These chips have a very reduced version of the SpeedStep that Intel puts in its laptop chips. The lowest core speed of the 800 MHz FSB chips is 1.20 GHz and 1.6 GHz for the 1066 MHz FSB chips.
Maybe SpeedStep in laptops have improved significantly in the last two years since I got my laptop, but 1.6 GHz for a CPU with a 1066 MHz FSB sounds just like my laptop. It is a Centrino brand laptop with a Pentium M 760, which has a 533 MHz FSB and a lowest core clock frequency of 800 MHz. Double both those figures, and you have the Core 2 Duo. Doesn't sound too bad to me.
AMD also rates the chips on their absolute maximum thermal dissipation rather than an average thermal dissipation like Intel does
IIRC, the Intel TDP is not a measure of average thermal dissipation but a maximum for normal usage. That means that higher thermal dissipation is possible, e.g. though the use of a power virus or a CPU burn-in application, but not likely in real applications.
And they are supposedly pro software patents because they might be able to sue some open source projects in the future? Just who would they sue anyway?
The point in suing an open source project wouldn't be to cash in on huge damages, but to prevent a competitor from operating, and thus increase your own profits.
If I invent something, I damn well deserve to be protected for it
If you and another inventor independently invent the same thing simultaneously, but you file a patent application and he does not, should you have the right to deny him the right to make it into a product and sell it?
This brings up the good question whether or not you should be able to own ideas or concepts. I think not. Note that I don't oppose being able to own an implementation of a concept though.
You can just mv/home/dummy/program to/home//program. Everything will (should, really) continue to work. I doubt that they do if the program depends on its own shared libraries, i.e. shared libraries that resided in/home/dummy/program/lib. Paths to shared libraries are often (always?) hard-coded into the program binary. Thus, in such a case, just moving the program directory hierarchy would probably not work. There are of course workarounds, such as using LD_LIBRARY_PATH, but you may not want to use such a method to run all of your privately installed programs.
There aren't a lot of applications which can truly take advantage of 64-bit integer registers. In fact, bignum math is about the only that really comes to mind.
You forget the extra 16 general purpose registers that AMD64 introduced, as well as the extra eight SSE registers. Doing more operations on registers is always nice, though the extra registers also take a longer time to save and restore in a context switch.
Why is that a problem? It isn't like SSE2 is going away just because SSE4 is coming through the door. And it isn't necessarily the case that SSEx+1 is "better" than SSEx, since the different SSE instruction sets may have slightly different target applications. One project may mostly benefit from SSE2, while another may mostly benefit from SSE4. Some projects may not receive any benefit from certain SSE revisions, and thus wouldn't care to implement them.
That sounds more reasonable. I wonder what the total weight of all earthworms is, especially if the following is correct:
Darwin estimated that arable land contains up to 53,000 worms per acre (13/m), but more recent research from Rothamsted Experimental Station has produced figures suggesting that even poor soil may support 250,000/acre (62/m), whilst rich fertile farmland may have up to 1,750,000/acre (432/m), meaning that the weight of earthworms beneath the farmer's soil could be greater than that of his livestock upon its surface.
Personally I still don't know why so many of you out there still fool with P2P over the net, other than getting your latest bittorrent TV fix, it's slow, fraught with malware, and could land you in court.
Actually, I don't use P2P for illegal activities, just to download Linux distros with BT. My only legally questionable activity is to sometimes run Streamripper against certain web radio stations. I don't think it is illegal actually, at least not where I live. But the record companies sure would rather like me to buy their songs on DRM-laden CDs that I wouldn't be able to play wherever I wanted.
I have a hard time believing that. If you had said 1%, I could buy that. The reason is that there are so many other organisms that exist in great numbers, such as bacteria and plants, not to mention all the other arthropods that are not ants. Earthworms also exist in great numbers.
Why would we want DX10? It only runs under Vista at this time
The same feature set is due to appear in the next revision* of OpenGL, and drivers supporting that version will certainly be available on Linux and Windows XP too.
*= Those features might already be available in OpenGL as extensions to the current version, but I don't have such a card yet, so I can't check if they are.
