The second graph, they just failed to lable half the CPUs tested. They reference the 955XE, which is not labled anywhere on their graph. It's not idle/load, it's just peak for each CPU, but they made the graph to small to get all the CPU names on the left hand side... *sigh*
The first graph, I'm lost. I think the horizontal axis should be time. Turn it on, let it sit idle for 10 minutes recording power usage, then run a few loops of 3dmark recording power usage. The trends on the graph would seem to fit that, with power consumption rising slightly temperatures increased. Both because the PSU is probably a bit less efficient and the chips will draw a bit more power as they heat up.
Nah, Duke Nukem hasn't been in developement for 7 years (or whatever), it's been in developement 2-3 years at a time 3 different times. They just keep gutting it and starting over every once in a while.
Yea, and remeber when TV, music and radio used to be good as well?
Nastalgia does wonders for perception. Games of yester year were good, mediocre and bad. The same as we have today. I don't know if the ratios are changing. If the expansion of the industry is diluting the overall quality, leaving us with few outstanding, inovative and 'special' games to hold onto, but top notch games are out there if you want to look.
That said - Asumming the 360 has "Symmetric" architecture and the PS3 "Assymetric" as the guy is implying.
Lets discover exactly what the difference is between the two.
In this case, symetric vs asym is far more about the capabilities of the cores than how software needs to be written for them.
In the XBox360 each of the cores is the same. Not that different than what's found in G5 (a bit stripped down to make 3 fit on a die more feasibly), each of them can handle any task you apply to them. It's not meaningfully different than programming for any multiprocessing setup.
Cell has a single general purpose core, and many 'number crunchers.' The SPEs are realistically incapable of conditional processing (they can do it, but anytime branchs are even remotely predictable based on previous histories, they fall flat on their face), memory access (beyond their own very limited 128KiB of local memory). The architecture of Cell doesn't aleviate any of the complixty of multithreading programming, it just forces certain types of tasks to certain parts of the chip.
The trick with Cell is to find enough for the SPEs to do on their own, and let the single general purpose core to do what tasks must fall to it (Like AI, memory access, and user input) without making a total bottleneck out of that one core.
Slashdot would be a wonderful place if there weren't any summaries, article headlines were accurate and people read the articles.
-Calling it worm is somewhat misleading, you still have to actually run the exectuable attachement in the email to get infected. Meaning that this is not a software exploit, more of a classic idiot user exploit. -Any anti-virus program, including the free online service offered by MS, will remove the virus. -Yet somehow becaue MS opted to not rush an unfinished update to their spyware removal tool out the door to give users a 5th or 6th option in removing the virus, people are worried about paying protection money for critical exploits.
Double the transistors means double the number of cores and double the cache, which means (roughly) double the processing power.
Historically that has never been true. Though I suppose with multi-core chips we're getting to where you can say 'double the processing power' (which is a very vauge and misleading term, since it offers no where near double the performance of a chip 99% of the time) by doubling the number of cores on a die.
But from when Moore uttered his 'law' (more like loose estimate based on current trends) until about 2004 that 'double the processing power' was simply a complete misunderstanding of Moore's law. Prescott has about twice the number of transistors as Northwood, does it have 'twice the processing power?' I think not.
Regretably the incredible multipling cores may give some credibility to the 'doubling the processing power' line that people have been (miss)quoting from Moore for the last 30 years. Oh well, being wrong for three decades didn't stop people from thinking chips got twice as fast every 18 months, being mostly wrong about it now can't be much worse
Well, the dual core parts are the first to use the 110W TDP, the older FX S939 parts were 104W so it's not a major increase but a creeping power usage. AMD has been trying to retail compatability with all S939 boards, including the early NF3 and K8T800 Pro boards. I don't know AMD's original requirements for the current the motherboard should be able to supply to the CPU, but I do know the dual core parts can draw about 10A more than the original highest power parts on S939. That may be one factor that's driving AMD's thermal envolopes. We'll see if AMD keeps thermal requirements in check when the move to their new socket this spring where they can mandate huge amperage requirements again (looking forward for their 65nm parts).
