Top
President’s
Message
by John Janes
Microtivities Web Site:
www.microtivities.com
Another year is over for us. Hope you all enjoyed the
programs that we have presented and the newsletters that we were able to get to
you. All of us have been pretty busy but most of all Rich. We appreciate when
he can get us newsletter input and understand heavy workloads when he can’t.
Thanks for your effort, Rich. I would like to wish you all a very Happy
Holidays.
The next newsletter will be in January. We also have
an interesting program planned for you in January. First Jim Schlaeppi is going
to cover the tax changes for the year. Have you always wondered what you could
do with Microsoft Word? Well, attend the January meeting and get some times on
how to better use Microsoft Word. We are actively working on programs for the
remainder of 2005.
Before I forget, the existing board was unanimously
re-elected for 2005.
Have a safe and Happy Holidays.
Top
Executive Committee Meeting Minutes – November 2, 2004
By Jerry Paulson
John Janes opened the meeting at
approximately 11:45 A.M. CDT. Those in attendance were: Vern Castle;
Gary Hottman; John Janes; Rich
Radke; Bob Bogott; Jerry Paulson; John Malakowsky and Jim Schlaeppi. Meeting
was held at DENNY’S Restaurant, 1200
W. 98th St., Bloomington,
MN.
Reports:
The minutes of the October meeting
were approved. The Treasurer’s report had no changes from last month.
Membership remains at approximately 71 Registered Members.
Program Planning:
November/December session: “Computer Related Gifts”
by Jim Schlaeppi. January session: main topic TBD, Bob Bogott or his representative
would provide information on the settings and configuration of MS Word. Tech session will be Tax Law Changes by Jim
Schlaeppi. Future topics are HP products, National Camera that are being
pursued by Verne Castle. Also there is interest in Wireless
Network in the home.
Old Business:
None
New Business:
The December Executive meeting will
be at Houlihan’s Restaurant in Richfield.
Meeting was adjourned at
approximately 12:15 P.M. CDT
Newsletter Deadline: November 15,
2004
Microtivities Meeting: November 29,
2004
Microtivities Executive Committee
Meeting: December 7, 2004
Top
Internet
Users
by John Janes
The August 2004 issue of PCWorld had
a list of places that you could get free software. I know you guys all like
free software so I thought I would repeat part of the list here for you:
Windows Care Essentials:
http://find.pcworld.com/42726 Winuscon
http://www.x-setup.net/ X-Setup Pro
http://www.bk-soft.com/killwin.htm Kill-Win
http://find.pcworld.com/42732 JetToolBar
http://www.driverfiles.net/ DriverFiles.net
http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/catalog/en/corp_drivers.asp Windows Update Driver Catalog
Tweak Windows to Your Heart’s
Content:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx Windows XP Power Toys
http://find.pcworld.com/42716 Alt-Tab Replacement
http://find.pcworld.com/42718 Power Calculator
http://find.pcworld.com/42720 Image Resizer
http://find.pcworld.com/42722 virtual Desktop Manager
http://find.pcworld.com/42724 Webcam Timershot
Triage Time:
http://find.pcworld.com/42734 Windows Xp Home Edition Setup Disks
for Floppy Boot Install
http://find.pcworld.com/42736 PC Inspector File Recovery
http://www.pcinspector.de/smart_media_recovery/uk/welcome.htm PC Inspector Smart Recovery
http://www.elpros.si/CDCheck/helplink.php?helpfn=overview CDCheck
http://www.freewareweb.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?ID=1672 Restoration
Find and Fix PC Problems:
http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/1/ AVG Ant-Virus System Free Edition
http://www.my-etrust.com/microsoft/ EZArmor
http://www.lavalys.com/index.php?page=product&view=1 Lavalys Everest Home Edition
http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html Belarc Advisor
http://find.pcworld.com/42754 PGP Freeware
http://find.pcworld.com/42756 Sam Spade
http://www.panicware.com/product_psfree_download.html Popup Stopper Free Edition
http://find.pcworld.com/42760 WebWasher Classic
http://find.pcworld.com/42762 Internet download Manager
http://www.bartdart.com/ CachePal
http://www.bartdart.com/ ScrubXP
http://find.pcworld.com/42746 Spybot Search & Destryoy 1.3
http://find.pcworld.com/42748 Ad-aware 6.181
