Upgrading to Multi-Core
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Today, multi-core processors are quite the norm. In fact you’ll not see any new desktop computers, and very few laptops, on sale that have only single-core processors any longer. Why? Well multi-cored processors have just so many performance advantages over their single-cored counterparts that it would take far too much space to list them all here. There are still quite a few computers out there, however, that are still running a single-core processor. If you own one of them you may have considered upgrading; but are a little unsure or hesitant about it. Unless you’re fairly experienced and know what’s what you’re right to be such. In most cases there’ll be more work involved than simply removing the old processor and fitting a new one. I’m not intending to do a "where is the processor located" paragraph. If you don’t know where your processor is located then I advise you to allow someone who knows what they’re doing to do the upgrade for you. I won’t be held responsible for someone pretending to know what they’re doing messing it up either: Get someone that you know is experienced with computer construction to help. Joe Bloggs from down the road may say they’re experienced with computers simply because they talk to their friends on Instant Messenger; but in reality they don’t have any more idea of what they’re doing than a seamstress has of rocket science. I’ll include some of the basics as a reminder, though. There are a number of things you’ll need to do in preparation. The main thing is to find out all about your existing hardware first. The reason for that will become clear further on. If you have an older computer with a single-core processor then you’ll probably need to upgrade the motherboard as well as the CPU to go multi-core. If it’s a particularly old computer then I’d suggest simply buying a new one with a multi-cored processor fitted from the word go.
What about upgrading your existing processor on your existing motherboard? It’s a possibility; but you’d have to take into account things such as motherboard’s capability, as well as its processor socket: For instance; an AMD socket AM2 CPU will fit into a socket AM2+ motherboard; but not vice-versa: Therefore if your existing processor is, for example, a socket AM2 Athlon 64 single-cored device, which you want to upgrade; then, providing that your motherboard is capable of running a dual-cored CPU, (CPU=processor.) you’ll have no problems in replacing your existing CPU with a socket AM2 Athlon 64×2 dual-cored processor, providing that the motherboard’s chipset is capable of supporting the operating frequency of the new component. You’ll probably need to run a maintenance-reinstall of your operating system though; as a system configured for a single-cored processor probably won’t instantly recognize that the new processor has 2 cores, and will only run 1 of the cores unless it’s reconfigured. Further to the above; if you want to upgrade from a single-core Athlon 64 to a quad-core Phenom, which is socket AM2+, you’ll need to upgrade the motherboard as well as the CPU, as a socket AM2+ CPU simply won’t fit into an AM2 socket. Also the motherboard with an AM2 socket probably won’t be capable of supporting more than a dual-core CPU.
That’s just one example. There will be many more similar situations cropping up, not only with AMD processors, where you’ll need to do some planning and forward thinking before even embarking upon your project. Like I said; there’s a lot to consider; in addition to simply swapping the processor. If in doubt I suggest a motherboard and processor upgrade would be the best option, and do remember that certain motherboards go with certain processors: You can’t run an Intel socket 774 CPU on an AMD socket AM2 motherboard, for instance. (Also, don’t forget to install, and upgrade after getting the thing running, if possible, the new motherboard’s drivers.) In my opinion, the best thing to do would be a total-rebuild (Strip everything out of the case and renew it with new and compatible parts, or ditch your old machine and build a new one.); after which you can install any really important files that you want to keep to your new hard-drive from a backup you took of your old system. I can’t tell you exactly how to do it in every situation without writing a large and detailed e-book on the subject: That’s not something I intend doing at this moment in time. This guide simply informs you of some of the pitfalls and of some of the things you should consider first, before embarking on the project. For your further convenience I’ll make a checklist of a number of the things you should take into account before attempting to upgrade a processor on an existing motherboard: ——————————————————————————————— CHECKLIST Should you Upgrade the Processor on your Existing Motherboard? If your motherboard is 5 years old or more then no. If your motherboard was manufactured in the last 3 years than