Actually, I doubt that any graphics card of today support either OpenGL or Direct3D directly in hardware. They may be designed to conform to certain Direct3D and/or OpenGL feature sets, but both Direct3D and OpenGL compatibility are probably provided by the card driver. There is no reason why an OpenGL-only card could not have a Direct3D driver written for it, just like there is no reason why one couldn't write an OpenGL driver for a Direct3D-only card.
This is where people get confused and say "OpenGL is so far behind D3D", what they don't realize is that OpenGL has the extensions mechanism.
I agree, many people are confused by this, and claim that OpenGL is old and stale, since it does not include all those new wonderful features. What they don't realize is that OpenGL has the extension mechanism, and in addition, that DirectX does not have such a mechanism. To be able to use new features on a graphics card, the specification and implementation of DirectX has to be updated by Microsoft, while for OpenGL it suffices that the card driver provides those new features as extensions.
It would be quite fun if game developers would switch to OpenGL with those Direct3D 10-like extensions, rather than write their games for DirectX 10. One reason could be to tap into the market of all those that intend to remain on XP for quite some time. Then people would get Direct3D 10 features on XP provided by Microsoft's worst (only?) competitor in the 3D API segment, and thus lose one of the big selling points of Vista. And all just for stubbornly refusing to release Direct3D 10 for Windows XP to force gamers onto Vista.
And as a side effect, games would probably work better in Linux too, as Wine wouldn't have to map Direct3D calls to OpenGL calls. Even porting might become feasible. But I guess I'm just dreaming...:)
You may not be aware of that those new features of Direct3D 10 are supposed to be in the next revsion of OpenGL, known by the code name Mount Evans, which is due out the coming autumn.
In addition, they will probably also be available as extensions to the current OpenGL version (2.1) if they aren't already.
What they mean by "DirectX 10" is feature set basically. OpenGL doesn't really keep up to date with cards very well so features are usually expressed in terms of DX versions.
Exactly. Many (most?) of the new features of new graphics cards are available in OpenGL as extensions provided by the card driver GL implementation, but it would be unwieldy to list all those GL extensions supported by the card, so a Direct3D version number does fine instead.:)
But yes, GL support is there, I can confirm it. I have an 8800 and I play GL games all the time. They work great.
That's nice to know, since I'm probably going to get one of these cards very soon. And you know what? These Direct3D 10 features that these cards support will probably end up in OpenGL too, both as extensions and in a new revision of OpenGL specification itself (the latter is due out the coming autumn). The Wikipedia page on OpenGL has more details.
You'd probably be better off upgrading the CPU, Memory, and Motherboard while you're at it to switch to PCI-Express before you upgrade to a modern video card. This isn't as expensive as it sounds, you could easily get a decent performer for $600 or so (Intel Core2 type processor, $100 motherboard, 2GB of memory or so) by reusing most of the components (HDD, Optical Drives, Power supply (unless you skimped originally), case, monitor, keyboard, mouse) from your old system.
I'm planning on doing exactly this very soon. I have an Athlon XP 2800+ today with 1 GiB DDR SDRAM and a Geforce 6600 AGP8X, and since I've had it for three years (built it in march 2004), I'm looking at an upgrade. One matter that made the issue more pressing is the fact that the chipset cooler have almost fallen off, not that it seem to have made much of a difference as the rig is still stable as ever.
I'm well aware that I've reached the end of the road with AGP, especially since I use a socket A processor. If I need a new motherboard I can just as well get a PCI Express one. I'm looking at getting a reasonably priced Core 2 Duo, probably an E6320 or an E6420 (which are released on april 22:nd), along with 2 GiB of DDR2 (probably 667 MHz to account for the coming FSB1333 update) and one of the cheaper Geforce 8 cards (anything is faster than my current card, might as well get a cheapo 8500GT, which has the nice feature of passive cooling and just 40W power consumption).
Your country tries to dominate many aspects of life on this planet, so you'll just have to suck up to the fact that people tend to criticize your country a lot.
Maybe your country could try to leave other coutries alone, and it might face less criticism about things that itself considers internal matters?
They are hoping that by buying double click that they can compete head-on with google.