http://find.pcworld.com/42750 ZoneAlarm
http://find.pcworld.com/42752 Browser Hijack Blaster
http://find.pcworld.com/42756 WinPatrol 7
Places to find free software you can
depend on:
http://www.pricelessware.org
http://www.nonags.com
http://www.onlythebestfreeware.com
http://www.freebyte.com/freeware
http://www.majorgeeks.com
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads
Free Game Downloads:
http://www.download-free-games.com Download Free Games
http://www.fileshack.com FileShack
http://www.happypuppy.com Happy Puppy
http://www.fileplanet.com IGN/GameSpy FilePlanet
http://files.worthplaying.com WorthPlaying Files
http://latest.files.filefront.com FileFront Latest Files
Note: Type the Web addresses exactly
as shown. Not every Web address begins with “www”, and sometimes that final “/”
is crucial. The site addresses listed above were all correct at the time the
newsletter was published. Some links may get wrapped when you view them. I
apologize if they don’t work when you try them.
Top
In the Public
Domain
By Rich Radtke
RERadtke@aol.com
Yes, the
weather is starting to cool down, as well it should in Minnesota in November. I know we grumble about the cold and snow
that we have to endure, but don’t you enjoy it, really? After all, it’s what we endure that makes us
stronger and better equipped to face the world than the rest of those wimps
running around there, isn’t it? (At
least we can keep telling ourselves that, as we endure the below-zero weather
and the feet of snow that we’re scheduled to receive this winter.)
Intel Scraps Plans for 4-GHz
Processor
On October
15, Intel announced that it was stopping development of the 4-GHz Pentium 4
processor, shifting its design teams to a multi-core processor project. Intel had previously announced that it would
be producing a 4.0-GHz Pentium 4 by the end of 2004, but then in July pushed
that date back to March of 2005. Now,
Intel officials have decided that the future lies not in creating faster and
faster processors (with little actual performance increase), but rather in designing
processors with multiple CPUs.
This was
after AMD had demonstrated a dual-core Opteron chip in August. The system shown was a 4-chip server built
using 4 dual-core Opterons, effectively giving the system 8 processors. AMD had designed the multi-processor
capability into both the Opteron’s architecture and the Athlon 64’s
architecture from the very beginning.
Production systems using the dual-processor Opteron chips for use in one
to eight socket servers should be available by the middle of 2005, with desktop
systems using the dual-processor Athlon 64s appearing later in the year. Both HP and Sun have announced that they will
use the AMD components when they become available. The system that was demo’ed in August was
built in collaboration with HP. It was
running a version of Linux that was modified to recognize and utilize the dual
processors. (That’s one advantage of
using Linux: you don’t have to wait for
Microsoft to create a version of Windows to work with your new hardware; you just tweak Linux to do what you want it
to.) An AMD representative said that the
dual-processor architecture gives essentially double the computing capacity,
minus about 10% for processor and I/O contention. Each dual-core Opteron will require about 205
million transistors, though when fabricated using 90-nm technology the die size
will be no larger than a single-core Opteron die using 130-nm technology. It will also use the same 939-pin socket as
current Opterons.
The GHz
race wasn’t providing Intel with what it was wanting: a superior processor. AMD’s design efficiencies were allowing it to
create chips that run at much lower clock speeds than Intel’s chips, but which
matched, and in many cases beat, the Intel components when it came to actual
computing performance. So Intel’s
3.8-GHz Pentium 4 Model 560 will most likely be the highest-clocked chip that
we’ll see for quite some time.
One problem
that was plaguing Intel as it created faster and faster processors was
heat. Intel CTO Patrick Gelsinger had
stated that without a fundamental change in chip design, within a decade Intel
chips running at increasingly higher speeds would become “as hot as the surface
of the sun”, extrapolating from past increases in CPU heat generation.
