It's true....no 4GHz for a VERY long time.

The INQ has an amazingly tasty bit of info that I can't reason to be true. However, if it IS true...it's probably the most shocking news of the past year or two.

Wanna know what it is? Intel doesn't plan to *ever* hit 4GHz (except, possibly, in the extreme future). That's right, 3.8GHz is all we'll see (if that). How are they gonna compete (or at least try)? Cache improvements, FSB increases, and eventually dual cores. Wanna read it yourself? <A HREF="http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19089" target="_new">L'INQ</A>

My speculation:

Can I imagine a Scotty with 2MB L2, 1066FSB @ 3.76GHz beating the AMD 4000+? No, probably not even the 3800+. Okay, what about the 4200+ and 4400+(+) that are in close reach (the 1.8GHz 3000+ 90nm A64 has repeatedly hit 2.5+GHz) of the upcoming A64s (2.8GHz shouldn't really be THAT hard...2.6 is going down at 130nm, afterall...and AMDs 90nm has been surprisingly successful)? I don't even think a P4EE at 3.999GHz with 1333FSB and 6MB of combined L2/L3 cache could keep up with an FX-57 (Q1/Q2 '05), but I may be wrong (I think a Prescott-based core would lose, Gallatin/Northwood might win).

Maxtor disgraces the six letters that make Matrox.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Vapor on 10/14/04 06:02 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

I agree.

I don't think we need to process stuff faster, we need to be able to process more stuff at once. (And software support)

My Desktop: <A HREF="http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc.html" target="_new">http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc.html</A>

The plot thickens


<A HREF="http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle.jhtml?duid=mtfh84275_2004-10-14_19-26-53_n14191720_newsml" target="_new">http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle.jhtml?duid=mtfh84275_2004-10-14_19-26-53_n14191720_newsml</A>


I'm just your average habitual smiler =D

Hey make your subject lines better, I posted a similar article thinking nobody else has.

<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/priyajeet/Fing.jpg" target="_new"><i><font color=red>Very funny, Scotty.</font color=red><font color=blue> Now beam down my clothes.</font color=blue></i></A>

I proposed, in a new thread directed straightly at processors beyond 4000+, that AMD will likely NOT realease faster processors as planned.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

I can understand why this seems like a good idea...

But what about people like me who are just gamers? We want speed plain and simple, and no 8 billion skillionbyte L3 cache is going to help us. We need plain speed, not some ability to multitask. Who plays Rome:Total War AND FarCry at the same time? No one. And that won't change when even crazier games come out.

We need speed. Not multitasking. This new approach is gay and I hope AMD doesnt gay it up too.

I guess you've never heard this line before: You are not the target market. I'm not saying this to be rude, this is kind of a notorious line that tech/geeks/nerds hear who have have ever worked for a software company making pathetic ass products on the suggestion of marketing folks, when they complain about those products.

Gamers are just such a small marketshare. I do disagree on one thing, multi-core IS going to help games down the road. And the beautiful thing about it, is assuming the game companies and developers in general make the switch gracefully, these games will scale well as we end up with 3 and 4 cores per processor.

But it will take time. I remember it took quite a while for games to take full advantage of the 386 instruction set. When they finally did though, things like Doom, Wing Commander, and a bunch of other classics that pushed the envelop at the time were the result. Have patience, that's all we can do know. That and hope that AMD capitalizes on this and pushes the envelope anyway. I'd like to see them hit 3ghz and I suspect they can. We'll see.

<i>Cigarettes - No cholesterol, high in fiber, low in fat, how could they not be good for you?</i>

They said so, but I'm not so sure of that... Let's wait and see. I'll be the first one crying out loud if their first dual-core products are netburst-based.

Games and entertainment may be a bigger part of the picture than we think. Last year, sales of games alone surpassed the entire revenue of all Hollywood movies combined. And when you think about it sure businesses make up a big part of the total computer market, but home computer ownership is becoming almost universal. And volume is a factor that can really add to the bottom line.

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I just can't believe they won't take it 4ghz, the marketing value of that speed just seems like it would be worth it.

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Maybe they really wanted to, been doing that all the time. I mean, always introducing those speed bumps to stamp out non-believers of their superior technology.

Just that, somebody else proved to have a better technology at present. Take it with a grain of salt. Netburst failed.

9 square inches? Wow, that's like ~7cm x 7cm, 49cm^2!

I think they'd have electrical signal integrity problems with that...

No one plays Rome:Total War AND FarCry at the same time, that's true (or if they do, I think they're nuts ). But take your average strategy game. How would you like one processor to handle the AI, while the other processor handles user input and other items? Or one processor to handle complex calculations while the other better coordinates the transfer of data from RAM to the CPU core doing the calculations (sort of an on-board Northbridge chip).

Multi-threaded applications are harder to program, but not impossible. And what's kind of discouraging is that if you code a program to be multi-threaded and you run it on a processor that can't handle simultaneous threads, you won't see any performance increase. The hardware always needs to exist before the software. The software can sometimes help drive the hardware requirements, but you still need to be able to design for the hardware improvements (which means actually having a piece of said hardware to test against).

Define "plain speed". It obviously isn't pure Ghz (as Intel has found out). AMD has never been about pure speed and they're rocking Intel for gaming. Plus, AMD is slated to have multi-core desktop chips before Intel anyway.

I'm just your average habitual smiler =D

"How would you like one processor to handle the AI, while the other processor handles user input and other items?"

Thats an interesting concept.

Clock speed will be hard to change as the fastest chips. Look at the P4 mobile. Lots of people still choose to go with a P4 @ 3200 verses a P4M @ 2000.
And lots prefer the P4 @ 3200 verses the AMD 3200+



_____________________________________________
<font color=red> And the sign says "You got to have a membership card to get inside" Huh
So I got me a pen and paper And I made up my own little sign </font color=red>

Ahh.. but it is already changing. The enthusiast crowd has been won over, and now the corporate crowd (probably the MOST important one) is starting to take notice. The last to come around will of course be Joe Schmo consumer... but they will eventually.

After all, Dell is going to have to come up with something to explain why these new lower-clocked CPUs are faster than the older higher-clocked CPUs. Once that happens, the 'megahertz myth' will finally be put to rest.

<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>

well i dont think the myth ever really took hold in notebooks. not nearly as much as desktops anyway. notebooks have largely been more power life oriented, since the expectations for notebooks arent like desktops.