Future Processor Technology

[arn]

Rachel writes in with this article:

This New York Times article discusses Intel and IBM chip technologies which are accelerating the speed of current processors as well as other advances.

They focus on Intel's speed boosts as well as a mention of 10-Ghz speeds in certain portions of a prototype processor.

IBM/PPC gets some limited coverage with focus on power consumption issues:

One of I.B.M.'s papers will focus on a 1-gigahertz PowerPC microprocessor that can almost instantly raise or lower the amount of power it consumes, significantly increasing power savings.

 

[tw9876z]

apple had better use it, or else its f*******!

 

[Hemingray]

So long, Moto!

 

[eyelikeart]

I do believe we'll soon enough see Motorola scrapped...

 

[barkmonster]

I'll believe a 10Ghz CPU exists when I see one!!!

the article mentioned that "the fastest Pentium 4 now reaches a clock speed of 2.2 gigahertz, while internal portions of that chip achieve 4.4 gigahertz — portions corresponding to the experimental module that Intel engineers say has reached a speed of 10 gigahertz."

this means that they're talking about internal processing, remember the 68000 ? it was 32bit internal and 16bit external (infact the Atari ST used it which was named Sixteen over Thirtytwo). It stands to reason that internal clock speeds are twice the external speed on a chip. not that I fully understand the technology.

sure, we've only just made it to 1Ghz, remember when we we're reading about motorola 1Ghz PowerPC chip before they even had a 350Mhz G4 ??

think about it, we probably won't see this intel chip for years yet, by which time we'll have 64bit G5s or G6s running at thousands of Mhz anyway.

The fact they use Mhz as they're selling point speaks for itself when they speak of a 10Ghz chip while admiting that actually it's effectively 5Ghz!!!

still a big number, wonder how many pipeline stages that baby's got to the nearest hundred

 

[me hate windows]

screw intel

screw intel. A mac 128k is probably faster than the 10 ghz

 

[Catfish_Man]

The Pentium 4...

...runs the parts of it that do simple integer math at 4.4GHz because the simple integer ops take much less time than the others. It's actually an excellent idea, one of a very few that I admire the P4 for (the others being the innovative use of the L1 cache and the FP load pipeline). IBM has already released a 1GHz PPC chip. It's called the 750fx, and it's a beefed up G3. What I want to see is a chip based on Tranmeta's Crusoe, but designed with performance in mind rather than low power use (a 700MHz Crusoe uses 1 watt), and with code morphing for both x86 and PPC. That would be awesome.

 

[tadpole]

stupid nytimes

I love how they screw everything up from foreign policy to computers. Intel does not make the fastest desktop chip, AMD does. And what about the individual merits of the chips? what about the differences in architecture? Sure all the post risc chips from AMD to MIPS to PPC out there aren't so phat in the clock thing but they sure as heck aren't sitting back either! here on campus, the Nytimes is something of a joke, these guys give journalism a bad name, especially their patchy euro/american centric coverage of world affairs and cultural assumptions they make to roll a story. Its a shame that they're one of the most respect papers in the country, which leads me to doubt our literacy rates.

 

[AmbitiousLemon]

Re: stupid nytimes

Originally posted by tadpole
I love how they screw everything up from foreign policy to computers. Intel does not make the fastest desktop chip, AMD does. And what about the individual merits of the chips? what about the differences in architecture? Sure all the post risc chips from AMD to MIPS to PPC out there aren't so phat in the clock thing but they sure as heck aren't sitting back either! here on campus, the Nytimes is something of a joke, these guys give journalism a bad name, especially their patchy euro/american centric coverage of world affairs and cultural assumptions they make to roll a story. Its a shame that they're one of the most respect papers in the country, which leads me to doubt our literacy rates.

hear hear!

 

[Macmaniac]

10ghz

10ghz sounds way too fast. The heat coming out of those chips would let you cook food on your computers case.(Or make the case melt releasing carsonegenic smoke aka (Deadley smoke)
They would need central air to cool those things. I read the NY Times all the time, and I think this article is pretty bad. We won't see those speeds for 3 years in the consumer market.

___________________________
Not all who wander are lost.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

...

Remember when rumors said that IBM had a 150 Ghz processor in the labs ? (Can't remember if they actually did announce it)

So.. Screw 10 Ghz rumors!

 

[Unregistered]

intel is copying.

with the itanium intel reduced pipelines and clock-speed to 800 Mhz. (Itanium = Generation after Pentium 4) *ae... how much does a dual cost?*

further the article says:
'Intel has invested heavily in the development of the McKinley ? a chip that processes data in 64-bit chunks and is meant to compete with 64-bit products including I.B.M.'s PowerPC, Sun Microsystems (news/quote)' SPARC and Compaq Computer (news/quote)'s Alpha. The McKinley is expected on the market by midyear.
'

wow. they are doing the right thing. but why should i wait?