AMD has the answer for Intel

David Wang wrote:
: In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Ben Pope wrote:
:
:: Indeed. And if you want to know what the real figures are for a
:: particular chip it's easy enough to find out.
:
:: With Intel we still don't know where the 800MHz figure comes from.
:: It's not an 800MHz clock. If it's 100MHz * 2 channels * 4 transfers
:: per clock then it really isn't 800Million of anything per second,
:: it's 400Million at twice the width - VERY different.
:
: The base frequency of the processor bus as found on the Pentium 4 now
: runs at 200 MHz. The data bus of the processor bus is capable of
: transferring 4 beats of data per cycle. This is done through the use
: of 2 source synchronous reference signals that are 90 degrees out of
: phase
: with each other. The data on the data bus can be sent (and received)
: on
: the rising and falling edge of each of the reference signals. There
: are 4 edges that can be sampled every cycle, so 4 beats of data per
: cycle.
: At 200 million cycles per second, that's a data rate of 800 Mbps per
: pin.
:
: You are getting it mixed up with the data rate on the memory side of
: things. It's 400 Mbps per pin there, but it's a 128 bit wide data bus
: for the i875P and i865P series of chipsets.

Geez, This is the clearest and most intelligent post I've seen in this
thread, bar none! Thanks David, because I was really starting to get
confused. As usual, you hit the nail on the head once again. ;.)

J.

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On Tue, 30 Sep 2003 07:44:00 GMT, "Wes Newell"
wrote:

On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 22:07:35 +0000, Tony Hill wrote:

The article specifically goes on to say "Sure, AMD's chips are not
true 64-bit in the same sense that the 386sx was not true 32-bit."
WTF?! What is this guy smoking! The 386SX was very much a 32-bit
processor, it just happened to be saddled by a 16-bit data bus. The
Athlon64 and Opteron are in EVERY sense of the word a 64-bit
processor. No ifs, ands or buts about it.

I just want to make this very clear. Before Intel/Ibm marketing got into
the picture, cpu's bit size was rated by the data bus. Original data
sheets from Intel show the 8088 as an 8 bit cpu, even though it had 16bit
registers. The Motorola 68000 was also designated as a 16bit cpu even
though it had 32bit registers. Once marketing got into the picture
everything changes. That's why all the confusion on the P4/Athlon FSB
speeds. Just keep letting them get away with this crap and take it. Pretty
soon you won't know wtf you're buying. IFAIC, the 386SX was the worst
piece of **** ever produced and I know many of people that bought them
thinking they were buying 386 speeds when what they got was really 286
speeds.

Hey... don't for get the 486DLX CPUS!!!

These were Cyrix upgrade CPUS... they were on 386 motherboards
(smaller than a Flex ATX board) and sold as "486" CPUs...

They were basiclly 386 CPUs with some 486 type of parts... ran slow as
**** of course.


--
Remember when real men used Real computers!?
When 512K of video RAM was a lot!

Death to Palladium & WPA!!

On Sat, 04 Oct 2003 10:39:45 +0000, Darthy wrote:

Hey... don't for get the 486DLX CPUS!!!

These were Cyrix upgrade CPUS... they were on 386 motherboards
(smaller than a Flex ATX board) and sold as "486" CPUs...

They were basiclly 386 CPUs with some 486 type of parts... ran slow as
**** of course.

I thought it was 486DLC's. I had one of these and it worked pretty good.
It was a true 32bit cpu, just didn't have the floating point built in. But
neither did the 486SX. Now the 486SLC was as bad (maybe worse) than the
386SX. It was a 16bit data bus designated as a 486.:-)

--
Abit KT7-Raid (KT133) Tbred B core CPU @2400MHz (24x100FSB)
http://mysite.verizon.net/res0exft/cpu.html

has been ok for
the PC world since we've had 64-bit buses on every system for nearly 10
years now.

64-bit wide buses != 64-bit wide registers. Before MMX the 64-bit wide bus
was mainly useful for double floating-point data type.


10 years? It only started with the Athlon and P4. Prior to that all x86
cpu's had only one data bit per clock cycle.

Why 32-bit memory was required in pairs on Pentium? One data bit? Explain.

