of course, I have never programmed the PowerPC in assembler so what do I know?
At least, not necessarily. Just because these new chips will be 64-bit does not mean they will be fast. 64-bit processors require more cache and main memory (because all of the memory pointers are 64-bits rather than 32) and cannot necessarily do most common computations faster.
Say you are doing a multiply operation. Very common. The numbers are, say, 500,000 and 42. Both of those numbers are occupying a full 64-bit register, even though they could be stored in 32-bit registers easily. The multiply operation still takes the same amound of time to complete, because the register size doesn't matter unless the numbers cannot fit.
Now, software doing math with numbers greater than ~4.3 billion (what will fit in a 32-bit register) will be able to perform those calculations more quickly, but rarely are such large numbers used. Certain operations, such as encryption and advanced mathematics, will be able to calculate up to 4 times faster, but again, this will not matter much for most applications (though perhaps folding@home and SETI@home will see a speed up).
Additionally, the increased code size caused by the larger memory pointers (about 5%) can actually slow code, because the cache hit rate will drop by that same 5%.
The Opteron processor's early benchmarks (which show that it simply kicks ass) are misleading because the Opteron has other tweaks to improve speed: Twice as many registers, an integrated low-latency memory controller, probably a better branch prediction unit, and a few other minor tweaks. The speed increase is not caused by the larger registers.
That said, IBM makes some very nice processors, and if they incorporate many of their ideas into this new CPU, Apple will hopefully be very competitive. (though those 1.8GHz better have a great IPC to compete with the Clawhammer and 3+GHz P4!)
64-bits is very nice in that Apples can now address >4GB RAM per process, but few people are finding the 4GB memory barrier to be all that restrictive, less professionals working on very high-end tasks such as gargantuan 3D models with staggeringly huge textures. I'm all for Apple every since OSX was released, but let's not succumb to the 64-bit myth anymore than we should the MHz myth.
36 != 64, but just because CPUs with Intel's PAE can address 64GB of RAM (2^36 = 64GB) does not make them 36-bit processors. They can only actually address 4GB at any one time, which is why any single process can use no more than 4GB of RAM (actually, 3.5GB with Linux and 3GB with Windows)
Building a kernel still requires you to know the manufacturer and model of every freakin' piece of silicon in your machine, this "new" utility doesn't make anything easier. 1) If you can't figure out what hardware is in your own computer, use a distribution like SuSE or any of the others that do have hardware detection.
2) No, actually you need know only some parts, such as the video card, sound card, and others that do not have a universal driver like hard drives.
2) If you are going to use Linux, you should probably at least know the most important parts in the computer you are using. It isn't difficult. If Grandma doesn't know, she can either use an easy distro, or not use Linux. Even with an "easy" distribution, Linux is probably not for her (nor should it be, says many)
3) Unless you use the default drivers that Microsoft provides, which usually suck, you need to know the same information about your hardware in Windows. Say you want to upgrade your video driver. Well, if you haven't a clue what video card is in your system, what website are you going to visit to download those drivers?
I agree that it would be nice in the eyes of many people if Linux, the kernel, could autodetect the installed hardware, but it wouldn't be that great an advantage. If Windows detects hardware that it doesn't have a driver for... Now what? You still have to know where to go to get that driver, since the ones that come with the hardware are almost always buggy prerelease bugware. Even if you would know, half the time Windows will say "Unknown PCI device" or some other incredibly useful piece of information. With Linux, you have all drivers for all supported hardware Right Now(TM), and can simply enable those modules on most distributions (oh, and then NOT have to reboot). I would have to stretch the facts to say that one system is better than the other once you are used to both. Seriously, it sounds like Windows is right up your alley. If Linux doesn't have a feature that is very important to you, and Windows does, that is a perfectly legitimate reason to use Windows (not that you need one), and not a perfectly legitimate reason to say "It's the 21st century! Wake up! to a person who has spent a good deal of his life working for the common good, and not charging a dime.
Slashdot Mirror
...an extremely wide execution core and a 16-stage (integer) pipeline that, while not as deep as the P4's, is nonetheless built for speed.
:-)
For those not planning to read the article, I wanted to mention the following so you do not get the wrong impression. The speed that the article refers to (of a long integer pipeline, like a 16-stage or like the Pentium IV's 20-stage) is clockspeed, not necessarily actual performance. The P4's super long pipeline, for example, allows it to run at higher clock speeds, but less work gets done in the same number of clock cycles. This is the "braniac" vs "speed demon" philosophy (with a high clock speed but low instructions-per-clock representing "speed demon") and neither is necessarily better than the other (though one is obviously better for the marketing dept.)
