unveiled, a 1-000-core-chip- will-make-desktop-machines-20-times-faster
on 12/28/2010 at 06:48 AM
I’ll take a stab at defining “core” in this sense.
Think of it as a processor. Each processor does one task at a time. The illusion of a computer doing many things at once, is just that - an illusion. The processor is actually just switching between tasks very fast, so us mere mortals think it’s actually multitasking. With multiple cores, each core can be running tasks simultaneously… either different parts of the same task, or on completely unrelated tasks. Current multicore processors are sort of like putting multiple processors inside a single chip. Sort of like a Holley 4-barrel carb…
With FPGAs you can define the function of those procesors. I like to describe FPGAs using this gizmo I had as a kid. It was a board with electronic components on it with springs attached to their leads. It also came with a bundle of wires. Using those wires you could connect up the components to make all sorts of devices. Multiply that idea by a billion or so, and that’s an FPGA. You define how you want the thing wired up using a CAD-like design program. It then writes a file that defines all the connections inside the chip. Load that file into the FPGA and it becomes the chip you’ve designed. (At least it’s supposed to!) Just to confuse things, these configuration files are also called “Cores” in the FPGA world.
This is just a layman’s understanding, BTW. Over in the retro-computing world some of us who still love our old 80’s vintage computers.. (Go Amiga!) are using machines based on FPGAs already. There’s the “Minimig” which replicates the Amiga’s custom chipset inside an FPGA.. A newer “Replay” board from FPGAarcade is nearing completion. This one will have “cores” - in the FPGA meaning - for multiple retro platforms and arcade games including the Amiga, c64, Atari 800, TRS80 and other antiques. Just select the one you want from the boot menu & it lodes the FPGA with a new configuration, rewiring itself into a completely different machine. Very cool
Saving my pennies for one....
I cant tell ya how many old MBs,HDs and procs I got in my tech drawer that are just drawer ornaments now.
Frankly the last few generationss are so damn fast and efficient I see no need for more for quite a few time cycles.Cept for maybe the video section.Never fear, no matter how fast a chip is developed, Microsoft will create an extra heavy version of Windows to suck up all that power and give you just a teensy performance increase over your current computer.
My 11 year old PC continues to plod away. I can’t run HD videos. I don’t care. I can play regular movies on it, but why bother when there’s a nice big TV downstairs? I am not a PC gaming junkie, so I don’t need terabytes of HD space or multi-ultra-mega videocards. Heck, one monitor is quite enough thanks. For every other task I can use a PC for, this old desk warrior is already eyeblink fast. It handles the largest static graphic files with ease, and that’s enough for me.
Kind of a shame that the amazing power of today’s computers is used mostly to drive playtime toys. But so few of us have any need to do laminar flow wind resistance modeling, weather prediction, or other big numbers crunching tasks. Heck, if I wanted to find the two thousandth decimal value of PI, I’d just Google it up.
Rich: Same here, I must have tons of old junk laying around. I never buy state of the art, my current machine came from a garage sale minus it’s HD for 5 bucks… not bad for a 2600 Athlon.
I just moved the other cards & HDs from my old machine over to the new one… That old machine was found on the side of the road on trash pickup day. I can actually emulate those old retro machines on this one, software custom chips and all… plus all of the files I accumulated in those days is tucked away in the terrabyte sized external HD.
Drew: It’s a fundamental law of the universe that windoze will expand to suck up all the CPU cycles that you have and more.
I do have a terrabyte hd, but i’m into old radio shows, and they take up a bit of space. Add in my music, ebooks, scanned documents, and it adds up. I’m also into 3d animation, that will suck up lots of cpu cycles, and is one of the few applications that actually can benefit from multiple cores.
See that? Ya wanna know something, just post it here and bang. Answers provided. Thanks Jim. You’re possibly well beyond just a layman’s understanding of things. Might need your help with our washing machine. It has computer thingys inside that make it a pile of scrap.
Hey, leave off the ‘s’ and you see what we have.Drew ... your pc is older by years then your audio system? Or Stereo system. What do they call that stuff these days? Used to just call em a phonograph or hi-fi. I can’t keep up.
I’m not a gamer, just no interest but like Jim love old radio shows. Have an awesome collection stored on reel to reel and cassette. How’s that for backward? No access to it being here in the UK of course. Anyway, I increased my memory to the max a few months ago and hardly see any difference. Lately, boot ups which used to be fairly quick now take about three minutes. After the first in the morning, and this is the only time it happens,
when everything is booted I click on to my FF browser and it takes anywhere from 12 to 22 seconds to open. Once that’s done, opening any browser is only seconds. But the first time is annoying. I’ve cleared out or disabled lots of things in start up. I clear the cache every day. History and disk clear etc. But nothing helps that startup nightmare.OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, Service Pack 3, 32 bit
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz, x86 Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 3
Processor Count: 2
RAM: 3710 Mb
Graphics Card: RADEON X300 SE 128MB HyperMemory, 128 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 73163 MB, Free - 46635 MB;
Motherboard: Dell Inc. , 0WG261, , ..CN698615CP01D3.
Antivirus: , Updated: Yes, On-Demand Scanner: EnabledPeiper: Usually, you don’t want me around anything mechanical.
Not my strong suit. Although I did manage to fix my sister’s ancient dishwasher recently. That was just a simple problem with a microswitch not registering that the door was closed. No computers in this one… it has some sort of Rube Goldberg gizmo full of cams and gears. The thing came with the house and the sister has lived here over 20 years.
Rebooting… back when I still ran win98 I had to make it a point to reboot every day or things would get really unreliable. But since moving to XP pro, I almost never have to reboot.
stereo or hi-fi are still good terms, because that’s what it is. A two speaker accurate and truthful music playback system. Stereo and fidelity. It’s also pretty, what with all that rosewood. So I’ve got Goodness, Truth, and Beauty all in one.
Peiper, you did download and run Advanced System Care, and CCleaner, like I said, right? And cleaned up the junk in the registry? Then you downloaded Code Stuff Starter and found out all the things that were running on start up, and turned off all the unnecessary ones? And then did a short bit of Google work on “optimizing XP” and turned off more BS Windows processes? And gave it a good virus, malware, and adware scanning and remediation?
I will have to time it, but I’m pretty sure a stone cold boot on this PC takes less than 2 minutes.
Let me see if I can make up a quicky web page that shows just how lean this old PC runs. Emulate that and your speeds should increase quite a bit.
12/28/2010 at 09:40 AM