As early as
last May, Intel announced that it was looking into the multi-core architecture
for its three primary lines of processors:
server, desktop, and notebook, even as it was still touting its 4-GHz
Pentium 4 processor by the end of the year.
But that’s changed now. Intel now
says that it’ll have dual-core Itanium 2 and Xeon processors by the third
quarter of 2005, but some industry analysts say that they’ll have to really
work overtime to get it done. They also
feel that the reason that Intel has backed off on the 4-GHz Pentium 4 goal is
to devote as many people as possible to the dual-core project. Intel’s dual-core architecture, codenamed “Smithfield”, is said to
incorporate 90-nm technology, a frontside bus speed of 800 MHz, 1 MB of L2
cache for each processor, and will also support Extended Memory 64 technology,
which will allow it to address more memory, though without the advantage of
actually being a 64-bit processor.
Who Needs That Much Computing Power?
If you
think that a dual-core processor is more power than you’ll ever need, just take
a look at Microsoft’s hardware recommendations for running Longhorn, its
delayed next-generation version of Windows:
n a dual-core CPU running at 4 to 6
GHz
n a minimum of 2 GB of RAM
n a terabyte of disk storage
n a 1 GBit Ethernet port
n 802.11g wireless networking
n a graphics processor running 3 times
as fast as any on the market today
Just
remember, Longhorn is probably 2 to 3 years down the road yet, so the hardware
may reach these specs by that time.
And Who Wants That Much
Power?
Hardcore
gamers always want the fastest
system that they can buy or put together themselves. And the biggest game release in years has to
be Doom 3, developed by id Software and published by Activision. It has spawned a loyal following, though it
is a very resource-intensive piece of software.
It runs only with the highest-performing video cards, as well as with as
much CPU power and available memory as it can get. Many testing sites have begun using the
built-in system testing capability of Doom 3 to assess the performance
potential of numerous systems and system components. One such site is www.anandtech.com, which recently ran a
comparison of 28 AMD and Intel CPUs, ranging from the aged AMD Athlon 2000+ and
the recent Intel Celeron D 335 (based on the former P4 Northwoods core), to the
64-bit Athlon 64s and the Intel Pentium 4 3.4EE (Extreme Edition, basically a
Xeon rebadged to identify it as a Pentium 4).
Here’s
Anandtech’s chart summarizing the performance of the 26 processors under Doom 3
(Athlon 64s and the Sempron 3100+ are shown in orange, 32-bit Athlons and
Semprons in green, and Intel Pentium 4s and Celerons in blue):
One
thing that you can’t help but notice is the dominance of the Athlon 64. Its overwhelming dominance. As the Anandtech review summarized:
“The Athlon 64 runs Doom
perfectly. It's almost as if the game was built to run best on an Athlon 64;
maybe AMD should invest some marketing dollars in their own "The way it's
meant to be played" campaign. And to make things even better, you don't
even have to have the fastest Athlon 64 to get great performance, even the
meager 3000+ manages to offer performance equal to that of Intel's Extreme
Edition Pentium 4 at a much lower cost.”
Check out
this link to read Anandtech’s review of video card performance playing Doom 3:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2146
.
Check out
this link to read Anandtech’s review of CPU and chipset performance when
playing Doom 3 (including the above chart):
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2149
.
A
comparison as seen in the above chart really doesn’t “hit home” until you can
tie it to something that you understand.
Something like……. cost! I took
all of the above CPUs, checked the cost of each CPU in a “retail box” with
Heatsink/Fan at a website well-known for its competitive prices (www.newegg.com), and then calculated the cost
per FPS (frames per second, which is the number given for each CPU in the
chart).