So they want to stop Google from buying DoubleClick so that they could buy it themselves? Will they ensure that competition will remain vibrant if they buy it, or is competition just important when Microsoft is not involved?
I think you're being a little optomistic in thinking that the US doesn't want to control what people can do. Given enough time i'd pretty much expect the internet to become the christianet if it was just up to the US.
I'd rather think the US would want to transform the internet into the DRM-net, that only clients running approved and remotely attestable software configurations can connect to. All in the name of "security".
My guess is that Microsoft is trying to make it the other way around, that is that ISPs would refuse connections from nodes that cannot be remotely attested to run the appropriate Microsoft DRM system. It would be a nice way for them to make this pesky free/open source software go away.
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I don't know about the first Itanium, but we have more than 29 Itanium 2's at work, you could even multiply by 10 and still be below the mark. :P
Maybe SpeedStep in laptops have improved significantly in the last two years since I got my laptop, but 1.6 GHz for a CPU with a 1066 MHz FSB sounds just like my laptop. It is a Centrino brand laptop with a Pentium M 760, which has a 533 MHz FSB and a lowest core clock frequency of 800 MHz. Double both those figures, and you have the Core 2 Duo. Doesn't sound too bad to me.
AMD also rates the chips on their absolute maximum thermal dissipation rather than an average thermal dissipation like Intel doesIIRC, the Intel TDP is not a measure of average thermal dissipation but a maximum for normal usage. That means that higher thermal dissipation is possible, e.g. though the use of a power virus or a CPU burn-in application, but not likely in real applications.
The point in suing an open source project wouldn't be to cash in on huge damages, but to prevent a competitor from operating, and thus increase your own profits.
If you and another inventor independently invent the same thing simultaneously, but you file a patent application and he does not, should you have the right to deny him the right to make it into a product and sell it?
This brings up the good question whether or not you should be able to own ideas or concepts. I think not. Note that I don't oppose being able to own an implementation of a concept though.
Except that it is based on a set of XML files rather than a binary blob database.
The Gnome implementation of a registry consists of a tree of XML files.
You forget the extra 16 general purpose registers that AMD64 introduced, as well as the extra eight SSE registers. Doing more operations on registers is always nice, though the extra registers also take a longer time to save and restore in a context switch.
I guess that you never heard of the Intel C/C++/Fortran Compiler? They will surely include such support almost in sync with their processor releases.
Why is that a problem? It isn't like SSE2 is going away just because SSE4 is coming through the door. And it isn't necessarily the case that SSEx+1 is "better" than SSEx, since the different SSE instruction sets may have slightly different target applications. One project may mostly benefit from SSE2, while another may mostly benefit from SSE4. Some projects may not receive any benefit from certain SSE revisions, and thus wouldn't care to implement them.
That sounds more reasonable. I wonder what the total weight of all earthworms is, especially if the following is correct:
Darwin estimated that arable land contains up to 53,000 worms per acre (13/m), but more recent research from Rothamsted Experimental Station has produced figures suggesting that even poor soil may support 250,000/acre (62/m), whilst rich fertile farmland may have up to 1,750,000/acre (432/m), meaning that the weight of earthworms beneath the farmer's soil could be greater than that of his livestock upon its surface.Source: The Wikipedia article on earthworms.
I mean, how much does 250,000 earthworms weigh? Not to mention 1,750,000. And those numbers are per acre.
Actually, I don't use P2P for illegal activities, just to download Linux distros with BT. My only legally questionable activity is to sometimes run Streamripper against certain web radio stations. I don't think it is illegal actually, at least not where I live. But the record companies sure would rather like me to buy their songs on DRM-laden CDs that I wouldn't be able to play wherever I wanted.
I have a hard time believing that. If you had said 1%, I could buy that. The reason is that there are so many other organisms that exist in great numbers, such as bacteria and plants, not to mention all the other arthropods that are not ants. Earthworms also exist in great numbers.
I'd say that the theory of gravity, or Einstein's theory of relativity would be a better example.
The same feature set is due to appear in the next revision* of OpenGL, and drivers supporting that version will certainly be available on Linux and Windows XP too.