maybe; depending upon the following: Is your motherboard’s processor socket the same as the socket designation of the processor that you want to replace your existing one with? OR, in some rare circumstances: Will the new part fit into and be fully accommodated by the existing motherboard’s processor socket? If NO to both of the above you’ll need to replace the motherboard. IF YES to either of the above: Is your existing motherboard capable of running a multi-cored processor with the number of cores which the intended replacement has? If NO to the above you’ll need to replace the motherboard. If YES: Is your existing motherboard capable of handling any increased power consumption due to the upgrade? If NO to the above you’ll need to replace the motherboard. If YES: Are you aware that you’ll probably need to run a maintenance reinstall of the operating system? Are you able and clued up with doing this? Do you realise that there may be further problems associated with this operation that require a detailed knowledge of computer hardware, operation, and techniques? If NO; I suggest seeking further expert advice before anything else. IF YES, and you are satisfied that you’d be able to handle any ensuing situation, or are willing to take that risk, then proceed. End of Checklist. ——————————————————————————————— *If you’re a geek then rebuilding a computer, even if it’s your first time, will be a great learning curve for you. Try not to mess it up. (I have ruined a computer before whilst learning, years ago,; so it does happen.) If you do upgrade your processor from a single to a multi-core component, if it’s possible, you’ll notice a marked performance improvement. I suggest adding some more memory at the same time to make that improvement even greater. Maybe you’ve already upgraded your processor from a single-core to a multi-cored component? What’s your experience of this? Don’t be afraid to comment. I know comments appear to be a bit sparse at present; but it would be good to break the mould.
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Processors Speeds: Can They Get Any Higher?
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Not long ago, processor speeds just seemed to get faster and faster. In the last 10 years we’ve seen CPU speeds go up from around 233MHz to over 2.3 GHz: A tenfold increase in just ten years. - But suddenly they stopped getting faster. Why? There are two combined main reasons: The first being market-forces. Everybody continually demands more processing power from their processor; therefore chips became faster, as processors that were able to operate at greater speeds were developed; able to process the same amount of data more quickly. Due to a combination of the limited speed of the frequency of operation of the motherboard, plus design constraints that we will look at shortly, there was only so far that this could go. Secondly two brains are better than one. When you’ve gone as high as it’s realistically possible to go; they way to further increase capacity is to build outwards, or duplicate the structure as an annexe of the original. That’s what chipmakers did: Around 2005; AMD, having developed a commercially-available 64-bit processor, then fabricated it as 2 of those processors on a single die. The Athlon 64 x 2 was born. (The computer I’m writing this article on now has one of these processors.) Intel stapled 2 dual-core dies together in a single package and produced a quad-core processor. At the time of writing 6 and 8-core processors are looming on the horizon.
But they’re still no longer getting any faster. Why? CPU speed of operation is limited by frequency. Also, when you get up to a certain frequency, greater heat is produced; regardless of the size of individual transistors: Heat that is generated by the frequency of operation itself to a certain extent. Go above a certain amount of gigahertz and you’re getting too close to microwave frequencies. At these extremely high frequencies a combination of things start to happen: The frequency that individual components, such as the processor and the chipset, communicate with each other at, is around 200MHz: That’s the case with all computers. You may have a 3.2 GHz processor in circuit; but 3.2 GHz is the frequency within the processor itself only. If the processor were to try to communicate with other components at that frequency; the signal would never make it to the other components: The higher the frequency the smaller the antenna needed to radiate that frequency. That’s the reason why the highest frequencies outside of any chip on the motherboard are limited: If they were any higher, the connective tracks on or between the layers of the motherboard would radiate the power away as radio-waves before it ever reached the next component. If the in-chip frequencies became too high then even the connections inside the chip would act as antennae and the chip itself would cease to function, regardless of the design of the transistors themselves.