And now for something completely different why is this a story? All of the retail dual core AMD chips come with heat pipe coolers. It's been this way for months. The X2 3800+ that's only an 89W part ships with a heat pipe cooler as its stock cooler.
I didn't bother to actually count the number of unfixed or no fix planned glitches / bugs in there, so I don't know if it actually validates the 80+ the grandparent claimed, but there are quite a few known bugs in A64 and its HTT bus.
In fact there are going to be any CPU released, even stuff like Power / Itanium / USpark are going to have errata like this. Microprocessors are inredibly complex equipment, and 100% stable and glitch free under all possible conditions just isn't going to happen. Who ever submitted this story is blowing this entirely out of proportion. The link is already Slashdotted so I haven't gotten a chance to read what the bugs / glitches are, but I would be good money a normal user could go through the entire life of their Core Dou Mac and never notice one. These are typically very small gliches / bugs that occur under very specific conditions, and are meant more for hardware manufacturers to be aware of than they are to warn a user there could be problems with their chips.
publishing them publicly I think is a good move on Intel's part, but they do run this risk where people don't understand that this is a completely and utterly ordinary and expected thing to happen.
Since he kept the clock speeds (the multipliers) the same as the origianl settings, there would be no perfomrance hit at all. You could introduce your own P-States (faster or slower, anything that the multipliers allow for) if you found a need. For instance if you found watching DVDs would load the CPU enough to move out of the lowest power state, but not really stress the CPU in the high power state adding a mid power (say 6x multiplier) may be a happy middle ground in terms of performance and power consumption.
Lowering the voltage doesn't hasten long term damage, for the most part lower voltages and temperatures tend to increase the lifespan of a CPU.
I would assume it voids the warranty. But it's also something that could be undone by uninstalling the software and impossible to tell you did it.
Nice missleading headline though. No one in the article mentions banning the game, other than the author who apprently postulates that the next logical step is banning all movies that depict violence against police, showing that he profoundly missed the difference between ban and boycott.
I'm going to be boycotting this game as well, not because I think virtual depictions of killing cops and the innocent are wrong, but because I think that like most games relying soley on offensive and gruesome content, this game will be terrible to play.
If you want to not buy the game based on 'moral' grounds, good for you. Don't take the Jack Thompson road to raving lunacy and I really can't take issue with this kind of protest; other than to say I think it defeats its own purpose. Controversy, and complaint is a substitute for the marketing budget in these kinds of games. This is a fairly small, niche (Adults only rating if I'm not mistaken), low quality, no class game; and leaving to flounder in obscurity would do more harm than a nationally publicized boycott.
Whatever you want to say about the quality of the show the last few seaons, you can only applaud JoWood when they said they're weren't going to publish this as just another lousy liscense game. We see time and again it's easy to put out a bad game with a good liscense and sell it effectively to the fans regardless of how the game plays. (See basically any movie tie in game as reference).
It's a shame, I think a game with the Stargate liscense could have some potential; but no game is better than a very bad game as far as I'm concerned.
Did you learn nothing from the South Park parody of the Terri Shiavo mess? When they revive you your soul returns to the body, thus depriving God of his Keanu Reeves figure and ensuring the armies of Satan will crush the Mormons in heaven.
They could, but as of right now Intel is not using a Silicon on Insulator process like AMD and IBM are. Considering SOI is a prerequisit for Z-RAM, and how much fab capacity Intel has (they're stuffing 4MiB of total L2 onto their dual core 9x0 line right now), I wouldn't expect it to be high on their to do list.
Actualy the socket A Semrpon's are nothing special. They're stripped down versions of the old AthlonXPs with a new system that rates them against Celerons (So AMD can put bigger numbers on slower chips). Now, the first Netburst based Celerons, the 400mhz FSB / 128KiB L2 parts, are some of the worst chips intel produced since the cacheless Celeron 300s...
A more appropriate comparison of budget chips today would be the S754 Sempron 2500+ - 3100+ against the Celeron D 2.53 - 3.06. They stack up fairly comperabely in overall performance (Sempron wins for games, Celeron wins for multimedia), and prices are almost identical 63-80 for AMD, 66-80 for Intel.
AMD still has the price advantage against many P4s, but in the budget world it's a much closer race.