*= Those features might already be available in OpenGL as extensions to the current version, but I don't have such a card yet, so I can't check if they are.
Actually, I doubt that any graphics card of today support either OpenGL or Direct3D directly in hardware. They may be designed to conform to certain Direct3D and/or OpenGL feature sets, but both Direct3D and OpenGL compatibility are probably provided by the card driver. There is no reason why an OpenGL-only card could not have a Direct3D driver written for it, just like there is no reason why one couldn't write an OpenGL driver for a Direct3D-only card.
I run Linux and my apartment is on the top floor, you insensitive clod!
I agree, many people are confused by this, and claim that OpenGL is old and stale, since it does not include all those new wonderful features. What they don't realize is that OpenGL has the extension mechanism, and in addition, that DirectX does not have such a mechanism. To be able to use new features on a graphics card, the specification and implementation of DirectX has to be updated by Microsoft, while for OpenGL it suffices that the card driver provides those new features as extensions.
It would be quite fun if game developers would switch to OpenGL with those Direct3D 10-like extensions, rather than write their games for DirectX 10. One reason could be to tap into the market of all those that intend to remain on XP for quite some time. Then people would get Direct3D 10 features on XP provided by Microsoft's worst (only?) competitor in the 3D API segment, and thus lose one of the big selling points of Vista. And all just for stubbornly refusing to release Direct3D 10 for Windows XP to force gamers onto Vista.
And as a side effect, games would probably work better in Linux too, as Wine wouldn't have to map Direct3D calls to OpenGL calls. Even porting might become feasible. But I guess I'm just dreaming...:)
You may not be aware of that those new features of Direct3D 10 are supposed to be in the next revsion of OpenGL, known by the code name Mount Evans, which is due out the coming autumn.
In addition, they will probably also be available as extensions to the current OpenGL version (2.1) if they aren't already.
Exactly. Many (most?) of the new features of new graphics cards are available in OpenGL as extensions provided by the card driver GL implementation, but it would be unwieldy to list all those GL extensions supported by the card, so a Direct3D version number does fine instead. :)
But yes, GL support is there, I can confirm it. I have an 8800 and I play GL games all the time. They work great.That's nice to know, since I'm probably going to get one of these cards very soon. And you know what? These Direct3D 10 features that these cards support will probably end up in OpenGL too, both as extensions and in a new revision of OpenGL specification itself (the latter is due out the coming autumn). The Wikipedia page on OpenGL has more details.
I'm planning on doing exactly this very soon. I have an Athlon XP 2800+ today with 1 GiB DDR SDRAM and a Geforce 6600 AGP8X, and since I've had it for three years (built it in march 2004), I'm looking at an upgrade. One matter that made the issue more pressing is the fact that the chipset cooler have almost fallen off, not that it seem to have made much of a difference as the rig is still stable as ever.
I'm well aware that I've reached the end of the road with AGP, especially since I use a socket A processor. If I need a new motherboard I can just as well get a PCI Express one. I'm looking at getting a reasonably priced Core 2 Duo, probably an E6320 or an E6420 (which are released on april 22:nd), along with 2 GiB of DDR2 (probably 667 MHz to account for the coming FSB1333 update) and one of the cheaper Geforce 8 cards (anything is faster than my current card, might as well get a cheapo 8500GT, which has the nice feature of passive cooling and just 40W power consumption).
Your country tries to dominate many aspects of life on this planet, so you'll just have to suck up to the fact that people tend to criticize your country a lot.
Maybe your country could try to leave other coutries alone, and it might face less criticism about things that itself considers internal matters?
So they want to stop Google from buying DoubleClick so that they could buy it themselves? Will they ensure that competition will remain vibrant if they buy it, or is competition just important when Microsoft is not involved?
I'd rather think the US would want to transform the internet into the DRM-net, that only clients running approved and remotely attestable software configurations can connect to. All in the name of "security".
My guess is that Microsoft is trying to make it the other way around, that is that ISPs would refuse connections from nodes that cannot be remotely attested to run the appropriate Microsoft DRM system. It would be a nice way for them to make this pesky free/open source software go away.