Secondly; what happens when you put a dinner into a microwave oven? It cooks, yes?: What’s happening is that the high-frequency microwaves of several gigahertz are bombarding the food and exciting the (water) molecules to vibrate sympathetically, causing them to heat up. (I think the frequency used is around 5 point something gigahertz.) When you’re talking gigahertz; the higher the frequency (The more gigahertz.) the greater the heat generated. Also the higher the frequency the smaller the components necessary to run at that frequency. Small things tend to burn up quicker than larger things. Go figure. The cost of fabricating a chip small enough to function at higher energy microwave frequencies, as well as the cooling system it would require, doesn’t even bear thinking about: It’s just totally impractical. So once you’re getting above around 4+GHz frequency you’re starting to fight a losing battle. Logically if you can’t go upwards you go outwards. Think outside the box like AMD did: Add another core operating at an identical frequency on the same die and you theoretically and loosely have twice the frequency without having to have twice the frequency, if you catch my drift? (In actual fact it’s not quite that simple: The overall performance gain works out at somewhere just above 1.7 times rather than double; but I’m not going to type a load of complex calculus-laden quantum-linear algorithms here to prove a point, even if I could remember them.) So what of the future? 48-core processors? I think, making a logical guess, that that’s about the theoretical upper-limit using today’s technology: But things can only get better. All of this is talking from the viewpoint of today’s technologies of course: If it were possible to isolate the transmission of gigahertz-frequency waves and amplify and send them by means of a chain of nano-electronic relays over greater distances on an active-conductor, then basically the sky’s the limit as far as the number of processors in a package is concerned; once one accounts for the excessive cooling required for such a device… The mind boggles. Someone leave a comment on their theoretical predictions based upon factual or theoretically-possible engineering concepts. I’d be fascinated to delve further into the realms of possibility, even from the mind of someone better-informed than myself. I’d love to hear your ideas.
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AMD Can’t Quite Catch Up On Intel Yet
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When AMD have setbacks then it’s usually not a good sign for the chipmaker that’s currently struggling to stay anywhere near Intel and not lose any more ground to them. The news today is that AMD appear to have a setback, in that they’ve shelved development of the 45nm-based Fusion processor, putting its release date back to 2011, if they actually do develop it at all, from the original release schedule of 2010. There are several ways of looking at this: The main one being ‘better late and working than early and a fiasco’, a fiasco as occurred with the initial release of the Phenom, which subsequently allowed Intel to surge ahead and lengthen their lead. Right now, AMD are seemingly the underdogs by a huge margin: Intel are rolling in money and surging ahead, while AMD are in debt and still playing catchup after their Phenom farce: A development marketed with best intentions using a new core architecture technology that emptied their coffers whilst on development and when the release date came there was just that one bug that needed to be ironed out. Naturally, when Intel replied by stapling 2 dual-core dies together, upping the architecture, and selling it at an increased price compared to AMD’s offering, everybody bought Intel’s product without any bugs in it. AMD were left behind to pick up the pieces and try to fathom out what went wrong while Intel; loaded with the proceeds from their victory, developed better, faster, offerings.
AMD’s senior vice president Randy Allen said at today’s launch of AMD’s 45nm Shanghai-cored Opteron processor that it was "the best server processor on the planet". - A side swipe at Intel who had said that their new Core i7 is the ‘fastest processor on the planet’. Fusion was originally scheduled for 2009, but now appears to have effectively been cancelled according to some commentators. If that is the case than that is a setback; because if Intel produce 32nm processors in 2009 then AMD have their work cut out for them and won’t be able to catch up until at least 2011 by all analyses. AMD aren’t finished yet though; so don’t go writing them off just yet as they live to fight another day. Do you agree? |
M$ Sued Over Vista-Capable Claim
‘See it’s turning out that the claim is exactly what it says on the tin: "Designed for Windows XP". Although the systems concerned will run Vista, they’ll only run Vista Home Basic. This polava seemingly originally had its roots with Intel; who at the time Microsoft were brown-nosing and falling over backwards to please in every way possible. Intel moaned that Microsoft had plans to exclude Intel’s 915 chipset from the Vista-capable scheme, which would cost the chipmaker billions as a result. The upshot was that Microsoft lowered the required standards for the scheme to accommodate Intel’s wishes. HP, who had already ploughed a lot of money into development in accord with Microsoft’s original standard of Vista-Capable requirements, went ballistic, and asked why they had had to make the effort and spend the cash while Intel simply had expressed that there could be some difficulty and Microsoft had caved in as a result straight away. HP’s Senior Vice President, Richard Walker, moaned: "Now we have a situation where PC manufacturers (and processor/chipset suppliers) can claim Vista Capable in a ‘good’ mode just because it will run. What kind of consumer assurance is that? Hardly one that puts any credence behind your desire to create the ‘best possible customer experience for the Windows Vista update’". Inside Microsoft itself, the then Co-President, Jim Allchin, hit the roof after reading HP’s complaint, and took up the matter with CEO Steve Ballmer. Ballmer blamed Microsoft executive Will Poole, who probably blamed someone else…Which possibly ended with an office junior being used as a scapegoat and fired? Microsoft is denying misleading customers with this Vista Capable claim. The way I see it is from two or more angles: As I said above; the sticker is actually correct in a couple of ways - But it does fail to state that it’s in fact indicating that the equipment is at worst-case Vista Home Basic capable. Everyone is rather pissed off with Microsoft over this fiasco; customers and partners alike. Even Intel with their special dispensation have turned against M$ in a way by refusing to upgrade their own machines to Vista. The future? I predict that Microsoft are going to lose this case and get another hefty fine plus maybe a compensation order. How about your opinion and prediction? What do you think? |
AMD Launch 45nm Chips
It also has a forthcoming range of desktop processors built on 45nm technology codenamed "Deneb". Both of these ranges are constructed using a process called "immersion lithography". AMD claim that this fabrication technique will lead to ‘dramatic performance and performance-per-watt gains.’ The new Opterons will have an increased clock speed due to this fabrication process; rising from 2.3 GHz with the current Barcelona-cored Opterons, to 2.7 GHz with the Shanghai-cored chips. The current Phenom range, which run at up to 2.6GHz, may also benefit from this upward-clocking in their next incarnation. The new Shanghai-cores also benefit from increased cache-size, as well as from HyperTransport 3.0, which increases bandwidth considerably. Let’s hope they vastly outperform the Intel competition as well as the previous/current Phenom CPUs, or AMD is going to have a hard time on its hands and will probably end up cutting retail prices to offer a cheaper though lesser alternative to the Intel developments.
AMD also plan to introduce a new six-cored range of chips called "Istanbul" sometime next year (2009). As for Deneb; AMD will probably be launching them before the end of 2008. The Question is can AMD ever get ahead of Intel again? Can they even catch up; and if so is this their chance? What’s your opinion?
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Go Fabricate
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Chipmaking giant Intel isn’t happy about AMD’s recent decision to spin off its fabrication business as a separate company. Initially the move by AMD seemed to be a rather good decision in terms of finance and growth; but now Intel are kicking up and saying that they have "serious" questions regarding AMD’s strategy. The problems centre around a licence agreement that AMD has with Intel in which AMD pays Intel royalties for something called a "patent cross-licensing agreement"> This agreement allows AMD to produce x86 chips, which Intel holds the patent for. AMD intends to open up its fabrication plant to other companies beside itself - Therefore Intel claims that AMD is violating this agreement. Intel is nevertheless intent on protecting its intellectual property rights. Intel have asked AMD to make details of the agreement public; something that AMD haven’t done: Therefore Intel’s representatives aren’t yet fully able to discuss the full details of the gripe that they have with AMD, so further details aren’t exactly forthcoming and are sketchy at best. Following AMD’s announcement that it’s creating the Foundry Company, IBM have seen opportunity there and have jumped at the chance to embrace the move; in which AMD intend to share their existing and future fabrication facilities with other companies. The plot thickens and the argument continues pending further developments. What’s your view of this malarkey? Do you agree that Intel have a good case and should stand up against AMD to defend their patent? Do you think that Intel should be more flexible and allow AMD to pursue their objective as an act of good faith? Give your opinion in the appropriate comment space below. |
Six-Core Processors
Intel’s 7400-series Xeons: Up to six 45nm cores + up to 16MB of Level 3 cache!
