Guess who's gone all 64bit!!!!!

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Karlos wrote:
Surely you need 64 registers to complete the 64ness of it all? :-P

:lol: I learned asm with 16 regs, I don't need any more :-)


-Off Topic- I was just curious about what this 2Ghz 64bit chip could do... and decided to set the Front Side Bus to 230Mhz (up from 200Mhz). I now have the thing running at 2.3Ghz, I didn't need to increase the Vcore... the Temp has gone up from 23C to 26C... and it's totally stable... VERY fast too... I'm glad I paid extra for some branded Memory now :-D

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mdma wrote:

bloodline wrote:

Karlos wrote:
Surely you need 64 registers to complete the 64ness of it all? :-P

:lol: I learned asm with 16 regs, I don't need any more :-)


-Off Topic- I was just curious about what this 2Ghz 64bit chip could do... and decided to set the Front Side Bus to 230Mhz (up from 200Mhz). I now have the thing running at 2.3Ghz, I didn't need to increase the Vcore... the Temp has gone up from 23C to 26C... and it's totally stable... VERY fast too... I'm glad I paid extra for some branded Memory now :-D

Lucky bugger! I can't OC mine as it's a flaming laptop.  The only options the BIOS has is to change the time and boot device. :-(

Well my chip is a 90nm one and they have built up quite a reputation for Over Clocking... I noticed that mine ran 23C... I don't think I've ever seen a CPU run so cold!... I decided to crank up the Speed... :-D

According to SandraSoft, I'm clocking in at around the same processing power as a Pentium 4 at 3.8Ghz... :-o

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Karlos wrote:

bloodline wrote:

Well my chip is a 90nm one and they have built up quite a reputation for Over Clocking... I noticed that mine ran 23C... I don't think I've ever seen a CPU run so cold!... I decided to crank up the Speed... :-D

Try it without any cooling and see how hot it gets...


*disclaimer : don't do this, 'tis a silly idea.

Well, I'm using the little HSF that came with the CPU (AMD's Processor in a box).

I'd risk not using a Fan...  with this puppy, but I wouldn't expect it to last long without a heatsink, even if it's at 23C :-D

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http://www.glebeci.ca/users/matt/video/Scene_1_AMD_Duron_Vaporizing_final_divx_lq1.avi

The Above video is what happens when you take the HSF off a Duron while it's running...

Not pretty... you have been warned!!! :-o

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X-ray wrote:
@ Bloodline

Do you reckon that video is real? I mean do you reckon that the chip came off the mobo at that rate by itself, and blew a hole in the table (1cm wood by the looks of things) without the mobo lifting?

I don't see why not... It's been a while since I last used a SocketA but I don't recall it holding the CPU in place with any great resistance.

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X-ray wrote:
But what blew the hole in the table? All the chip pieces went up. I can't believe that gas blast alone blew a hole through the mobo and the table, without the mobo moving. I reckon that video was staged.

The underside of the Duron has a small metal cap soldered over the top of the Silicon die, the gas inside the cavity headed up and poped the cap off.

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X-ray wrote:
I fully accept that, my good man, but you still haven't told me how that little pop could have blown a hole in the mobo AND the table underneath.
I don't profess to be an explosives expert, but I have done a few crazy things as a kid and the products of the explosion always follow the path of least resistance. I used to set off matchbox bombs that were taped inside a sealed tin that was one third filled with fuel, by means of an air rifle from a safe distance. The bang was...well...quite something. The surface upon which the charge rested was scorched, but undamaged even though the tin was shredded and the lid could not be found. So what I'm saying is, you've got a charge resting on a laminated surface (mobo plus table) and the only resistance it has is the chip itself. The chip goes up, which is understandable, but there's no way a little pop like that can blow a hole through a mobo and a table so precisely, especially when the main blast escapes vertically in the path of least resistance.

I'm thinking Newton's Third Law...

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Wayne wrote:
I wonder how much difference the similarly clocked Athlon 64 would actually make over the Athlon 2800+ I'm running now?  Haven't really seen a site that adequately explains the difference in real-world terms.

