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Mike Hankey15-Nov-23 5:59

Mike Hankey

15-Nov-23 5:59

Anything more is just pretentious!

As the aircraft designer said, "Simplicate and add lightness".
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k505415-Nov-23 6:10

k5054

15-Nov-23 6:10

Ah! But how many threads? I seem to recall a CPU (maybe MIPS?) that supported 3 threads per core, and there's tales of IBM Power supporting 4 or 8 TPC, and I think Sun SPARC had chips that supported 8 TPC. ~~Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!~~ Oops, sorry, wrong forum Smile | :)

"A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants"
Chuckles the clown

PIEBALDconsult15-Nov-23 6:52

15-Nov-23 6:52

(PIEBALD looks up Itanium specs...)

Greg Utas15-Nov-23 7:50

Greg Utas

15-Nov-23 7:50

I think how many threads per core are supported is determined by the O/S, not the CPU.

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k505415-Nov-23 8:07

k5054

15-Nov-23 8:07

I'm thinking in terms of "Hyperthreading", or "Virtual Cores", which is definitely hardware, not software.

"A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants"
Chuckles the clown

dandy7215-Nov-23 11:08

dandy72

15-Nov-23 11:08

PIEBALDconsult wrote:
Eight cores oughta be enough for anybody.

Consider

(a) the number of cores in an AMD Threadripper CPU

(b) the fact that you can use AMD CPUs as space heaters

You might want to make use of more cores during those cold winter nights...

PIEBALDconsult15-Nov-23 14:05

15-Nov-23 14:05

Uh huh, here in freaking Phoenix.

dandy7216-Nov-23 3:53

dandy72

16-Nov-23 3:53

I'm not without sympathy.

The one time I had an AMD CPU for my primary machine...I remember shutting it down at times because it was just getting too damned hot in summer, despite the AC unit keeping the rest of the house reasonably cool. Nothing wrong with the CPU or heatsink, as I was repeatedly told this was "to be expected" with that particular generation (I forget which exactly).

I have no need for a machine that has to be turned off due to the amount of heat it throws off. I've never owned another system with an AMD CPU.

jschell16-Nov-23 4:27

jschell

16-Nov-23 4:27

dandy72 wrote:
because it was just getting too damned hot in summer, despite the AC unit keeping the rest of the house reasonably cool.

That sounds a bit scary.

So the CPU was getting so hot that it was warming up the room (not just computer) that you were in to such an extent that you turned it off to get cooler?

Sounds more like a fireplace or an oven than the computer.

trønderen16-Nov-23 5:12

16-Nov-23 5:12

The prototypes of the DEC Alpha required a 3 phase power supply. Before the release, they managed to trim down the power requirements so that a plain single-phase PS could handle it.

While I was teaching at a tech. college, we got an Alpha machine. Good thing was that it could provide hot lunches for the students Smile | :)

(I'm kidding. It was a common joke among the students, though.)

trønderen16-Nov-23 5:27

16-Nov-23 5:27

jschell wrote:
So the CPU was getting so hot that it was warming up the room (not just computer) that you were in to such an extent that you turned it off to get cooler?

Have you never been working in an environment with, say, 40 servers gathered in a server room?

A few years ago, we were moving to another wing of the building. The move was delayed by a couple of months because the machine room needed so much AC that there wasn't enough electric power for it without a significant rewiring, with more circuits of higher rating.

A home environment is different, of course. But look at these gaming machines: They have power supplies of 1200 W, 1500 W, ... The three huge screens come on top of that. And the 6 channel times 50 W sound system. It all ends up as heat, similar to a 2000-2500 W electric heater. If you don't need it to keep your house warm (and it certainly is not a very efficient way to heat your house!), you need an AC which can dispose of 2000-2500 W of heat - and the AC unit will give you another 500 W or so of heat (assuming a COP of 4 to 5; they don't go very much higher).