Just don't assume that "built for speed" always means "built to be fast" -- a confusing but important distinction.
I've had light emitting silicon for years, though I admit it is not quite as flexible as this newer technology.
Most of you probably do and don't even know it. Simply remove your Athlon heatsink, and for a brief period, the chip will emit a reddish glow.
It is pretty, but DO NOT touch.
Ahh, thanks. I couldn't look at the page for more than half a second because... Certain other people are in the vicinity. ;-)
An intelligent, thoughtful thread. On Slashdot. And me without any mod points. :-\
What does the Maxim link have to do with anything? Some cheesy pun on the word "barely"? :)
Perhaps the Y2K problem passed without incident exactly because of these fixes. There was software that remembered the data as only two digits, and some of it did need to keep track of the entire year, though the "19" was assumed.
We will probably never know.
From Google's cache of www.google.com:
Google is not affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible for its content.
This is offtopic to moderate accordingly, but I wanted to point out that the game "Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos" used Lagrangian extensively as an important part of the game, as well as many other concepts in "real physics" that so many games ignore, either because the developers don't care or don't know. This was a point of respect to the game, but that it is huge, well designed, has a great plot and well-written character development helped too. It is, however, one that requires patience (Very LARGE area to explore.) and Windows (Unfortunately, it does not run in WineX at all.)
It's not just your own code, corporations pay a lot of taxes as well.
This is less and less true every day.
You are aware that many companies, including General Motors (one of the biggest companies in the world) haven't paid corporate "income" taxes for years? There are some very juicy corporate tax laws which allow corporations to reduce and in some cases eliminate most of their taxes by using such tricks as funelling it to their employees under certain guises. Interesting stuff.
It's a great time to be a corporation.
No.
AGP and PCI do not share bandwidth at all.
That is the whole point of AGP--to be a port in which the I/O of other devices would not effect the performance of the video I/O.
Additionally, if the AGP port shared bandwidth with anything, it wouldn't be a port, it would be a bus.
No. It said, "Outlook KILLER," not "Outlook Express clone." :)
Build on the success of Evolution.
;-)
Think about it.
Error: I have no root and I must scream.
(Couldn't find the hard drive)
I was graced with this error when I compiled the FreeBSD kernel with GCC's "-malign-double" option.
Malloc type lacks magic.
I still have no idea what that is supposed to mean.
or = of
Cas, or StorageReview.com's forums, created a 324 bytes Windows 2000 PE executeable. It completely blew away all of mine, the smallest of which were about ~700 bytes.
Doesn't any?? READ ?
Nah, too easy.
This comes as a bit of a shock to me, as nobody seemed to have mentioned that previously (or I haven't been paying enough attention).
Visitors to StorageReview.com have been aware of this for over a month (but then, SR is all about that type of thing)
Many SCSI drive manufacturers are considering reducing warranties to 3 years as well.
Excellent, that is exactly what I was looking for. Thankyou!
Gas turbines (perhaps not the exact same thing as the article is talking about) were tested decades ago in cars. While they produced more power and created mostly non-toxic exhaust (i.e. you can live in an atmosphere of gas turbine exhaust for hours or more, but only a few minutes in conventional gas engine exhaust), they fuel efficiency was found to be terrible. 1.5-3MPG. If the two techs are the same, it looks like this problem has been largely solved.
:)
As an added FYI, the Army's M1 tank uses a diesel turbine that produces >1200HP (not that horse power is really a very useful measure of power, but I don't recall the torque numbers), but its gas mileage is... Not that great.
Certain car companies are apparently still interested in the technology though, regardless. (not goatse.*, I promise)
This device sounds great, but what many people I know and myself have been looking for is an affordable device which you plug in to a power outlet, then plug something (say, a computer) into the device, and get a simple readout of how many watts are being used, then we could use Ohm's law to find how many amps are in use. This would be extremely convenient for testing the real power usage of new PC components, major appliances, etc.