Here are my
calculations:
|
CPU
|
Doom 3 FPS
|
Cost
|
$/FPS
|
|
AMD Athlon 64
FX-53 (2.4 GHz - S939)
|
103.4
|
811.00
|
7.84
|
|
AMD Athlon 64
3800+ (2.4 GHz - S939)
|
99.8
|
630.00
|
6.31
|
|
AMD Athlon 64
FX-51 (2.2 GHz - S939)
|
98.4
|
634.00
|
6.44
|
|
AMD Athlon 64
3400+ (2.2 GHz - S754)
|
95.5
|
219.00
|
2.29
|
|
AMD Athlon 64
3500+ (2.2 GHz - S939)
|
94.7
|
272.00
|
2.87
|
|
Intel P4 3.4 EE
|
87.4
|
999.00
|
11.43
|
|
AMD Athlon 64
3000+ (2.0 GHz - S754)
|
85.3
|
151.00
|
1.77
|
|
Intel P4 3.2 EE
|
83.8
|
909.00
|
10.85
|
|
Intel P4 3.4E
|
81.2
|
329.00
|
4.05
|
|
AMD Athlon 64
2800+ (1.8 GHz - S754)
|
78.8
|
130.00
|
1.65
|
|
Intel P4 3.2E
|
78.5
|
220.00
|
2.80
|
|
AMD Sempron
3100+ (1.8 GHz - S754)
|
75.3
|
123.00
|
1.63
|
|
Intel P4 3.0E
|
74.9
|
190.00
|
2.54
|
|
Intel P4 3.2C
|
73.1
|
245.00
|
3.35
|
|
Intel P4 2.8E
|
70.7
|
192.00
|
2.72
|
|
Intel P4 3.0C
|
70.0
|
209.00
|
2.99
|
|
AMD Athlon XP
3200+ (2.16 GHz)
|
68.0
|
200.00
|
2.94
|
|
Intel P4 2.8C
|
67.0
|
157.00
|
2.34
|
|
Intel P4 2.6C
|
64.1
|
181.00
|
2.82
|
|
AMD Athlon XP
3000+ (2.16 GHz)
|
61.2
|
162.00
|
2.65
|
|
Intel P4 2.4C
|
60.5
|
145.00
|
2.40
|
|
AMD Athlon XP
2500+ (1.83 GHz)
|
55.6
|
109.00
|
1.96
|
|
AMD Athlon XP
2700+ (2.16 GHz)
|
55.1
|
103.00
|
1.87
|
|
AMD Sempron
2800+ (2.0 GHz)
|
53.4
|
109.00
|
2.04
|
|
AMD Athlon XP
2400+ (2.0 GHz)
|
53.1
|
104.00
|
1.96
|
|
Intel Celeron D
335 (2.8 GHz)
|
49.3
|
108.00
|
2.19
|
|
AMD Athlon XP
2200+ (1.80 GHz)
|
47.4
|
94.00
|
1.98
|
|
AMD Athlon XP
2000+ (1.67 GHz)
|
46.1
|
62.00
|
1.34
|
From these
numbers you can see the “sweet spots”, where you can get the best performance
for the best price. Like with the AMD
Athlon 64 3400+, which you can buy for a mere $219. And that’s not a bad price at all when you
consider that to get just a l-i-t-t-l-e more performance you’d have to spend
over $400 more! Or you could spend $780
more and get less performance with an Intel P4 3.4EE! Even the Athlon 64 3000+ at $151 outperforms
the $909 P4 3.2EE. The two Intel P4 EE
models (3.2 and 3.4) stand out as being significantly more expensive than
anything else available.
Another
thing that people seem to have forgotten is that the Athlon 64 processors
running in these tests are running at less than their full potential, because
they’re just being used as fast 32-bit processors (and beating everyone else
pretty soundly while they’re at it!).
Their 64-bit computing ability is not being called into play (so to
speak). Imagine what would happen if
they could use their full capabilities!
Intel Protests
After
having been repeatedly trounced by the Athlon 64 in numerous gaming tests,
Intel is proposing that real-world tests be conducted to determine the actual
performance levels of current CPUs.
Intel is positioning its Pentium 4 Extreme Edition running at 3.4 GHz as
the gamer’s choice, while the top-of-the-heap AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 is running at
a leisurely 2.4 GHz, but can still outperform Intel’s fastest. (Actually, there’s a newer FX model just
out: the Athlon 64 FX-55, which differs
from the FX-53 in that it’s running at 2.6 GHz.