If you live in a house built by current insulation standards (as far as I have read, Canada and Norway standards are comparable), then an extra 3000 W of heat may be sufficient to keep your entire house warm even in mid-winter.

jschell16-Nov-23 5:53

jschell

16-Nov-23 5:53

The post said "primary" so I presumed one.

trønderen wrote:
They have power supplies of 1200 W, 1500 W,

Not really my thing these days but I believe that if you drive the power supply to the maximum on the computer and the other devices you are going to end up having hardware issues quite quickly.

dandy7217-Nov-23 3:53

dandy72

17-Nov-23 3:53

jschell wrote:
So the CPU was getting so hot that it was warming up the room (not just computer) that you were in to such an extent that you turned it off to get cooler?
Sounds more like a fireplace or an oven than the computer.

You sound surprised. Heat management is absolutely a consideration for any IT manager who's responsible for putting together a number of PCs in a room. It'll get hot - very hot. Data centers spend a fortune on AC. But this one PC was a special case.

As mentioned, that particular generation of AMD CPUs (Athlons? It was over 10 years ago) was known to be generating a lot of heat; it's not like the thermal paste needed to be replaced or the heat sink reseated as is often the solution nowadays. It just generated that much heat, by design, so even with proper cooling/ventilation, the heat had to go somewhere. So, it heated the room.

Nowadays, it seems like high-end GPUs have taken that role...

The '640K' quote won't go away -- but did Gates really say it? | Computerworld[^]

jmaida15-Nov-23 13:58

jmaida

15-Nov-23 13:58

"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger

Mike Hankey15-Nov-23 15:35

Mike Hankey

15-Nov-23 15:35

Interesting article.

As the aircraft designer said, "Simplicate and add lightness".
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jmaida15-Nov-23 15:55

jmaida

15-Nov-23 15:55

I first heard this quote from my Grad School prof at about the same time frame.
We were experimenting with different memory access schemes for RISC processors the hottest CPU design at the time (bit slicing, segmentation, etc. ). Fun times.

"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger

PIEBALDconsult16-Nov-23 4:05

16-Nov-23 4:05

I think he's denied it, but I'm going to keep repeating it anyway. The sentiment still has value, wherever it originated.

trønderen16-Nov-23 5:40

16-Nov-23 5:40

I am repeating it too - as a great example of taking quotes out of context.

In another interview (for which I don't have any URL), Gates did not remember having said it, but remarked that if he had said anything like that, it would have to be in discussions about the sharing of the 1024 Ki available RAM between the OS and user processes. Reserving 384 Ki for the OS, leaving 640 Ki for user processes, that should be enough for any user process running in 1024 Ki RAM.

Whether Gates actually said it or not: I support it! I would never argue that, given 1024 Ki, the OS, drivers, I/O buffers and other system software should be given any less than 384 Ki. You may ridicule me for that statement just as much as you ridicule Gates. Go ahead! Then, please include some viable arguments why the OS should have less than 384 Ki, and tell us how much less, given the 1024 Ki total.

I am really happy that Gates made or didn't make this statement. I have no better example to illustrate quotes taken out of context.

PIEBALDconsult16-Nov-23 5:57

16-Nov-23 5:57

Good point. The quote about "no one needs a computer in their home" is another example of a quote taken out of context.
But it can also be an example of someone (anyone) not foreseeing the future very well, such as the oft repeated "I see a world market for maybe five computers".

Olsen is quoted as saying "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home."

Thomas J Watson, reputedly said: "I think there is a world market for about five computers."

trønderen16-Nov-23 6:07

16-Nov-23 6:07

PIEBALDconsult wrote:
Thomas J Watson, reputedly said: "I think there is a world market for about five computers."

If you today stated that "I think that there is a world market for about five cloud service providers", maybe you will be ridiculed for it, 30 years from now.

Thomas J Watson viewed those five computers remarkable similar to how we view the five biggest (are there really that many?) cloud service providers.

You could make similar statements e.g. about how many search engines the world needs. And different OSes. And different Linux distros.

PIEBALDconsult16-Nov-23 6:41