Short track takes place on an international-sized hockey rink (30x60m). An NHL rink (like most in Canada and the US) is much narrower and simply wouldn't work.
Calgary currently has the only bobsled run in Canada. Before it, Canadians had to train at Lake Placid (which is still closer to most Canadians than Calgary is). I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Calgary has the only ski jumps in Canada too.
So, yes, before the Calgary Olympic facilities many Canadians had to leave the country to practice for the Olympics.
I think when you talk about ridiculous facilities, the Summer Olympics has to take the cake. In Georgia, they built an artificial river rapids for the kayaking events. London isn't known for their mountains either (where rapids naturally occur) so I'm guessing that won't be the only such facility for long.
Okay, I'll admit I don't like the special legislation stuff.
But the rest I think you're just wrong on or else I don't agree.
The olympic committee is not turning the other way on drugs. I have to say, they're having trouble catching people, but ask the director in any sport, they know there are "designer steroids" out there now and they haven't figured out how to catch them yet. There also is tons of red blood cell packing (likely via EPO), but how are you going to catch those people? Having red blood cells in your blood is normal, they're not a foreign substance. They do refuse to let people compete if they have too many red blood cells in their blood, stating the "health risks" of doing so.
The bribe-fest was almost exclusively not with tax dollars. If you are referring to Salt Lake City (or Nogano), the bribes came from individuals/companies with an interest. Using tax money for bribes would be traceable, which isn't going to work.
I do find it ridiculous how much money is spent on arenas and such that are never used again. Most of the money comes from local sources though and I don't live in Utah. Note that after the ridiculous bath Montreal took, most cities have tried to reuse facilities. Atlanta was moderately successful, although creating a fake river/rapids for the kayaking was ridiculous.
The "most marketable events" argument was very strong in the past. But now, with 4 channels showing the Olympics, nearly every event is shown (esp. since winter has so few events). You see, the biathalon has been show on the primary channel (NBC) in hidef! No one in the US gives a rip about that event, and it's not only getting shown, but in the primary coverage. I got to see every US curling match. The non-US curling matches in the round-robin were for the most part not shown. This is not at all unusual since these matches all go on simultaneously. Simultaneous events have always presented a problem for TV coverage, this isn't new.
For the citizenship, I presume you are talking about that skater. I don't watch skating, so I don't know much about it. However, if I spent my time getting angry about our government playing favorites, I'd be one pissed off guy. It's simply not worth it. (Note that Rupert Murdoch didn't have to wait to get citizenship either, and he isn't known for his skating.) I wonder how much of that stuff takes place for the World Cup? Quite a bit I would guess.
I don't care about the sex-fests. I don't spend my time moaning about other people getting some, nor looking down on them for it. If you get a bunch of fit, young adults together, there is going to be sex. Count on it.
There is a ton of backstory stuff nowadays in the NBC coverage (almost none in the non-primetime coverage on MSNBC or CNBC), all I can say is get a TiVo. The coverage is already delayed 12 hours, just delay watching it for another 2 hours and blast right through the backstories. This isn't new either, if you saw the coverage of Curt Gowdy's death, they had plenty of footage of him in Innsbruck, Austria in 1964 doing fluff pieces and interviews.
But that doesn't mean they're qualified. I've had positions open for programmers for well over a month now. I get lots of resumes, and I phone interview a lot of people, but that doesn't mean they're qualified.
I'm looking for people who are good at a slightly specialized software task. The industry is flooded with people who entered programming not because they liked it, but because in the late 90s (esp. the.com explosion) it was viewed as a lucrative job. I wish those people had just gone to business school instead and left my field alone.
Of my friends who got jobs at a major computer/software company, 3 of the 8 didn't have college degrees. But that was a long time ago. The last one to get hired with no degree was hired in 1995. They're all grandfathered now, once you have significant industry experience, no one looks at your degree.
I am a manager now, I've hired 5 people in the last 3 years. Not a single one doesn't have a degree. I rarely even get resumes from people who don't have degrees.
I do agree that you don't necessarily have to have a degree to be good in the computer field. But I would not recommend trying to enter the field of software or hardware development (as opposted to testing) without a college degree nowadays. Few hiring managers will take a chance on you.
This problem has been well known forever. It was a key factor in the failure of internet set top boxes in the mid-nineties (when everyone was trying to make one, like Apple or Oracle/Liberate).
See, European see the US reports that Americans are all fat. And they believe it. They generalize it.
In general, I've found one thing that is most common about Americans (perhaps it's true of others too). Most of them think they're smarter than average and so they say things like "Americans generally are the type to make broad generalizations" as if people from other countries weren't.
I have to go with the other poster. It is possible to make meaningful generalizations about a populace without implying it is true of every person.
How about "Chinese have black hair"? How about "Japanese are shorter than Americans"? How about "Japanese eat more beef (or whale meat) than other Pacific Asians"?
All meaningful, all generalizations, and all are useful for certain purposes (deciding what size clothes to produce or where to try to export your beef).
I did real all 3 pages. However I also saw on the page of the article I sent you that the picture showing how much better the signal routing on FB-DIMMs is a "dual-channel" setup, despite having 4 DIMMs.
I consider this a typical setup, and the article does too.