What was formerly the FX-53 is now known at the Athlon 64 4000+. Another problem for gamers, at least gamers
who want an Intel EE model CPU, is that the EE CPUs are in short supply. The Athlon 64 CPUs are readily available,
however.)
Matt
Dunford, client benchmark manager for Intel, believes that a “timed demo”, as
is found in Doom 3, “does not accurately measure chip performance. Timed demos measure more of the graphics than
CPU performance.” He adds, “With a
real-world benchmark, you have a human running the game instead of a
prerecorded script. Realistic gameplay
performance cannot be adequately measured using time demo benchmarks.”
Mr. Dunford
is overlooking the fact that the Doom 3 tests run in the Anandtech CPU
comparison used the same video controllers with all of the CPUs, which should
remove the video controllers as a variable factor in the tests (except, of
course, for those tests that were comparing the relative performance of
different video controllers, all with the same CPU). Also, the timed demo has become widely used
as a standard of performance because it is reproducible. You can run the same test time after time
after time, with no human inconsistencies or errors to get in the way of the results. The only thing that affects the outcome is
the speed with which the processor can complete the steps involved.
What he
proposes is “real-world” testing, with a human at the keyboard playing the game
“in real time”, while other processes are running simultaneously, “such as
sound, artificial intelligence and physics on another ‘thread’ or computational
task.” The P4 Extreme Edition features
hyperthreading, which performs tasks on another thread as if the system were
running on two CPUs. But such a scenario
is not realistic. Intel wants to measure
how well a system performs when a gamer is playing Doom 3, and doing another
complex operation, such as running a Fast Fourier Transform or balancing their
checkbook, at the same time. But gamers
don’t do this. This would not be a
“real-world” test.
I’m sure
we’ll hear more from Mr. Dunford on this.
Microsoft Settles with Novell for
$536 Million
Back in the
July Microtivities newsletter I enumerated all of the financial settlements
that Microsoft had reached with 16 states and the District of Columbia, the countries of the
European Union, and a number of technology companies, resulting in a total
Microsoft payout of over $5.5 billion.
Well, you can add one more company to that list: Novell.
On November 8 Microsoft announced that it had reached settlements with
Novell and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA).
The
settlement with Novell resolves the antitrust claims that Novell made against
Microsoft concerning its Novell network operating system. Microsoft has agreed to pay Novell $536
million, and Novell has agreed to pull out of the European Union’s legal case
against Microsoft. Joseph LaSala, Jr.,
Novell’s senior vice president and general counsel, announced that the settlement
does not include Novell’s antitrust claims against Microsoft concerning its
WordPerfect word processing software.
Novell will not be cozying up too closely to Microsoft, though, choosing
not to collaborate with Microsoft in licensing and intellectual property
issues, as Sun Microsystems has done as part of its reconciliation with
Microsoft. (But then again, Sun received
a lot more money from Microsoft, to the tune of $1.95 billion.)
Details of
the settlement between Microsoft and the CCIA are much more sparse. All that is known is that the CCIA will no
longer challenge the Department of Justice’s suit against Microsoft,
effectively allowing the case to close after 7 long years. In addition, the CCIA will also not play a
role in the European Union’s still-pending case against Microsoft. In return, CCIA will receive an undisclosed
sum of money from Microsoft. A CCIA
press release announced simply that Microsoft “will compensate CCIA for certain
legal-related expenditures it has incurred, in some cases over the past decade,
and provide substantial institutional support for new and important policy
undertakings on which CCIA will take a leadership role.” In addition, Microsoft will join the CCIA.
Brad Smith,
senior vice president and general counsel for Microsoft, announced that company
has $950 million left in reserve for any remaining antitrust claims.