My last programming class as an underga, a 400 level CS course, we were using (I guess) a somewhat common software program / simulator to build sections of a simulated operating system. Somebody found a project for the module we were first assigned online, full source code and brought it to the professor's attention, he talked about it in class. He warned people that while it's ok to look and get a clue of what to do, specific requirments varied from class to class and if you didn't follow his directions, you'd be in trouble. 6 people in a class of about 20 got caught cheating on the first assignment. I think he was merciful and only failed them (actually 1 guy cited the web page he copied from, I guess he forgot this wasn't English calss, he might have only gotten a 0/100 on the project), and didn't report anyone to the provost to face prhobation / expulsion.
These were people with 90+ credit hours in college, how they thought copying off of a web page was the solution is beyond me.
Same reason all those interior decorating channels are on "The Learning Channel" and Poker and trashy reality shows are on "Bravo" (more of a high brow / art themed network a while ago): these are buisnesses.
With the proliferation of cable / sat TV networks it is increasingly difficult to draw in the ratings needed to pay the bills. 10 years ago Discovery channel didn't have much competition in its niche market. Now on digial cable or satellite service you might have 4 or 5 networks that devote at least part of their programming to somethign appealing to Discovery's core audiance. So The Discovery Channel has to go off and bring in more viewers, and that means shows with broader appeal: ie Mythbusters. It's still science, and still informative (somewhat), but it's mostly about people blowing things up and hurting themselves.
Wasn't the "Starfleet Command" series also heavily based on the "Starfleet Battles" board game rules?
Just this time it's being developed by Mad Dog studios (of ST: Armada and Bridge Commander) instead of Taldren (who did the first 3 ST Command games).
If they're going to be based off the same rule set, I have to wonder how much of this will just be SFC IV and how much will stand as a unique game on its own.
That's like saying you can't patent the implementation of a microchip because all it is is mathematical formulas.
Software adapts mathematics (be it simple boolean operations or complex searching and sorting algorithms) to a specific form and function. If an adaptation was sufficiently unique, non-obvious and usefull, then it might be reasonable to patent it.
Now, I don't support software patents, mostly becuase of the inept patent system we have.
Not the point. I don't mind the recomended purchases. In fact for my less well known artists I'd like to know what's out there that's similar. My problem is solely in the manner they went about it. Ask permission is all I ask.
Guess what, Slashdot is tracking every page you visit here, including your browser, OS, and IP address! Using geolocation, they could find out where in the country you are! The horror! In fact, every web server on the Internet has your IP!
yes, yes, yes. Privacy on the interweb doesn't exist, so no one should respect it or care when it's violated. Just becaue a webserver logs my IP, doesn't give software that I use on my home computer the right to send out personal information without my permission.
When connecting to websites I agree there is little or no privacy (for better, worse or indiferent), but that's not what we're talking about. With iTunes when I'm plyaing my music, everything is happening on my personal computer. In this case, I am entitled tp privacy. And if iTunes isn't going to respect that, I won't use it.
If this were windows media player (again - it phoned home when you played DVDs, and was resoundly condemded in many circles) there wouldn't be a person on slashdot without a torch or pitchfork.
The fact that Apple is more often viewed as being product and customer centerned than a tyrannical monopoly is the only reason people will defend this kind of activity.
Apple was taking your personal information about your personal music being played on your personal computer and sending it back to themselves. Basic common courtesy dictates you ask people for personal information, you don't take it. The fact Jobs says he's not being malevolent is nice, but doesn't change the fact Apple somehow felt entitled to know what music you're playing on iTunes at any given time.
One dialog box, "Is it ok to send information about the music you're playing so we can better recommend purchases for you?" is all it takes. That one little question makes this a nice features instead of an invasion of privacy.
It's not so much that apple want's to collect this info, it's that they felt entitled to it. If they considered this the personal information that it is, common courtesy dictates they ask permission to collect it. If it was their information becuase I use iTunes, then they have no need to ask for it.
Hell, with how much music is out there, I think this a very good idea. I'd like iTunes to point me to songs / albums that are similar to what I know I like. I just expect them to be upfront and honest about it.
Slashdot Mirror
The system break down gives people a better idea of what it is they should be looking to upgrade if they want to improve their 'score.'