Intel has at last launched its six-core range of Dunnington CPUs amidst leaked rumours that have been rife since earlier in the year. An added extra for server technology is that a server motherboard can combine up to 16 of these chips in a single machine; giving a total of 96 cores in one box! On the lower end of the range is the Xeon L7455 with 6 cores clocked at 2.13GHz and 12MB of Level 3 cache. Each of the 45nm cores amazingly only uses around 11 watts of power; a fact that is sure to please environmentalists. Top of the pile is the Xeon X7460 with 6 cores clocked at a nippy 2.66GHz each. It also has 16MB of Level 3 cache, and a TDP of 130W - As a result it can get rather warm; but is nevertheless relatively efficient. Five other 7400-series Xeons have also been released; bringing the total to date to 7. These are listed below:- CPU TDP Cores Speed L3 cacheX7460 130W 6 2.66GHz 16MB E7450 90W 6 2.4GHz 12MB E7440 90W 4 2.4GHz 16MB E7430 90W 4 2.13GHz 12MB E7420 90W 4 2.13GHz 8MB L7455 65W 6 2.13GHz 12MB L7445 50W 4 2.13GHz 12MB
Overall this entire range of chips demonstrate excellent increased power efficiency; which, combined with their relatively standard clock-speeds should give good overall performance.
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Letter to Microsoft
Beyond: Taking you beyond the comfort zone. |
Dear Microsoft
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‘Still like XP?
So do Kustom Komputa; and as a white-box builder we can supply it with our new builds until Jan 2009.
- Yet another reason to get a quote for a unique
“Kustomised” desktop PC from Kustom Komputa.
Don’t forget to subscribe to the kkomp.com RSS feed. |
“Please give us an o/s that works when you release Windows 7. We, your customers, don’t mind waiting a little longer for a product that has no bugs and no massive security vulnerabilities - Although we would like you to bring it out ahead of schedule ready for Xmas 2009 if possible.”
“You see, Microsoft, you’ve announced a new operating system and we want it; but we want it to be better than XP: You haven’t come up with anything better than XP yet; and Vista was a joke. Even your bosom buddies at Intel won’t switch to Vista - Put that in your pipe and smoke it!”
“Are you actually aware that KACE found that 50 percent of people who responded to their survey last November won’t upgrade to Vista? Worse still for you, Microsoft, is that in their recent survey that figure has gone up 20percent of the whole to 60 percent! SP1 only made most things Vista work properly; but even then still not quite as well as XP.”
Whoever is running the mess that you’ve turned Microsoft into should get a medal from Apple: Thanks to Vista, Mac sales have risen dramatically. People are switching to Linux despite all its bad press: They use Vista and say “I’m downloading Ubuntu; it can’t be worse than this!”"
“Yes I know that you’ve sold 180 million licenses. How many of those downgraded to XP I wonder? …And the choice was use Vista or have a computer without an operating system: Even Vista is better than no operating system.” |
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“Yes I appreciate the fact that Bill’s taken a back seat and now all the top execs want a piece of the pie; yes I know they all want to take Microsoft individually in a particular direction and are all pulling against each other; but Bill should have forseen that. He probably did; but just wanted out, having made enough money to buy a small country for his retirement.”
“So come on Microsoft; get your act together and give us something good: We’re not asking for miracles; we just want something better and more suited to today’s climate than before. I realise you’ve made boobs like this in the past, such as ME; but at least ME didn’t force the user to get new hardware to run an operating system that wasn’t as good as the last one.”
“You know all about bootstrapping - If you’ve forgotten ask Bill for a reminder - So it’s time for you to pull yourselves up by your bootstraps and smell the coffee again: I don’t mean have a tea-break either. It’s down to you to carry on without Bill at the helm. Can you do that? I’m watching that space.”
Kind Regards from Sharron. x
“P.S. You shot yourselves in the foot when you stopped all the big companies from selling XP. You hoped it would force people to change to Vista; but people didn’t want Vista; they wanted a change to something better, so they had 2 choices: Mac or Linux.
If Windows 7 isn’t a gem of an operating system that works first time and is better than XP then I’m buying a Mac.”
