Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 17:42:27 01/12/02
Go up one level in this thread
On January 12, 2002 at 17:18:27, Tom Kerrigan wrote: >On January 11, 2002 at 10:45:41, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On January 10, 2002 at 05:07:37, Tom Kerrigan wrote: >> >>>On January 10, 2002 at 03:06:23, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote: >>> >>>>On January 09, 2002 at 17:12:11, Tom Kerrigan wrote: >>>> >>>>>>It's faster only because of the clockspeed. Granted, that is made >>>>>>possible by the silly design, but it doesn't make it any nicer, >>>>>>especially compared vs the Athlons. >>>>> >>>>>To rearrange your wording, the P4's design allows it to reach higher >clockspeeds which results in faster performance. Again, how is this "silly"? >>>> >>>>It's silly because they have to make it this way. It's faster >>>>solely by means of clockspeed. >>>> >>>>>Do you want a chip that performs well or one that clocks slow? Seems like >you're asking for the latter. >>>> >>>>It's possible to make well-performing chips that clock slower :) >>>> >>>>I would just like to see a new chip and an innovative design with >>>>real new features. The trend now is to make stupider chips that >>>>run at a higher clockspeed. I would have found it more interesting >>>>to see a slower clocked but smarter (and thus faster) chip. >>> >>>I can't believe you think the P4's design isn't innovative. It's the first x86 >>>chip to have a trace cache. Its branch predictor is probably the best ever made >>>by anybody. It's the first chip that I know of that has a double clocked ALU. It >>>has SMT logic (although not enabled currently). The list goes on. Basically, >>>there's hardly anything about the P4 that _isn't_ innovative. >> >>Do you remember the 486 DX4 and the like? Even a triple-clocked ALU was done >>years ago. > >That was relative to the FSB speed. I was quite obviously referring to the fact >that the P4's ALUs run at twice the frequency of the rest of the CPU. > >-Tom I was simply pointing out that the idea is _old_. Doesn't matter whether the CPU doubles the external clock internally, or whether parts of the CPU double the internal clock. It hasn't been that uncommon. It certainly causes bottlenecks, but it also has advantages...
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