Novell Sues Microsoft Over
WordPerfect
Even as
Novell was pursuing its settlement with Microsoft regarding the Novell network
operating system, it was also realizing that a settlement concerning its
WordPerfect word processing software and Quattro Pro spreadsheet software was
not likely to be reached as readily. On
Friday, Nov. 12, Novell again sued Microsoft in Utah seeking unspecified
damages arising from Microsoft’s efforts to eliminate competition in the office
application market in the mid-‘90s. In
its suit Novell claims that Microsoft withheld certain technical information
about its Windows operating system that would have allowed Novell to create
more-competitive products in the office productivity application arena. The suit also alleges that Microsoft also
included certain technologies into Windows that were used solely to hinder
WordPerfect’s and Quattro Pro’s performance.
It further claims that Microsoft used its monopoly power to prevent its
hardware partners from offering WordPerfect or Quattro Pro to their customers.
Novell
acquired the WordPerfect word processing program from WordPerfect Corp. in
June, 1994. In nearly the same
timeframe, Novell acquired the Quattro Pro spreadsheet program from Borland
International. At that time, the value
of the two applications was over $1 billion, yet less than 2 years later, in
March of 1996, the two programs were sold to Corel Corp. for about $170
million. According to Joseph LaSala Jr.,
Novell's senior vice president and general counsel, "WordPerfect's share
of the word processing market was almost 50 percent in 1990, but fell to less
than 10 percent by the time Novell sold WordPerfect and related applications in
1996. Microsoft Word's share of the word processing market rose from
approximately 20 percent prior to 1990 to a monopoly share of approximately 90
percent by 1996.”
Dell Considering Adding AMD
Processors
Dell has
been the sole Intel stalwart, the only major computer company that uses
exclusively Intel processors. But that
may be changing. AMD’s 64-bit Opteron
processor, used in high-end servers, has no Intel equivalent. Dell’s CEO, Kevin Rollins, in an interview
with InfoWorld editors, said, “My
guess is we’re going to want to add that [AMD] product line in the
future.” Dell has made noises in the
past about using AMD chips, but most industry analysts feel that that was aimed
primarily at getting the best deals from Intel.
Rollins also said that, though there probably won’t be Athlon-based
desktops in Dell’s future, there just might be some high-end gaming systems
powered by the Athlon 64, as the Athlon 64 is the chip of choice among gamers
due to its superior price-to-performance ratio, as compared to any Intel chip.
Microsoft
and Intel Target the Third World
Microsoft
CEO Steve Ballmer, speaking at a conference in Orlando, Florida,
in October said that the biggest problem the company has is software
piracy. “The biggest problem we have
right now is that people who should be paying for software aren’t.” One way that he suggested to stem piracy is
to offer consumers in emerging countries a low-cost PC. People in poor countries have one low-cost
computing option, he said. “They have a
leased-PC concept: the Internet
café. Pay-by-the-drink computer use –
that has a very important place in the market.
(Microsoft) has five times as many Hotmail users in India and China than there are PCs because of
this.”
(Actually,
the most popular low-cost option is to use pirated software. In many cities in poor countries you can buy
a 2-CD set of Windows and Office for a dollar or two. Conservative estimates are that 90% of all
PCs in these poor countries are using pirated software.)
Back in the
August Microtivities Newsletter I told you about a Microsoft initiative to put
together a reduced-function version of Windows XP and Office XP for sale in
three countries initially: Indonesia, Malaysia,
and Thailand,
with more countries to be added later.
This software bundle would sell for about $30-40, 94% less than the
retail price that we have to pay. Since
August, Microsoft has expanded this program to include Russia and India.
Ballmer’s
suggestion of a lighter and cheaper PC for these countries has a target
price: $100. But over one-third of that cost is
software. I don’t know if a functional
PC can be built for $60. Intel is taking
a serious look at producing cheaper derivatives of some of its processors, said
Paul Otellini, president of the chip manufacturer. VIA Technologies sells a line of inexpensive
processors, mostly in developing countries.
AMD has resurrected its line of Duron processors for the Chinese
market. Currently, the lowest-priced PCs
available are in the sub-$200 price bracket, and that’s without software. (Now Linux would be a good OS for an
enterprising manufacturer to use in developing a low-cost PC. Linux, an open-source Microsoft-compatible
office suite, and a web browser would make a nice, useful system, and would
cost $30-40 less than the Microsoft alternative.)
The source
of these companies’ interest in developing countries is the projection that the
number of worldwide PC users will grow from some 670 million now to over 1
billion by the year 2010, with most of the increase coming in “emerging
markets”.
New Computer Tops the
Fastest-In-The-World List
On November
8, a new supercomputer topped the list of the world’s fastest supercomputers,
which you can see at www.top500.org. The DOE/IBM BlueGene/L beta-System beat out all others by recording a
Linpack benchmark score of 70.72 TFlops (teraflops/second, or trillions of
floating-point operations per second).
It uses 32,768 IBM PPC processors running at 0.7 GHz. It is currently being built at IBM’s facility
in Rochester, MN.
When the system is completed, it will be moved to the DOE’s Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore,
CA. This system, however, is just the foundation
for an even larger system, one which when completed will have 280 TFlops of
computing power.
In second place is the Columbia System, built by
SGI and installed at the NASA Ames Research
Center in Mountain View, CA. It recorded a speed of 51.87 TFlops. An amazing fact about this system is that it
was completed in only 15 weeks. The
system is composed of 20 SGI Altix systems, with each system powered by 512
Intel Itanium2 processors. Even as it
was being built, it was being used. As
the Altix systems were being aggregated, the resulting system, no matter
whether composed of 2, 10, or all 20 Altix systems, was able to be used for
research.
Using NASA’s previous supercomputers, simulations showing five years worth
of changes in ocean temperatures and sea levels were taking a year to
model. But using a single SGI Altix
system, scientists can simulate decades of ocean circulation in just days,
while producing simulations in greater detail than ever before. And the time
required to assess flight characteristics of an aircraft design, which involves
thousands of complex calculations, dropped from years to a single day.
In third
place is NEC’s Earth Simulator, which had been in first place for the past two
years.
Below is a
diagram showing the modular construction of a massively-parallel computer
system:
On a
historical note:
In 1986,
when the Top 500 List was first produced, Cray was the market leader in
supercomputers, with 63% of all systems installed worldwide. CDC was tied with Fujitsu for second place,
each with 16% of the systems worldwide. Hitachi had 4%, and NEC
had 1%.
AMD Patents an On-Chip CPU Cooler
As the
density of components in a CPU increases, so does the heat that they
produce. As AMD works to shrink the
components on its CPUs from 130-nanometer to 90-nanometer technology, it’s
looking ahead to 65-nanomenter and beyond.
With hopes of reducing heat internally, AMD has patented a method of
embedding a TEC (Thermo-Electric Cooler, also known as a peltier) into the chip
package. In 1834 Jean Charles Althanase
Peltier discovered what would thereafter be known as the Peltier Effect, where
current flowing through the junction of two different metals would either heat
or cool the junction. A peltier works on
this principle to draw heat from one face of the peltier to the other. Peltiers can move large quantities of heat
energy, and are commonly used in conjunction with water-cooling or
compressive-cooling techniques to supercool processors. AMD hopes that putting a peltier right in the
chip package will make it easier to cool the 65-nm processors, without
requiring complicated (expensive) cooling equipment. A complicating factor is the fact that a
peltier requires a lot of power, so a motherboard would have to be redesigned
to provide sufficient for the peltier, in addition to the CPU. It’s possible that cooling the peltier will
be more difficult than simply cooling the CPU, but at least the heat will be
already moved away from the CPU die, which is very susceptible to overheating.
AOL Plans on Resurrecting
Netscape
Some
industry observers had relegated Netscape to the Internet history books, but it
may not be dead yet. AOL, who bought the
beleaguered company before it expired completely, has announced that it will
release an updated browser based on Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox browser. Some time ago, AOL spun off the Netscape
development into the open-source Mozilla browser, and its follow-on, Firefox. The software has evolved substantially, and
AOL now feels that it is ready for a comeback.
The first beta version will be going out to testers within a matter of
weeks. The browser will be based on
Firefox, with an extended feature set, and Netscape’s traditional green
interface.