Wayne

That's a good question...

I'm not sure, but What I can tell you is that the integrated Memory controler and Dual Channel memory architecture give massive performance gains for the Athlon 64 (Socket 939) 3200 over the AthlonXP 3200, My test program was Propellerhead's Reason 2.5

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mdma wrote:

Wayne wrote:
I wonder how much difference the similarly clocked Athlon 64 would actually make over the Athlon 2800+ I'm running now?  Haven't really seen a site that adequately explains the difference in real-world terms.

Wayne

Well, I never thought I'd hear myself syaing this, but 64bit windows with the latest 64bit radeon drivers feels just as responsive on this Athlon 64 3200+ with 1MB L2 cache as MorphOS on my Peg G3.
 :-o

BURN THE HERETIC!!!!

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I've been reading Microsofts's Technical docs... apparently the x86's FPU (the x87) registers are not saved during a context switch in XP64... this means that you can't use the crappy x86 FPU anymore!!! It took 20 years, but finally they managed to get rid of that peice of junk :-D

This also means that the MMX and 3DNow! instruction sets no longer work.

In future all Floating point work is to be done by the Vector units, SSE and SSE2 :-)

This is good news all around!!! This also explains why we are seeing speed ups in 64bit version of windows when running 64bit apps.

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Karlos wrote:

bloodline wrote:
I've been reading Microsofts's Technical docs... apparently the x86's FPU (the x87) registers are not saved during a context switch in XP64... this means that you can't use the crappy x86 FPU anymore!!! It took 20 years, but finally they managed to get rid of that peice of junk :-D

You mean a task context switch? How frequent is that compared to the number of instructions executed between switches? I know the x86 FPU was a {bleep} to code for properly, but register save on context switch is not that big hit. On any x86 from the last 10 years the chances that the registers weren't just moved to/from L1 cache are almost nil.

So now, instead of backing up a handful of x86 FPU registers when a task switch occurs, you instead to back up the vector units register file? These units are far bigger than the old FPU register file - how does that make it faster?

My Bad phrasing... The FPU regs are not saved, but the SSE regs are, so there is no real speed increase there at all.

This also means that the MMX and 3DNow! instruction sets no longer work.

In future all Floating point work is to be done by the Vector units, SSE and SSE2 :-)

This is good news all around!!! This also explains why we are seeing speed ups in 64bit version of windows when running 64bit apps.

Buh... surely FPU code designed for sequential execution is not going to run faster in the vector unit, just becasue it is a vector unit.

The SSE instruction set has been designed to allow better branch prediction and pipelining etc... C compilers are able to pump out SSE code that runs faster than it's x87 equivilent... if there is no x87 on XP64 all fp operations are going to run faster, as all XP64 systems have SSE, and no x87 code is needed.

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the_leander wrote:
My only concern is that the cost of buying the final finished product - the current XP pro edition is something like £150 atm and was well over £200 when it first came out, but that said, I am very curious about what a difference in performance this would have over win2k pro.

I'm sure there will be solutions! :-D

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Wayne wrote:
I believe he was pointing to an official microsoft site for the beta download.  I found it on my own actually, but thanks for the link.  I just need to figure out how to buy an A64 and mobo..

Wayne

I though the usual approach was to walk into a shop and ask for one... But I'm not sure how you do it over there :-D

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arf!

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mdma wrote:

Karlos wrote:
That was clearly my mistake, then. I forgot I was in the UK :-(

Happens quite a lot these days. Must be that new Campbell's Soup I bought recently...

It's amazing what you can buy in those traditional Asian grocers these days isn't it! ;-)

I can hear it now:
"I'll have a tin of baked beans, a packet of condoms (ribbed, for her pleasure!;-)), a toilet plunger and an nForce4, dual channel, socket 939 Athlon64 motherboard n'processor please... oh and some toilet roll, cheers"

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Karlos wrote:
The guy at my local cash'n'carry (great places for fresh fruit/veg/meat/anything you need for a good curry etc.) has the most delightful greeting.

It goes "Hello Please!"

:lol: