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AMD Phenom II Breaks 7GHz Barrier
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Kirkaiya
11/15/09

In reply to AMD Phenom II Breaks 7GHz Barrier
While impressive from an engineering point of view (and a sheer "how badass can we get?" POV), the fact that they needed to use liquid helium to run the cpu at 7 GHz is more proof that we're heading for a massively multicore future - at least until another set of materials to replace silicon and aluminium gets in widespread use and which can run faster without getting hotter. I think we'll see 80-core x86 chips first, though.

And daqman - I can sympathize! I worked in a plasma physics lab in college, and we used a lot of liquid nitrogen and helium both, and while liquid nitrogen was fun (a colleague froze a slug at one point, and I took a thermos back to a party to pour into a punch-bowl, etc), the liquid helium was tough to work with. Not to mention time-consuming, since filling a dewar meant a *massive* amount of super-cold "fog" coming out of that flexible metal pipe from the big tank, and then air was always freezing onto the rim of the dewar (and I got some pink skin a few times, but never actual frostbite, doh!)
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Edited by Kirkaiya at 11/15/09 12:23 PM Kirkaiya was starred Kirkaiya was unstarred

Ninety-9
11/17/09

@Kirkaiya: Just remember, it took the same kind of extreme cooling to achieve 1GHz, at one point in time. #amd7ghz
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Kirkaiya
11/18/09

@Ninety-9: True - and I'm not saying we'll *never* see 7 GHz speeds in consumer CPUs. But my high-end notebook in 2004 had a 1.8 GHz CPU, and in 2009, high-end notebooks still are in the 2.0 - 2.5 GHz range. Five years later. So we're not seeing the dramatic increases in clock-speeds we did from the 90 MHz chips up to the 2 GHz ones (that's a 22-fold increase in 10 years, vs maybe 20% increase over the next five years). Desktop CPUs have followed similar trends (drastic increase in clock speeds from 1995 - 2005, then modest speed bumps, with proliferating cores).

So unless there's a materials-science breakthrough, I doubt we'll see 7 GHz before 2015, if then (more likely we'll see 16-core and 32-core CPUs then instead). #amd7ghz
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Software_Goddess
11/14/09

In reply to AMD Phenom II Breaks 7GHz Barrier
EEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKK!!! How did the spammers find this site? Eeek, kill it, kill it! #amd7ghz
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Rosa Golijan
11/15/09

@Software_Goddess: Working on it, working on it... #amd7ghz
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Software_Goddess
11/15/09

@Rosa Golijan: Oh thank the maker. Can I get down off this chair now? #amd7ghz
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Rosa Golijan
11/15/09

@Software_Goddess: Yes, ma'am. Let me know if the vermin returns. #amd7ghz
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Bokusatsu_Tenshi
11/13/09

In reply to AMD Phenom II Breaks 7GHz Barrier
Leave to an ad campaign to make nerds and very boring things look really cool. :P #amd7ghz
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daqman
11/13/09

In reply to AMD Phenom II Breaks 7GHz Barrier
There was a shot of someone pushing a transfer line into a helium dewar with a glove on one hand and the other glove held in his teeth. I remember back in the summer of nineteen ahem, cough that long ago, when I was the only person in Liverpool treated for frostbite. I was doing the same thing with a transfer line when a jet of helium gas at minus bloody cold degrees centifroid hit me across the knuckles. It was funny at first to see frost on the skin. Half an hour later it was red and stinging. An hour later the blisters were forming. Then off to occupational health to try to persuade them it was frostbite in June. It was a lot of fun though... great story to tell the kids. #amd7ghz
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Shamoononon: I shave my legs. promoted this comment daqman was starred daqman was unstarred

Shamoononon: I shave my legs.
11/13/09

@daqman: Don't do that again? Ouch. #amd7ghz
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Software_Goddess
11/13/09

In reply to AMD Phenom II Breaks 7GHz Barrier
You see, this is why my heart belongs to AMD.