The real crux of this thing is you confused "point-to-point" with each DIMM necessarily connecting straight to the memory controller and stated such. That's not the case and I wanted to clear that up. For ultimate performance, you would do such a thing, but the positioning of FB-DIMMs seems to be for servers (and lotsa DIMMs) instead of for home machines at this time.
and other places. FB-DIMM is heralded as the way to attach more RAM more than to attach the same RAM faster. And I think given cost structure (it'll cost more), that's wise.
We'll see what happens with this. Like I said, I'm nervous about it, given the history behind the companies involved.
I doubt the RAM industry is going to move to a standard (DDR3) that is unworkable. Capacitance can be beat by stronger drivers. Maybe they'll just have to go to that. It does seem we'll end up going to buffered memory either way. Although I'd prefer it be just be registered (like ECC) not this FB-DIMM stuff.
What happens is on each clock, the 1st DIMM transfers its data to the CPU. The 2nd DIMM (if there) transfers its data to the 1st DIMM, the 3rd DIMM (if there) transfers its data to the 2nd DIMM, etc. Thus each DIMM gets the data from the next DIMM, puts it in a buffer, thus regenerating the signal electrically and emits it upstream on the next clock. You could call this "daisy chained". This limits how far each DIMM has to drive its data, which is why FB-DIMMs can claim better electrical characteristics.
What this means is to get data from the 3rd DIMM, it takes 3 clocks just to get the first bit of data (presumably 16 bits) to the CPU. The "good" news is that since this system is (semi-) serial, the clock has to be very high already, so this latency is somewhat mitigated.
FB-DIMMs are point to point, but the point-to-point doesn't mean each DIMM connects to the memory controller, it simply means each DIMM is only on a bus with one other DIMM (well, one upstream bus and one downstream bus). Each DIMM forwards data along these busses in both directions. But again, there is no way for the 3rd DIMM to get to the memory controller without going through (and not just by) the 2nd and 1st DIMM first.
Your extension of my argument to PATA vs SATA just underscores your misunderstanding. My concern is with the latency of intermediate forwarding of data. SATA (well, the version in regular use) doesn't even allow you to attach multiple devices to a single bus, let alone have the devices forward the data to the head. Note that PATA allows multiple devices per bus, but it is a true bus, in that the data from the far device just goes by the near device, not into it and back out.
SATA is taking off due to connector costs and cable routing in the case. RAM doesn't face cable routing difficulties. It does face signal routing difficulties, but these only need to be solved once per motherboard design at worst, not once per installation as in cable routing. In addition, the signal routing complexity is much higher for ultra-high speed busses and thus the problem of signal routing will be solved the same way for FB-DIMMs as for DDR or DDR2, which is one company (Intel) will make a reference design and the other motherboard designers will just leave those signal lines alone and add other signals in the I/O area where they want to put on additional SATA RAID controllers. And in regards to connector costs, FB-DIMMs don't change the DIMM connector and thus don't reduce the cost of the DIMM connector. So I don't see a parallel here at all.
Finally, as to DIMMs and busses being forward compatible forever, it's just not going to happen. You'll have the same problem you did with SDRAM (or DDR or RDRAM). All SDRAM was compatible with each other, just the speeds changed. So you can use your old slow DIMMs as long as you don't mind that slowing down all your memory accesses.
Finally, the reason RDRAM failed isn't as simple as your comments that the RAM people screwed RAMBUS. The problem was the RAM people didn't feel like being screwed by RAMBUS. RAMBUS wanted license fees on all RAM made (see their grab at applying their patents to DDR) and so they tried to make RDRAM the standard. Intel also wanted more money per motherboard sold (not just happy selling the CPU). Intel's first attempt at making this happen was Slot 1, where they force-bundled the 2nd level cache memory in with the CPU (2nd level cache SRAM revenue could be $30-$50 per mobo back in the Socket 7 days). Note that 2nd level cache moved to the main CPU chip later. Intel additionally decided to license slot 1, claiming patents on it. Regular front side busses could not be patented, as they were purely functional, considered the most basic way to do something. Slot 1 was positioned so as to patent the physical connector and form factor so they could enforce their fees.
Intel decided to threaten VIA (a very popular Socket 7
I thought FB-DIMMs were merely buffered (as the name implies).
Nope, they're not. They're arranged in a big serial shift register.
The problem with this? Latency goes up as you put in more DIMMs. Why? Because data from the 4th DIMM has to pass through (not just by) the 3rd DIMM, 2nd DIMM and 1st DIMM to get to the CPU.
Sound familiar? It's just a retread of RDRAM.
No thanks. Intel boned themselves with this before. If they want to push this, they better get ready to take a backseat to AMD again. DDR outdistanced RDRAM handily on performance and price/performance, I'll be surprised if things are any different this time.
I hope you enjoy your higher clock speeds, you'll need them to try to get your latency down to managable and your bandwidth up to normal. I mean, with 1/4 as many data pins (I assume the 28 data pins carry only 16 bits of data at once, vs 64 of DDR/DDR2), you're going to have to go 4X as fast just to match the bandwidth and latency of a regular system. And as soon as that 2nd DIMM is put in, you're behind on latency and you're going to have to play catch up.