I'm attemping to decipher them
The second graph, they just failed to lable half the CPUs tested. They reference the 955XE, which is not labled anywhere on their graph.
It's not idle/load, it's just peak for each CPU, but they made the graph to small to get all the CPU names on the left hand side... *sigh*
The first graph, I'm lost. I think the horizontal axis should be time. Turn it on, let it sit idle for 10 minutes recording power usage, then run a few loops of 3dmark recording power usage. The trends on the graph would seem to fit that, with power consumption rising slightly temperatures increased. Both because the PSU is probably a bit less efficient and the chips will draw a bit more power as they heat up.
Nah, Duke Nukem hasn't been in developement for 7 years (or whatever), it's been in developement 2-3 years at a time 3 different times. They just keep gutting it and starting over every once in a while.
Yea, and remeber when TV, music and radio used to be good as well?
Nastalgia does wonders for perception.
Games of yester year were good, mediocre and bad. The same as we have today. I don't know if the ratios are changing. If the expansion of the industry is diluting the overall quality, leaving us with few outstanding, inovative and 'special' games to hold onto, but top notch games are out there if you want to look.
In this case, symetric vs asym is far more about the capabilities of the cores than how software needs to be written for them.
In the XBox360 each of the cores is the same. Not that different than what's found in G5 (a bit stripped down to make 3 fit on a die more feasibly), each of them can handle any task you apply to them. It's not meaningfully different than programming for any multiprocessing setup.
Cell has a single general purpose core, and many 'number crunchers.' The SPEs are realistically incapable of conditional processing (they can do it, but anytime branchs are even remotely predictable based on previous histories, they fall flat on their face), memory access (beyond their own very limited 128KiB of local memory). The architecture of Cell doesn't aleviate any of the complixty of multithreading programming, it just forces certain types of tasks to certain parts of the chip.
The trick with Cell is to find enough for the SPEs to do on their own, and let the single general purpose core to do what tasks must fall to it (Like AI, memory access, and user input) without making a total bottleneck out of that one core.
Would probably suck to drive by one of these London crosswalks
Slashdot would be a wonderful place if there weren't any summaries, article headlines were accurate and people read the articles.
-Calling it worm is somewhat misleading, you still have to actually run the exectuable attachement in the email to get infected. Meaning that this is not a software exploit, more of a classic idiot user exploit.
-Any anti-virus program, including the free online service offered by MS, will remove the virus.
-Yet somehow becaue MS opted to not rush an unfinished update to their spyware removal tool out the door to give users a 5th or 6th option in removing the virus, people are worried about paying protection money for critical exploits.
Of course, most of us don't need scantily clad women with odd hair colors to enjoy new video games, just to enhance them
Historically that has never been true. Though I suppose with multi-core chips we're getting to where you can say 'double the processing power' (which is a very vauge and misleading term, since it offers no where near double the performance of a chip 99% of the time) by doubling the number of cores on a die.
But from when Moore uttered his 'law' (more like loose estimate based on current trends) until about 2004 that 'double the processing power' was simply a complete misunderstanding of Moore's law. Prescott has about twice the number of transistors as Northwood, does it have 'twice the processing power?' I think not.
Regretably the incredible multipling cores may give some credibility to the 'doubling the processing power' line that people have been (miss)quoting from Moore for the last 30 years. Oh well, being wrong for three decades didn't stop people from thinking chips got twice as fast every 18 months, being mostly wrong about it now can't be much worse
Well, the dual core parts are the first to use the 110W TDP, the older FX S939 parts were 104W so it's not a major increase but a creeping power usage.
AMD has been trying to retail compatability with all S939 boards, including the early NF3 and K8T800 Pro boards. I don't know AMD's original requirements for the current the motherboard should be able to supply to the CPU, but I do know the dual core parts can draw about 10A more than the original highest power parts on S939. That may be one factor that's driving AMD's thermal envolopes.
We'll see if AMD keeps thermal requirements in check when the move to their new socket this spring where they can mandate huge amperage requirements again (looking forward for their 65nm parts).
And now for something completely different
why is this a story? All of the retail dual core AMD chips come with heat pipe coolers. It's been this way for months. The X2 3800+ that's only an 89W part ships with a heat pipe cooler as its stock cooler.