This is a feature of very few processors, and is considered "bad"(tm) and "Not a Good Thing"(tm) by many microprocessor designers. Why that is, I have never heard a satisfactory answer for. Now, the x86 architecture allows access to partial registers by addressing, say, "ah" rather "ax" or "eax" (which are 8, 16, and 32 bits respectively). AFAIK, the PowerPC architecture does not directly support the use of segmented registers, so you would have to use dirty hacks like verious bitwise operations (clearing part of a register with AND, using the remaining part in math, putting the result (after a bitshift) into the other half of the register, etc. Nasty. No particular advantage, either.
Of course, I have never programmed the PowerPC in assembler so what do I know?
At least, not necessarily.
Just because these new chips will be 64-bit does not mean they will be fast. 64-bit processors require more cache and main memory (because all of the memory pointers are 64-bits rather than 32) and cannot necessarily do most common computations faster.
Say you are doing a multiply operation. Very common. The numbers are, say, 500,000 and 42. Both of those numbers are occupying a full 64-bit register, even though they could be stored in 32-bit registers easily. The multiply operation still takes the same amound of time to complete, because the register size doesn't matter unless the numbers cannot fit.
Now, software doing math with numbers greater than ~4.3 billion (what will fit in a 32-bit register) will be able to perform those calculations more quickly, but rarely are such large numbers used. Certain operations, such as encryption and advanced mathematics, will be able to calculate up to 4 times faster, but again, this will not matter much for most applications (though perhaps folding@home and SETI@home will see a speed up).
Additionally, the increased code size caused by the larger memory pointers (about 5%) can actually slow code, because the cache hit rate will drop by that same 5%.
The Opteron processor's early benchmarks (which show that it simply kicks ass) are misleading because the Opteron has other tweaks to improve speed: Twice as many registers, an integrated low-latency memory controller, probably a better branch prediction unit, and a few other minor tweaks. The speed increase is not caused by the larger registers.
That said, IBM makes some very nice processors, and if they incorporate many of their ideas into this new CPU, Apple will hopefully be very competitive. (though those 1.8GHz better have a great IPC to compete with the Clawhammer and 3+GHz P4!)
64-bits is very nice in that Apples can now address >4GB RAM per process, but few people are finding the 4GB memory barrier to be all that restrictive, less professionals working on very high-end tasks such as gargantuan 3D models with staggeringly huge textures.
I'm all for Apple every since OSX was released, but let's not succumb to the 64-bit myth anymore than we should the MHz myth.
36 != 64, but just because CPUs with Intel's PAE can address 64GB of RAM (2^36 = 64GB) does not make them 36-bit processors. They can only actually address 4GB at any one time, which is why any single process can use no more than 4GB of RAM (actually, 3.5GB with Linux and 3GB with Windows)
Building a kernel still requires you to know the manufacturer and model of every freakin' piece of silicon in your machine, this "new" utility doesn't make anything easier.
1) If you can't figure out what hardware is in your own computer, use a distribution like SuSE or any of the others that do have hardware detection.
2) No, actually you need know only some parts, such as the video card, sound card, and others that do not have a universal driver like hard drives.
2) If you are going to use Linux, you should probably at least know the most important parts in the computer you are using. It isn't difficult. If Grandma doesn't know, she can either use an easy distro, or not use Linux. Even with an "easy" distribution, Linux is probably not for her (nor should it be, says many)
3) Unless you use the default drivers that Microsoft provides, which usually suck, you need to know the same information about your hardware in Windows. Say you want to upgrade your video driver. Well, if you haven't a clue what video card is in your system, what website are you going to visit to download those drivers?
I agree that it would be nice in the eyes of many people if Linux, the kernel, could autodetect the installed hardware, but it wouldn't be that great an advantage. If Windows detects hardware that it doesn't have a driver for... Now what? You still have to know where to go to get that driver, since the ones that come with the hardware are almost always buggy prerelease bugware. Even if you would know, half the time Windows will say "Unknown PCI device" or some other incredibly useful piece of information. With Linux, you have all drivers for all supported hardware Right Now(TM), and can simply enable those modules on most distributions (oh, and then NOT have to reboot).
I would have to stretch the facts to say that one system is better than the other once you are used to both.
Seriously, it sounds like Windows is right up your alley. If Linux doesn't have a feature that is very important to you, and Windows does, that is a perfectly legitimate reason to use Windows (not that you need one), and not a perfectly legitimate reason to say "It's the 21st century! Wake up! to a person who has spent a good deal of his life working for the common good, and not charging a dime.
--Sivar