Yes, with FB you can put all your DIMMs on a single set of signal lines. But you can without FB, too (within capacitance limits). The reason you don't in either case, is regardless of FB or no, if you have more parallel lines, you can transmit more data at once.
If you put more memory on one set of signal lines, you can reduce latency, but you cannot increase bandwidth.
The reason these chips are pin-for-pin compatible is because they aren't any different. Turion is just a marketing name. You're getting a regular Venice (or whatever) core and so of course it comes in the regular package.
I do think making desktops from laptop processors is a good idea, but in this case, you're not actually doing anything different, just using different words for the same thing.
Intel currently does have separate desktop (P4) and laptop (P-M/Core Duo) processors, but they're about to switch to all laptop-derived processors with Merom or Conroe or whatever it is called.
Because I would like to see it for myself. But the State Department warns Americans against going in the strongest terms possible. Because it's not safe anywhere but in the Green Zone, and the airport isn't in the Green Zone.
But either way, I would have done it because I wanted to do it, not because I wanted to be some kind of authority on an internet chat board. I don't really care if the next person doesn't feel the same way I do over Iraq. I had to give that up before the war even started because I saw this stuff coming a mile away. It really isn't difficult to figure out that if you occupy someone's country they're not going to be happy about it, no matter how many times you say you're doing it for their own good.
You think there's stories to be told out there besides what we hear (mostly from inside the green zone), why don't you go over there and report them?
Part of the problem is it is unsafe for our reporters to leave this area (as ABC's Bob Woodruff so well illustrated) and Americans don't seem to want to listen to any reporters from other countries. It's kind of ironic on that 2nd part, because back before the election the Bush administration was saying everything was hunky-dory, that the insurgence was just a bunch of "dead-enders", most reporters couldn't safely leave the Green Zone to report the real story without being embedded, in which case the military could not only lead them where they wanted, but also censored their reports. One major new reporting agency was sending reporters outside the Green Zone and they were saying that the citizens were not greeting us as heroes and the insurgents were making major inroads. That agency was Al-Jazeera. In response, the Bush administration demonized them, closed down their offices until after the (US) Presidential election and eventually ended up bombing their location in Baghdad (and claiming it was a mistake).
Meanwhile, all the American news sources were just reporting wine and roses. But now that the American news sources finally did their jobs and actually report what is going on instead of what the Bush administration told them is going on, you say the "real" story would get out better if we had other news sources that could get out into the countryside.
I'd love to think that manipulating the media came back to hurt the Bush administration. I'd love to think that the media kowtowing to the Bush administration and showing an inaccurate picture of the situation came back to hurt the media too. But honestly, I just don't see it. The Bush administration is merely reaping what they sowed, and yes, things are very bad over there. Yes, things are least bad in places that we meddled the least in.
Google's last big announcement was that they're working on letting people use gmail to provide maikl service on their own domain names. But it turns out another major internet web email provider had done the same thing already... Microsoft.
Additionally, maybe they'll pull off a patent swap, or will make other refinements to the process and contribute them in exchange for a reduction (or elimination) of license fees.
Or maybe since JSR Micro is a supplier to fabs, if you buy the exotic quartz crystal lens and other equipment from them (maintenance contracts?), perhaps JSR Micro will give the patent license for the process for free.
Or maybe they won't patent it, or the processor making chips can be altered in so may subtle ways that it's easy to get around them.
And apparently by "they" in this document so far I mean Intel, because AMD doesn't fab their own processors. IBM typically fabs them for them, and it's already announced AMD has developed a 65nm process with IBM.
All in all, it's very possible that this just isn't unusual, that AMD (in their non-CPU fabrication) and Intel have had to pay various license fees or deal with certain patents and fab equipment/technology companies on every process in recent memory.
Americans don't give a flying f*** about the Balkans. Most Americans don't know Macedonia even exists. It just seems like narcissism or wanting to elevate their status for a country like those in the Balkans to say that the USA would manipulate their position.
Now also, as an American, I can say the Balkans baffle me. They're the biggest failure in modern state-building. People in the Balkans like Ibrahim Rugova, self professed "President of Kosovo" feel like they must split their already fragmented country because they don't want to have to get along with people who aren't of the same religion as them. It's too bad. It's a shame, and it is definitely not American doing.
I don't think Macedonia is needed to smuggle guns and people in and out of Europe. Bulgaria fulfills that purpose pretty well too.
Not now, not then. And as to your ideas of ACO "going along" with FIA, I just don't see it. FIA bans pretty much all "weird motors", including gas turbines and such.
ACO on the other hand encourages weird entries, they use a theory of "technical merit" or something like that. They have had Diesels and veggie Diesels running over the last 5 years and have even entertained electric entries (although I don't think any has shown up).
The 787B, like many other successful cars at Le Mans fell prey to the ACO's tendency to "mix things up", to change the rules seemingly just because everyone has optimized for them. Stretch that a bit and you can say the ACO banned the 787B (as much as you can say they banned the R8). But it's untruthful to say the ACO banned rotaries.
The 2nd column (cost of items in 3 years) adds up perfectly. So your theory is wrong unless you think all that stuff is free 3 years from now. Your moron comment doesn't work.