I didn't bother to actually count the number of unfixed or no fix planned glitches / bugs in there, so I don't know if it actually validates the 80+ the grandparent claimed, but there are quite a few known bugs in A64 and its HTT bus.
In fact there are going to be any CPU released, even stuff like Power / Itanium / USpark are going to have errata like this. Microprocessors are inredibly complex equipment, and 100% stable and glitch free under all possible conditions just isn't going to happen. Who ever submitted this story is blowing this entirely out of proportion. The link is already Slashdotted so I haven't gotten a chance to read what the bugs / glitches are, but I would be good money a normal user could go through the entire life of their Core Dou Mac and never notice one. These are typically very small gliches / bugs that occur under very specific conditions, and are meant more for hardware manufacturers to be aware of than they are to warn a user there could be problems with their chips.
publishing them publicly I think is a good move on Intel's part, but they do run this risk where people don't understand that this is a completely and utterly ordinary and expected thing to happen.
Since he kept the clock speeds (the multipliers) the same as the origianl settings, there would be no perfomrance hit at all. You could introduce your own P-States (faster or slower, anything that the multipliers allow for) if you found a need. For instance if you found watching DVDs would load the CPU enough to move out of the lowest power state, but not really stress the CPU in the high power state adding a mid power (say 6x multiplier) may be a happy middle ground in terms of performance and power consumption.
Lowering the voltage doesn't hasten long term damage, for the most part lower voltages and temperatures tend to increase the lifespan of a CPU.
I would assume it voids the warranty. But it's also something that could be undone by uninstalling the software and impossible to tell you did it.
Nice missleading headline though.
No one in the article mentions banning the game, other than the author who apprently postulates that the next logical step is banning all movies that depict violence against police, showing that he profoundly missed the difference between ban and boycott.
I'm going to be boycotting this game as well, not because I think virtual depictions of killing cops and the innocent are wrong, but because I think that like most games relying soley on offensive and gruesome content, this game will be terrible to play.
If you want to not buy the game based on 'moral' grounds, good for you. Don't take the Jack Thompson road to raving lunacy and I really can't take issue with this kind of protest; other than to say I think it defeats its own purpose. Controversy, and complaint is a substitute for the marketing budget in these kinds of games. This is a fairly small, niche (Adults only rating if I'm not mistaken), low quality, no class game; and leaving to flounder in obscurity would do more harm than a nationally publicized boycott.
Whatever you want to say about the quality of the show the last few seaons,
you can only applaud JoWood when they said they're weren't going to publish this as just another lousy liscense game. We see time and again it's easy to put out a bad game with a good liscense and sell it effectively to the fans regardless of how the game plays. (See basically any movie tie in game as reference).
It's a shame, I think a game with the Stargate liscense could have some potential; but no game is better than a very bad game as far as I'm concerned.
Did you learn nothing from the South Park parody of the Terri Shiavo mess?
When they revive you your soul returns to the body, thus depriving God of his Keanu Reeves figure and ensuring the armies of Satan will crush the Mormons in heaven.
They could, but as of right now Intel is not using a Silicon on Insulator process like AMD and IBM are.
Considering SOI is a prerequisit for Z-RAM, and how much fab capacity Intel has (they're stuffing 4MiB of total L2 onto their dual core 9x0 line right now), I wouldn't expect it to be high on their to do list.
Actualy the socket A Semrpon's are nothing special. They're stripped down versions of the old AthlonXPs with a new system that rates them against Celerons (So AMD can put bigger numbers on slower chips).
Now, the first Netburst based Celerons, the 400mhz FSB / 128KiB L2 parts, are some of the worst chips intel produced since the cacheless Celeron 300s...
A more appropriate comparison of budget chips today would be the S754 Sempron 2500+ - 3100+ against the Celeron D 2.53 - 3.06. They stack up fairly comperabely in overall performance (Sempron wins for games, Celeron wins for multimedia), and prices are almost identical 63-80 for AMD, 66-80 for Intel.
AMD still has the price advantage against many P4s, but in the budget world it's a much closer race.