So I take it that it doesn't work becuase it is in fact, NOT an 800MHz
bus.
Thanks. You've established my point.

Equivalent to, which might be inprecise but it's not really a big secret
what the figure is based on. I'm not a big-fat-ass hardware expert (I am
software expert ;-), neither it is confusing at all that the actual clock
the data is synchronized to, is quarter of the presented figure, however,
data is moved through at frequency equivalent to 800Mhz since each clock
pulse is equivalent to four times the number of signals.

In otherwords the hardware clock is 200Mhz, but the data is moving at
frequency of 800Mhz, effective. I don't find that too massively misleading
advertising, especially when the facts aren't hidden and IMHO, publicly well
known. Most teen kids know what it means, those who don't know Mouse from
Monitor aren't ofcourse expected to know their ass from the hairs that are
on it.

If people use the correct units, there would be no confusion. It's the
poeple that use incorrect units, incorrect terminology and incorrect
reasoning that cause confusion.

What's the problem? The new data is transfered every 1/800000000 th of a
second, that's the frequency. 800 Mhz. It just happens that the clock signal
this is timed on, is 200 Mhz.

It's not said that 800 Mhz is the clock signal frequency anywhere. Intel
Good. AMD Good. Notice how I am using your own arguments here, should be
sufficient right?

On Sat, 04 Oct 2003 18:26:57 GMT, "Wes Newell"
wrote:

On Sat, 04 Oct 2003 10:39:45 +0000, Darthy wrote:

Hey... don't for get the 486DLX CPUS!!!

These were Cyrix upgrade CPUS... they were on 386 motherboards
(smaller than a Flex ATX board) and sold as "486" CPUs...

They were basiclly 386 CPUs with some 486 type of parts... ran slow as
**** of course.

I thought it was 486DLC's. I had one of these and it worked pretty good.
It was a true 32bit cpu, just didn't have the floating point built in. But
neither did the 486SX. Now the 486SLC was as bad (maybe worse) than the
386SX. It was a 16bit data bus designated as a 486.:-)

You were right... Its been MANY MANY YEARS... It was the DLC...

But it still wasn't up there with the real 486 CPUs... SLCs... bleh!


--
Remember when real men used Real computers!?
When 512K of video RAM was a lot!

Death to Palladium & WPA!!

wogston wrote:
I'm not a big-fat-ass hardware expert...
...but the data is moving at frequency of 800Mhz, effective

Data speed has never been measured in MHz. Herts defines cycles per second.
Which means you inherently need something cyclic. Data is not cyclic,
otherwise it contains no information (since it's pretty predictable if it's
cyclic)

So data is not, and cannot be measured in Hertz. It is measured in bits per
second or some variant thereof.

I don't know how many times I need to say that I do not care about effective
this, effective that. I want facts. The fact is that the bus is not
800MHz. It's is 2*200MHz DDR.

I fed up with the whole argument and will not reply to any comments in this
thread regarding effective clock rates any further. I know what's going to
be said about that so don't bother.

As a so called "software expert" you should be able to appreciate the
difference between two things that are subtlety different. Between
something that is fact, and something that is not. And how important
standards are.

If you do not, then when creating a specification for your software you will
get it wrong. Your software will not meet the customers requirements and
you will not be paid.

Ben
--
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...

wogston wrote:
What's the problem? The new data is transfered every 1/800000000 th of a
second, that's the frequency.

No, that would be the period. Now you're trying to measure frequency in
seconds AND data rate in Hz.

Just as well you don't class yourself as a hardware expert since you would
have failed the simplest test - getting your units correct.

:-P

Ben
--
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...

On Sun, 05 Oct 2003 10:59:16 +0100, Ben Pope wrote:

I fed up with the whole argument and will not reply to any comments in this
thread regarding effective clock rates any further. I know what's going to
be said about that so don't bother.

Frustrating isn't it. Some people just can't admit it when they're wrong.
I'm glad i didn't get too involved in this.

--
Abit KT7-Raid (KT133) Tbred B core CPU @2400MHz (24x100FSB)
http://mysite.verizon.net/res0exft/cpu.html