I think the $80 listed at the bottom is supposed to cover all that stuff. Honestly, it seems like it could be low to me. Not that memory stick Duos cost anything (I can get 1GB for $40 retail right now, the 128MB Sony gives out won't be more than $7 wholesale) but the power supply plus controller could add up to $50 alone. And as you stay, you still have to put it in a case and a box. I'd put the "misc" charges at about $100. And that's before the cost of getting it into the distribution channel.
Yeah, I know what you say is true for ad-supported TV. And so it's true for Fox News.
But it isn't true for DirecTV. You are the customer for DirectTV, not the content providers. This is true for several reasons, among them that you can get the same content from other companies. Also, because you are PAYING DirectTV. Also because DirecTV doesn't sell ads.
DVDs cost $25. Why? Is it the cost of the media? Nope. It's because they can get $25.
Samsung is charging $1000 for this thing because they'll have the only device out there (well, the only one under $3000). It doesn't mean it costs so much to make that they couldn't sell it for less and make money on it.
Why do you call Cell experimental when it's already shipping from IBM in blade servers? NVidia makes chips with over 100 million transistors and sells them every day. Cell is only strange to you because you make it so. When it comes to manufacturing it, it's not all that different from any other CPU or GPU.
Philips co-invented the CD with Sony and got royalties from that. They did not get money from DVD, Sony did that without them. My understanding is that Philips (founder or not) didn't co-invent BluRay and gets no fees from it either. Thus, they would pay license fees to produce drives, just like the other founders who don't hold the patents would.
Add up the numbers in the column. It only adds to $800.
This report is way way off.
Additionally:
The only thing worse here than M-L's estimate of the price of the PS3 this year is their estimate of it in 3 years.
Let's start from this year.
$230 seems high for just the CPU. I couldn't say how much, but I can say that Sony wouldn't even bother to make their console if the CPU cost half over half of the expected selling price.
The Blu-Ray drive price is WAY too high. Philips is going to ship a Blu-Ray writer drive for $500 in May. That's $500, retail. That includes retail markup, and cost of shipping to retailer. Also, Philips pays Blu-Ray license fees to produce units and Sony doesn't. And did I mention the Philips writes and the PS3 only has to read? And I can buy a quality DVD-Writer for under $40 retail right now. A Blu-Ray reader drive is a little different, but not a lot. It cannot cost much over $100, and it'll be well below that by fall, when the PS3 production ramps up (or perhaps just begins in earnest, I dunno).
6 USB ports? It will not have that many. 4 tops (2 front, 2 back). And the connector cost seems high, I'd say $3 today for USB ports, maybe $2.
For 802.11g and ethernet, Sony is using IP from Marvell that is normally used as an 802.11 access point. So it has all 3 ethernet ports and the 802.11g (and an ethernet hub) in a single chip (or less, see below). I'd say $5 for the ethernet and 802.11g together, maybe a bit more if they really leave 3 connectors on the back.
If the $100 was for a hard drive, they're the dumbest people alive. I can get a 40GB 2.5" drive for well under $100 retail. The OEM price cannot be over $50, and they could always go to under 40GB if it saves money. I'll just assume they added wrong.
I think also M-L doesn't understand that when you make a custom chip you can put a lot of stuff on it. The link (brains) for the USB, 802.11 and ethernet are probably on the main chip in the unit, bringing the cost of them down to nearly free. The 802.11 PHY/radio will probably be a separate chip, but the USB PHY is certainly on board, maybe the gigE one too.
So M-L is well over the initial price here.
Now, let's look at the future prices.
$100 for an OEM Blu-Ray reader in 3 years? Unpossible. Blu-Ray would have to be the biggest flop in the world for this to happen. My guess is you'll be able to buy a Blu-Ray writer drive for less than $60 in 3 years at retail. Look at how DVD writer prices collapsed. Readers will probably be under $40 retail. OEM prices for either will be even lower. And again, Sony doesn't have to pay license fees, so that lowers their prices even further.
$60 for the main chip in 3 years seem high too. It'll be on 65nm or lower then, yields will be way up, chip size down, and they might even combine chips (like the GS and EE were combined into a single chip on PS2 in under 3 years). I couldn't say how high though. Maybe it'll be $50, but include the functions of some of the other chips in it.
$30 for 512MB of RAM 3 years from now. Seriously? That's way off. GDDR3 will not be special anymore, and Sony won't be paying much premium for XDR, since they'll have enough volume to make a market in it. Right now you can get 32M of mobile SDRAM for $4 in big quantities, 64M of mobile SDRAM for $5. And I'm to think 512MB of commodity RAM will be $30 in 3 years? Nope.
Again, they don't know the PS3 uses a single set of IP for Ethernet and WiFi, $7 between the two 3 years from now is way too high. I'd say $2 for the PHYs, links will certainly be on with another chip.
$5 for Bluetooth in 3 years? It won't drop at all? Smooth move.
These companies stink at estimating parts costs. Just remember, these are stock brokers, not engineers, not parts buyers. They just don't have any clue at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Short track takes place on an international-sized hockey rink (30x60m). An NHL rink (like most in Canada and the US) is much narrower and simply wouldn't work.
Calgary currently has the only bobsled run in Canada. Before it, Canadians had to train at Lake Placid (which is still closer to most Canadians than Calgary is). I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Calgary has the only ski jumps in Canada too.