My last programming class as an underga, a 400 level CS course, we were using (I guess) a somewhat common software program / simulator to build sections of a simulated operating system. Somebody found a project for the module we were first assigned online, full source code and brought it to the professor's attention, he talked about it in class. He warned people that while it's ok to look and get a clue of what to do, specific requirments varied from class to class and if you didn't follow his directions, you'd be in trouble.
6 people in a class of about 20 got caught cheating on the first assignment.
I think he was merciful and only failed them (actually 1 guy cited the web page he copied from, I guess he forgot this wasn't English calss, he might have only gotten a 0/100 on the project), and didn't report anyone to the provost to face prhobation / expulsion.
These were people with 90+ credit hours in college, how they thought copying off of a web page was the solution is beyond me.
Same reason all those interior decorating channels are on "The Learning Channel" and Poker and trashy reality shows are on "Bravo" (more of a high brow / art themed network a while ago): these are buisnesses.
With the proliferation of cable / sat TV networks it is increasingly difficult to draw in the ratings needed to pay the bills. 10 years ago Discovery channel didn't have much competition in its niche market. Now on digial cable or satellite service you might have 4 or 5 networks that devote at least part of their programming to somethign appealing to Discovery's core audiance. So The Discovery Channel has to go off and bring in more viewers, and that means shows with broader appeal: ie Mythbusters. It's still science, and still informative (somewhat), but it's mostly about people blowing things up and hurting themselves.
not really. A penney (post 1982) is only 2.5% copper, and 97.5% Zink.
Wasn't the "Starfleet Command" series also heavily based on the "Starfleet Battles" board game rules? Just this time it's being developed by Mad Dog studios (of ST: Armada and Bridge Commander) instead of Taldren (who did the first 3 ST Command games).
A little more info on ST: Legacy
If they're going to be based off the same rule set, I have to wonder how much of this will just be SFC IV and how much will stand as a unique game on its own.
That's like saying you can't patent the implementation of a microchip because all it is is mathematical formulas.
Software adapts mathematics (be it simple boolean operations or complex searching and sorting algorithms) to a specific form and function. If an adaptation was sufficiently unique, non-obvious and usefull, then it might be reasonable to patent it.
Now, I don't support software patents, mostly becuase of the inept patent system we have.
Not the point. I don't mind the recomended purchases. In fact for my less well known artists I'd like to know what's out there that's similar. My problem is solely in the manner they went about it. Ask permission is all I ask.
Guess what, Slashdot is tracking every page you visit here, including your browser, OS, and IP address! Using geolocation, they could find out where in the country you are! The horror! In fact, every web server on the Internet has your IP!yes, yes, yes. Privacy on the interweb doesn't exist, so no one should respect it or care when it's violated. Just becaue a webserver logs my IP, doesn't give software that I use on my home computer the right to send out personal information without my permission.
When connecting to websites I agree there is little or no privacy (for better, worse or indiferent), but that's not what we're talking about. With iTunes when I'm plyaing my music, everything is happening on my personal computer. In this case, I am entitled tp privacy. And if iTunes isn't going to respect that, I won't use it.
If this were windows media player (again - it phoned home when you played DVDs, and was resoundly condemded in many circles) there wouldn't be a person on slashdot without a torch or pitchfork.
The fact that Apple is more often viewed as being product and customer centerned than a tyrannical monopoly is the only reason people will defend this kind of activity.
Apple was taking your personal information about your personal music being played on your personal computer and sending it back to themselves. Basic common courtesy dictates you ask people for personal information, you don't take it. The fact Jobs says he's not being malevolent is nice, but doesn't change the fact Apple somehow felt entitled to know what music you're playing on iTunes at any given time.
One dialog box, "Is it ok to send information about the music you're playing so we can better recommend purchases for you?" is all it takes. That one little question makes this a nice features instead of an invasion of privacy.
It's not so much that apple want's to collect this info, it's that they felt entitled to it. If they considered this the personal information that it is, common courtesy dictates they ask permission to collect it. If it was their information becuase I use iTunes, then they have no need to ask for it.
Hell, with how much music is out there, I think this a very good idea. I'd like iTunes to point me to songs / albums that are similar to what I know I like. I just expect them to be upfront and honest about it.