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Comments
Are Intel Really the Tops?
| The pro-Intel lobby is becoming fairly massive: With Intel most likely paying backhanders to media publishers to promote their products at basically any cost, you’ll see adverts for Intel processors everywhere. There are many reviews of the huge variety of different Intel products in many accredited media outlets, such as constructor magazines and commercial guide publications, online and on paper as sold in High Street newsagents. You see very few reviews of AMD products though; and most if not all that I have managed to find hidden amongst the reams and pages of Intel-glorifying glossy advertising pages are fairly demeaning and give AMD much lower ratings than their Intel rivals. I’m trying not to get all technical in this article; so without explaining everything in vast technical detail I’m going to attempt to continue and write a post than can be understood by most people with a basic understanding of the insides of a computer. I want to communicate with my readers rather than blind them with science. I want to write an article based on the title rather than a textbook based upon trying to prove how clever or otherwise I am: I’ll leave the techno-rants to the egotists for now. |
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| Product Superiority?A lot of people would say that Intel processors are superior and more functional compared to AMD’s offerings, also that they are faster and more efficient: My reply to that is yes and no: Intel’s recent processors are definitely much better for overclocking than AMD’s; and quite vastly so - Which is fine if you have enough money to produce a super-douper machine worthy of running at such a pace with enhanced multi-SLI graphics, latest motherboard, etc, including case mod and even gold-plated start button if you like. Also if you’re prepared for a limited processor lifetime because you’re running the CPU faster than it was ever designed to go.AMD’s CPUs are also less adaptable due to their having more circuit components actually built into the processor itself rather than being deployed on the motherboard in updated form with each motherboard revision or different model. AMD’s processors work like “x” and you know that they’re always going to work like “x”: Intel’s are more flexible.In my case I usually build low-to-middle-end computers for the average user and/or for an office, and I find AMD’s chips to be perfectly satisfactory for that purpose. If I were trying to equal the record for the fastest and best PC ever designed I would definitely go for an Intel CPU for its speed and overclockability. Saying that Intel products are superior to AMD products is to my mind like saying duck eggs are superior to goose eggs: Eggs is eggs; and each has its preferred usages.
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| A Brief History of CompetitionBack in time a few years to 2004 and AMD were market leaders with their single-cored Athlon 64: (One of which I have working away happily in an Exel computer in the office.) The first proper 64-bit capable processor, which blew away anything that Intel had to offer at the time. Then came the Athlon 64×2 dual-cored 64-bit capable processor from AMD; which was well developed using AMD’s developing technologies to provide a good and efficient internal architecture on a single silicon wafer. At or around the same time Intel brought their own 64-bit-capable dual-cored processor putting them on a par with AMD. It turned out that the Intel offering was more overclockable than AMD’s equivalent; therefore the power-users and super-geeks started using Intel processors along with water-cooling. AMD were at the same time developing the Phenom series of quad and triple-core processors; but at that point the game became very cut-throat when Intel “cheated” in bringing out a quad-core by stapling two dual-cored wafers together before AMD had had a chance to fully develop their Phenom architecture which had been beset by a situation caused by a bug in the hardware. Both AMD and Intel have brought out 65nm technologies which reduce the power consumption and increase the individual transistor’s switching times considerably. It turns out that Intel have been working on 45nm technology for over 11 years and have perfected it to the point that the first CPUs based on this further miniaturisation are starting to appear …And so for at least the last year or so Intel has been recognised as market leader simply because its products are far more overclockable than AMD’s and therefore are endorsed by the geeks. – Any product endorsed by geeks tends to get rated highly. Now to add to that they will gain an endorsement from the green environmentalist faction for their 45nm and smaller technology’s lower power consumption: They’ve completely and utterly leapfrogged AMD with regard to market domination. |
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| The Big Question Is… Are the geeks being led blindly by market forces? Reality and actual statistics would appear to indicate that there’s no massive performance gap between the respective competitors’ products after all; despite all the bad press AMD may have been getting. OK so company performance, a separate issue to company product, may well be vastly superior in the case of Intel, As we saw with Apple, however, in an earlier post, ( http://kkomp.com/archives/214 ) it’s not necessarily always product superiority that sells product.Addendum:
Another thing is that Intel will soon be facing antitrust charges for allegedly using unlawful methods to keep ahead of AMD in the marketplace. European regulators could bring the charges forward according to the Wall Street Journal. “We are continuing to cooperate and really don’t know what the commission will do,” Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloytold the Journal. “We believe we operate within the law.” Intel was accused by the Europen Comission of illegal practices last year; selling chips below cost and offering huge rebates to customers. The company is also facing a formal investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission. Intel has already been fined over £12 million by the Korean Fair Trade Commission. Intel are set to appeal; but all this litigation can’t be all that good for the chipmaker.