So, yes, before the Calgary Olympic facilities many Canadians had to leave the country to practice for the Olympics.
I think when you talk about ridiculous facilities, the Summer Olympics has to take the cake. In Georgia, they built an artificial river rapids for the kayaking events. London isn't known for their mountains either (where rapids naturally occur) so I'm guessing that won't be the only such facility for long.
Okay, I'll admit I don't like the special legislation stuff.
But the rest I think you're just wrong on or else I don't agree.
The olympic committee is not turning the other way on drugs. I have to say, they're having trouble catching people, but ask the director in any sport, they know there are "designer steroids" out there now and they haven't figured out how to catch them yet. There also is tons of red blood cell packing (likely via EPO), but how are you going to catch those people? Having red blood cells in your blood is normal, they're not a foreign substance. They do refuse to let people compete if they have too many red blood cells in their blood, stating the "health risks" of doing so.
The bribe-fest was almost exclusively not with tax dollars. If you are referring to Salt Lake City (or Nogano), the bribes came from individuals/companies with an interest. Using tax money for bribes would be traceable, which isn't going to work.
I do find it ridiculous how much money is spent on arenas and such that are never used again. Most of the money comes from local sources though and I don't live in Utah. Note that after the ridiculous bath Montreal took, most cities have tried to reuse facilities. Atlanta was moderately successful, although creating a fake river/rapids for the kayaking was ridiculous.
The "most marketable events" argument was very strong in the past. But now, with 4 channels showing the Olympics, nearly every event is shown (esp. since winter has so few events). You see, the biathalon has been show on the primary channel (NBC) in hidef! No one in the US gives a rip about that event, and it's not only getting shown, but in the primary coverage. I got to see every US curling match. The non-US curling matches in the round-robin were for the most part not shown. This is not at all unusual since these matches all go on simultaneously. Simultaneous events have always presented a problem for TV coverage, this isn't new.
For the citizenship, I presume you are talking about that skater. I don't watch skating, so I don't know much about it. However, if I spent my time getting angry about our government playing favorites, I'd be one pissed off guy. It's simply not worth it. (Note that Rupert Murdoch didn't have to wait to get citizenship either, and he isn't known for his skating.) I wonder how much of that stuff takes place for the World Cup? Quite a bit I would guess.
I don't care about the sex-fests. I don't spend my time moaning about other people getting some, nor looking down on them for it. If you get a bunch of fit, young adults together, there is going to be sex. Count on it.
There is a ton of backstory stuff nowadays in the NBC coverage (almost none in the non-primetime coverage on MSNBC or CNBC), all I can say is get a TiVo. The coverage is already delayed 12 hours, just delay watching it for another 2 hours and blast right through the backstories. This isn't new either, if you saw the coverage of Curt Gowdy's death, they had plenty of footage of him in Innsbruck, Austria in 1964 doing fluff pieces and interviews.
But that doesn't mean they're qualified. I've had positions open for programmers for well over a month now. I get lots of resumes, and I phone interview a lot of people, but that doesn't mean they're qualified.
.com explosion) it was viewed as a lucrative job. I wish those people had just gone to business school instead and left my field alone.
I'm looking for people who are good at a slightly specialized software task. The industry is flooded with people who entered programming not because they liked it, but because in the late 90s (esp. the
Of my friends who got jobs at a major computer/software company, 3 of the 8 didn't have college degrees. But that was a long time ago. The last one to get hired with no degree was hired in 1995. They're all grandfathered now, once you have significant industry experience, no one looks at your degree.
I am a manager now, I've hired 5 people in the last 3 years. Not a single one doesn't have a degree. I rarely even get resumes from people who don't have degrees.
I do agree that you don't necessarily have to have a degree to be good in the computer field. But I would not recommend trying to enter the field of software or hardware development (as opposted to testing) without a college degree nowadays. Few hiring managers will take a chance on you.
This problem has been well known forever. It was a key factor in the failure of internet set top boxes in the mid-nineties (when everyone was trying to make one, like Apple or Oracle/Liberate).
Upon visiting the US the most recent time:
"I'm surprised at how thin everyone is."
See, European see the US reports that Americans are all fat. And they believe it. They generalize it.
In general, I've found one thing that is most common about Americans (perhaps it's true of others too). Most of them think they're smarter than average and so they say things like "Americans generally are the type to make broad generalizations" as if people from other countries weren't.
I have to go with the other poster. It is possible to make meaningful generalizations about a populace without implying it is true of every person.
How about "Chinese have black hair"? How about "Japanese are shorter than Americans"? How about "Japanese eat more beef (or whale meat) than other Pacific Asians"?
All meaningful, all generalizations, and all are useful for certain purposes (deciding what size clothes to produce or where to try to export your beef).
BillG mused about that around the time of the 360 release, much to the chagrin of everyone involved in the actual project.
He later backpedaled from it.
There's simply no validity to that information. Search joystiq or something if you don't believe me.
I did real all 3 pages. However I also saw on the page of the article I sent you that the picture showing how much better the signal routing on FB-DIMMs is a "dual-channel" setup, despite having 4 DIMMs.
1 812&page=2
I consider this a typical setup, and the article does too.
The real crux of this thing is you confused "point-to-point" with each DIMM necessarily connecting straight to the memory controller and stated such. That's not the case and I wanted to clear that up. For ultimate performance, you would do such a thing, but the positioning of FB-DIMMs seems to be for servers (and lotsa DIMMs) instead of for home machines at this time.
See pic here:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=
and other places. FB-DIMM is heralded as the way to attach more RAM more than to attach the same RAM faster. And I think given cost structure (it'll cost more), that's wise.
We'll see what happens with this. Like I said, I'm nervous about it, given the history behind the companies involved.
I doubt the RAM industry is going to move to a standard (DDR3) that is unworkable. Capacitance can be beat by stronger drivers. Maybe they'll just have to go to that. It does seem we'll end up going to buffered memory either way. Although I'd prefer it be just be registered (like ECC) not this FB-DIMM stuff.
See link:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15189
What happens is on each clock, the 1st DIMM transfers its data to the CPU. The 2nd DIMM (if there) transfers its data to the 1st DIMM, the 3rd DIMM (if there) transfers its data to the 2nd DIMM, etc. Thus each DIMM gets the data from the next DIMM, puts it in a buffer, thus regenerating the signal electrically and emits it upstream on the next clock. You could call this "daisy chained". This limits how far each DIMM has to drive its data, which is why FB-DIMMs can claim better electrical characteristics.
What this means is to get data from the 3rd DIMM, it takes 3 clocks just to get the first bit of data (presumably 16 bits) to the CPU. The "good" news is that since this system is (semi-) serial, the clock has to be very high already, so this latency is somewhat mitigated.
FB-DIMMs are point to point, but the point-to-point doesn't mean each DIMM connects to the memory controller, it simply means each DIMM is only on a bus with one other DIMM (well, one upstream bus and one downstream bus). Each DIMM forwards data along these busses in both directions. But again, there is no way for the 3rd DIMM to get to the memory controller without going through (and not just by) the 2nd and 1st DIMM first.
Your extension of my argument to PATA vs SATA just underscores your misunderstanding. My concern is with the latency of intermediate forwarding of data. SATA (well, the version in regular use) doesn't even allow you to attach multiple devices to a single bus, let alone have the devices forward the data to the head. Note that PATA allows multiple devices per bus, but it is a true bus, in that the data from the far device just goes by the near device, not into it and back out.
SATA is taking off due to connector costs and cable routing in the case. RAM doesn't face cable routing difficulties. It does face signal routing difficulties, but these only need to be solved once per motherboard design at worst, not once per installation as in cable routing. In addition, the signal routing complexity is much higher for ultra-high speed busses and thus the problem of signal routing will be solved the same way for FB-DIMMs as for DDR or DDR2, which is one company (Intel) will make a reference design and the other motherboard designers will just leave those signal lines alone and add other signals in the I/O area where they want to put on additional SATA RAID controllers. And in regards to connector costs, FB-DIMMs don't change the DIMM connector and thus don't reduce the cost of the DIMM connector. So I don't see a parallel here at all.
Finally, as to DIMMs and busses being forward compatible forever, it's just not going to happen. You'll have the same problem you did with SDRAM (or DDR or RDRAM). All SDRAM was compatible with each other, just the speeds changed. So you can use your old slow DIMMs as long as you don't mind that slowing down all your memory accesses.
Finally, the reason RDRAM failed isn't as simple as your comments that the RAM people screwed RAMBUS. The problem was the RAM people didn't feel like being screwed by RAMBUS. RAMBUS wanted license fees on all RAM made (see their grab at applying their patents to DDR) and so they tried to make RDRAM the standard. Intel also wanted more money per motherboard sold (not just happy selling the CPU). Intel's first attempt at making this happen was Slot 1, where they force-bundled the 2nd level cache memory in with the CPU (2nd level cache SRAM revenue could be $30-$50 per mobo back in the Socket 7 days). Note that 2nd level cache moved to the main CPU chip later. Intel additionally decided to license slot 1, claiming patents on it. Regular front side busses could not be patented, as they were purely functional, considered the most basic way to do something. Slot 1 was positioned so as to patent the physical connector and form factor so they could enforce their fees.
Intel decided to threaten VIA (a very popular Socket 7
I thought FB-DIMMs were merely buffered (as the name implies).
Nope, they're not. They're arranged in a big serial shift register.
The problem with this? Latency goes up as you put in more DIMMs. Why? Because data from the 4th DIMM has to pass through (not just by) the 3rd DIMM, 2nd DIMM and 1st DIMM to get to the CPU.
Sound familiar? It's just a retread of RDRAM.
No thanks. Intel boned themselves with this before. If they want to push this, they better get ready to take a backseat to AMD again. DDR outdistanced RDRAM handily on performance and price/performance, I'll be surprised if things are any different this time.
I hope you enjoy your higher clock speeds, you'll need them to try to get your latency down to managable and your bandwidth up to normal. I mean, with 1/4 as many data pins (I assume the 28 data pins carry only 16 bits of data at once, vs 64 of DDR/DDR2), you're going to have to go 4X as fast just to match the bandwidth and latency of a regular system. And as soon as that 2nd DIMM is put in, you're behind on latency and you're going to have to play catch up.