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Beyond the Wafer
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Technology continues to advance at a fast pace: Ten years ago a 233MHz single-core processor which wasted as much energy in heat as it used for work was the considered norm. Floppy-drives were still the thing, and CD-ROM drives were fitted to computers as standard: CD-Rs were on the horizon. PCI graphics cards were in vogue, and AGP slots were being introduced on the latest motherboards. Microsoft were developing Direct X 7 and Windows 98 was becoming the most popular OS: We’ve certainly come a long way since then. |
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Processors have advanced in leaps and bounds since; with Intel pioneering Hyperthreading technology in the later models of the Pentium 4 range, AMD introducing the rise of dual-core processor technology with their Athlon 64s, then Intel rising as market leaders again by bettering AMD’s dual-core performance, followed by stapling two dual-core wafers together in a single package to produce the first quad-core processors… Despite the lag by software writers in utilising multi-core technology there are currently plans for eight, twelve, and sixteen-core processors; largely thanks to miniaturisation of the transistor from work pioneered by Intel since the 1990s: 32 nanometer transistors are now being built, 28 nanometer transistor production is on the horizon, and scientists have even succeeded in building a transistor with a single atom if obscure reports are to be believed. |
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So let’s look forward a few years: We see millions of single or dual-atom transistors being packed into advanced-level processor cores; 64 to a wafer, making up a unit only slightly larger than an Athlon 64×2 chip and with a few more pins. With advances in core architecture, core-interfacing, and cache-data-interfacing technologies these latest chips provide quite a punch in processing power and performance. Software is being written to allow from 2 to 128 core operation, and things have, in a way, hit the buffers: Transistors are as small as they can get; marginal performance gains are still being made by using new semiconductor-doping techniques to slightly improve the switching-speed of the millions of tiny transistor-arrays within each core, constructed across double gallium-arsenide molecules doped onto the silicon wafers; but other than that it’s a virtual stalemate: There’s no point in stapling wafers together, as since the component-miniaturisation limit has been reached, that’ll just lead to big packages which waste room on the motherboard - So where to go from there? |
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In this future-world there’s always the chance of multi-chip motherboards being manufactured: Motherboards with sockets for up to eight of these packages, but motherboard miniaturisation has almost reached critical mass too. Well when you’ve expanded outwards as far as you can the only way is up - Literally: Wafer upon wafer. The problem now is cooling. These latest packages, despite the huge technological advances, still produce as much heat as the old Athlon 64×2 chips did; and that’s with only a single wafer. Stacking wafers without an advanced cooling system would lead to conflagration and component failure.
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The answer: Liquid cooling using high-pressure non-inflammable isobutane-based refrigerant running at low-velocity through tiny flattened spaces between wafers and in coolant-tubes between cache-interfaces within a solid-state cube-shaped chip with connection-pins on all but two sides: One of the unused sides is a tiny TFT monitor displaying real-time performance-statistics for the “cube-chip”; This monitor can be viewed in magnification from the side of the outer-casing on a small screen by means of lens-imaging technology. The other side lacking electrical connections has connections for the refrigerant pipes from the tiny compressor/refrigerator pump installed inside the case. inside the “cube-chip is a miniature power-plant which converts a proportion of the waste-heat into electricity which it uses to help power itself; thus saving energy from any external source once the chip has reached its thermal-equilibrium. |
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In this way a matrix of 64 x 64 2.8GHz hyperthreaded processor-cores can be utilised with a single motherboard; giving a total of 4096 cores in a single unit no bigger than 6cm cubed…And then someone manages to stick two of them together, then four… |
No More Revamps