Yes, with FB you can put all your DIMMs on a single set of signal lines. But you can without FB, too (within capacitance limits). The reason you don't in either case, is regardless of FB or no, if you have more parallel lines, you can transmit more data at once.
If you put more memory on one set of signal lines, you can reduce latency, but you cannot increase bandwidth.
The reason these chips are pin-for-pin compatible is because they aren't any different. Turion is just a marketing name. You're getting a regular Venice (or whatever) core and so of course it comes in the regular package.
I do think making desktops from laptop processors is a good idea, but in this case, you're not actually doing anything different, just using different words for the same thing.
Intel currently does have separate desktop (P4) and laptop (P-M/Core Duo) processors, but they're about to switch to all laptop-derived processors with Merom or Conroe or whatever it is called.
Because I would like to see it for myself. But the State Department warns Americans against going in the strongest terms possible. Because it's not safe anywhere but in the Green Zone, and the airport isn't in the Green Zone.
But either way, I would have done it because I wanted to do it, not because I wanted to be some kind of authority on an internet chat board. I don't really care if the next person doesn't feel the same way I do over Iraq. I had to give that up before the war even started because I saw this stuff coming a mile away. It really isn't difficult to figure out that if you occupy someone's country they're not going to be happy about it, no matter how many times you say you're doing it for their own good.
Why don't you go do that?
You think there's stories to be told out there besides what we hear (mostly from inside the green zone), why don't you go over there and report them?
Part of the problem is it is unsafe for our reporters to leave this area (as ABC's Bob Woodruff so well illustrated) and Americans don't seem to want to listen to any reporters from other countries. It's kind of ironic on that 2nd part, because back before the election the Bush administration was saying everything was hunky-dory, that the insurgence was just a bunch of "dead-enders", most reporters couldn't safely leave the Green Zone to report the real story without being embedded, in which case the military could not only lead them where they wanted, but also censored their reports. One major new reporting agency was sending reporters outside the Green Zone and they were saying that the citizens were not greeting us as heroes and the insurgents were making major inroads. That agency was Al-Jazeera. In response, the Bush administration demonized them, closed down their offices until after the (US) Presidential election and eventually ended up bombing their location in Baghdad (and claiming it was a mistake).
Meanwhile, all the American news sources were just reporting wine and roses. But now that the American news sources finally did their jobs and actually report what is going on instead of what the Bush administration told them is going on, you say the "real" story would get out better if we had other news sources that could get out into the countryside.
I'd love to think that manipulating the media came back to hurt the Bush administration. I'd love to think that the media kowtowing to the Bush administration and showing an inaccurate picture of the situation came back to hurt the media too. But honestly, I just don't see it. The Bush administration is merely reaping what they sowed, and yes, things are very bad over there. Yes, things are least bad in places that we meddled the least in.
It works for Google...
Google's last big announcement was that they're working on letting people use gmail to provide maikl service on their own domain names. But it turns out another major internet web email provider had done the same thing already... Microsoft.
This is only one way to make 40nm chips.
Additionally, maybe they'll pull off a patent swap, or will make other refinements to the process and contribute them in exchange for a reduction (or elimination) of license fees.
Or maybe since JSR Micro is a supplier to fabs, if you buy the exotic quartz crystal lens and other equipment from them (maintenance contracts?), perhaps JSR Micro will give the patent license for the process for free.
Or maybe they won't patent it, or the processor making chips can be altered in so may subtle ways that it's easy to get around them.
And apparently by "they" in this document so far I mean Intel, because AMD doesn't fab their own processors. IBM typically fabs them for them, and it's already announced AMD has developed a 65nm process with IBM.
All in all, it's very possible that this just isn't unusual, that AMD (in their non-CPU fabrication) and Intel have had to pay various license fees or deal with certain patents and fab equipment/technology companies on every process in recent memory.
Americans don't give a flying f*** about the Balkans. Most Americans don't know Macedonia even exists. It just seems like narcissism or wanting to elevate their status for a country like those in the Balkans to say that the USA would manipulate their position.
Now also, as an American, I can say the Balkans baffle me. They're the biggest failure in modern state-building. People in the Balkans like Ibrahim Rugova, self professed "President of Kosovo" feel like they must split their already fragmented country because they don't want to have to get along with people who aren't of the same religion as them. It's too bad. It's a shame, and it is definitely not American doing.
I don't think Macedonia is needed to smuggle guns and people in and out of Europe. Bulgaria fulfills that purpose pretty well too.
And I didn't direct people to engadget because it's not courteous to slashdot to say "the discussion is better elsewhere" and send people away...
Not now, not then. And as to your ideas of ACO "going along" with FIA, I just don't see it. FIA bans pretty much all "weird motors", including gas turbines and such.
ACO on the other hand encourages weird entries, they use a theory of "technical merit" or something like that. They have had Diesels and veggie Diesels running over the last 5 years and have even entertained electric entries (although I don't think any has shown up).
The 787B, like many other successful cars at Le Mans fell prey to the ACO's tendency to "mix things up", to change the rules seemingly just because everyone has optimized for them. Stretch that a bit and you can say the ACO banned the 787B (as much as you can say they banned the R8). But it's untruthful to say the ACO banned rotaries.
The 2nd column (cost of items in 3 years) adds up perfectly. So your theory is wrong unless you think all that stuff is free 3 years from now. Your moron comment doesn't work.
I think the $80 listed at the bottom is supposed to cover all that stuff. Honestly, it seems like it could be low to me. Not that memory stick Duos cost anything (I can get 1GB for $40 retail right now, the 128MB Sony gives out won't be more than $7 wholesale) but the power supply plus controller could add up to $50 alone. And as you stay, you still have to put it in a case and a box. I'd put the "misc" charges at about $100. And that's before the cost of getting it into the distribution channel.
Yeah, I know what you say is true for ad-supported TV. And so it's true for Fox News.
But it isn't true for DirecTV. You are the customer for DirectTV, not the content providers. This is true for several reasons, among them that you can get the same content from other companies. Also, because you are PAYING DirectTV. Also because DirecTV doesn't sell ads.
DVDs cost $25. Why? Is it the cost of the media? Nope. It's because they can get $25.
Samsung is charging $1000 for this thing because they'll have the only device out there (well, the only one under $3000). It doesn't mean it costs so much to make that they couldn't sell it for less and make money on it.
Why do you call Cell experimental when it's already shipping from IBM in blade servers? NVidia makes chips with over 100 million transistors and sells them every day. Cell is only strange to you because you make it so. When it comes to manufacturing it, it's not all that different from any other CPU or GPU.
Philips co-invented the CD with Sony and got royalties from that. They did not get money from DVD, Sony did that without them. My understanding is that Philips (founder or not) didn't co-invent BluRay and gets no fees from it either. Thus, they would pay license fees to produce drives, just like the other founders who don't hold the patents would.
I could be wrong, but that is my understanding.
Add up the numbers in the column. It only adds to $800.
This report is way way off.
Additionally:
The only thing worse here than M-L's estimate of the price of the PS3 this year is their estimate of it in 3 years.
Let's start from this year.
$230 seems high for just the CPU. I couldn't say how much, but I can say that Sony wouldn't even bother to make their console if the CPU cost half over half of the expected selling price.
The Blu-Ray drive price is WAY too high. Philips is going to ship a Blu-Ray writer drive for $500 in May. That's $500, retail. That includes retail markup, and cost of shipping to retailer. Also, Philips pays Blu-Ray license fees to produce units and Sony doesn't. And did I mention the Philips writes and the PS3 only has to read? And I can buy a quality DVD-Writer for under $40 retail right now. A Blu-Ray reader drive is a little different, but not a lot. It cannot cost much over $100, and it'll be well below that by fall, when the PS3 production ramps up (or perhaps just begins in earnest, I dunno).
6 USB ports? It will not have that many. 4 tops (2 front, 2 back). And the connector cost seems high, I'd say $3 today for USB ports, maybe $2.
For 802.11g and ethernet, Sony is using IP from Marvell that is normally used as an 802.11 access point. So it has all 3 ethernet ports and the 802.11g (and an ethernet hub) in a single chip (or less, see below). I'd say $5 for the ethernet and 802.11g together, maybe a bit more if they really leave 3 connectors on the back.
If the $100 was for a hard drive, they're the dumbest people alive. I can get a 40GB 2.5" drive for well under $100 retail. The OEM price cannot be over $50, and they could always go to under 40GB if it saves money. I'll just assume they added wrong.
I think also M-L doesn't understand that when you make a custom chip you can put a lot of stuff on it. The link (brains) for the USB, 802.11 and ethernet are probably on the main chip in the unit, bringing the cost of them down to nearly free. The 802.11 PHY/radio will probably be a separate chip, but the USB PHY is certainly on board, maybe the gigE one too.
So M-L is well over the initial price here.
Now, let's look at the future prices.
$100 for an OEM Blu-Ray reader in 3 years? Unpossible. Blu-Ray would have to be the biggest flop in the world for this to happen. My guess is you'll be able to buy a Blu-Ray writer drive for less than $60 in 3 years at retail. Look at how DVD writer prices collapsed. Readers will probably be under $40 retail. OEM prices for either will be even lower. And again, Sony doesn't have to pay license fees, so that lowers their prices even further.
$60 for the main chip in 3 years seem high too. It'll be on 65nm or lower then, yields will be way up, chip size down, and they might even combine chips (like the GS and EE were combined into a single chip on PS2 in under 3 years). I couldn't say how high though. Maybe it'll be $50, but include the functions of some of the other chips in it.
$30 for 512MB of RAM 3 years from now. Seriously? That's way off. GDDR3 will not be special anymore, and Sony won't be paying much premium for XDR, since they'll have enough volume to make a market in it. Right now you can get 32M of mobile SDRAM for $4 in big quantities, 64M of mobile SDRAM for $5. And I'm to think 512MB of commodity RAM will be $30 in 3 years? Nope.
Again, they don't know the PS3 uses a single set of IP for Ethernet and WiFi, $7 between the two 3 years from now is way too high. I'd say $2 for the PHYs, links will certainly be on with another chip.
$5 for Bluetooth in 3 years? It won't drop at all? Smooth move.
These companies stink at estimating parts costs. Just remember, these are stock brokers, not engineers, not parts buyers. They just don't have any clue at all.