<3 #amd7ghz
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Grinning Kestrel
11/13/09

@Software_Goddess: Mine too, and I've never looked back. #amd7ghz
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met2art
11/14/09

@Software_Goddess: I've been solidly in the AMD camp for many, many years myself. I've never been anti-Intel, but I always appreciated lower-cost alternatives who tried harder to innovate. I even used to build my own systems with Cyrix processors, back in the day. #amd7ghz
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gavinjmaguire
11/13/09

In reply to AMD Phenom II Breaks 7GHz Barrier
But will it run Crysis?
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Grinning Kestrel
11/13/09

@gavinjmaguire: -melts your face with plasma from the exhaust for the 7.1GHz AMD processor's cooling system-

Does it matter when it can do what I just demonstrated? Also, I think I can hear someone screaming "BANHAMMER." #amd7ghz
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ChocoboSandwich
11/13/09

@Grinning Kestrel: I'm pretty sure that was a joke. And Gizmodo likes their cheesy jokes and memes.

But will it blend? #amd7ghz
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CustomFirmware
11/14/09

@ChocoboSandwich:

Except they ban for memes like that now, so Giz doesn't really "like their cheesy jokes and memes" after seeing the same thing a million times. #amd7ghz
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GitEmSteveDave_ My Brute Dojo Code CDIAFIFE
11/13/09

In reply to AMD Phenom II Breaks 7GHz Barrier
So that's where the liquid helium for the LHC went! #amd7ghz
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twiner
11/14/09

@GitEmSteveDave_HurtHisKnee: Apparently, but will a random bird also destroy this treasure with bread? #amd7ghz
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striker7717
11/14/09

@GitEmSteveDave_HurtHisKnee: Yes! And they could have reached 8 GHz but i hear that a bird dropped some bread on there system to. #amd7ghz
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strider_mt2k
02/24/09

In reply to AMD Phenom II Quad Core Reviewed: Great Today, But Tomorrow's Cloudy
You probably don't want to hear what I have to say because I'm really biased.

In fact I JUST built twin Core i7 gaming systems this past weekend for my bro-in law and I running Windows 7 64 too!

I've always sworn by Intel CPUs and chipsets for their reliability, but my mind is blown with the Core i7.

Newegg actually GAVE AWAY AMD CPUs with our orders!

Now I have three of these "brisbane" things sitting around taking up space.

So anyway, good luck.
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chorx
02/24/09

In reply to AMD Phenom II Quad Core Reviewed: Great Today, But Tomorrow's Cloudy
On the issue of AMDs future, one word. Bulldozer.
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soccer1105
02/24/09

@chorx: Apparently you enjoy paying to support monopolies that overcharge as much as possible. This is how we got Microsoft, no competition meant no reason to price competitively. Now we're paying $400 for a new OS when it comes out, and $300 for a decent Office suit. Maybe if you have so much money to spare you should spread the wealth a little bit.
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ZLevee
02/24/09

@soccer1105: @EqualOpportunityCrasher: i apologize if I'm wrong, but you guys seem to have misunderstood "bulldozer". It's an entirely new architecture with SSE5 instructions.
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EqualOpportunityCrasher
02/24/09

@ZLevee: Hadn't heard of bulldozer yet. Heard of Intel's Nehalem though.
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ZLevee
02/24/09

@EqualOpportunityCrasher: Nehalim is current intel architecture. Bulldozer is next gen AMD.
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EqualOpportunityCrasher
02/24/09

@ZLevee: Haha, I know. Just like Deneb, Agena, Kuma are all current AMD cores. Just I thought Nehalem and Bulldozer were supposed to be comparable.
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ZLevee
02/25/09

@EqualOpportunityCrasher: AMD's been tight-lipped but supposedly Bulldozer is an architectural leap beyond Nehalim.... whether it will materialize before Intel makes yet another advance is the real question.
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Pootie Tang
02/24/09

In reply to AMD Phenom II Quad Core Reviewed: Great Today, But Tomorrow's Cloudy
How much power does any one of us really need? I mean this is a ridiculously powerful processor for most tasks. So it might take a few more seconds doing a video job here or a few frames off a game set on killer than the best Intel piece.

Do we really want AMD to go away? Not if we like decent prices and continued improvement.

If AMD dies, we lose a lot more than just an alternative.

I always try to buy and promote AMD and will do so until they get more of a footing against a huge and very, very good Intel. I have yet to be dissappointed with any AMD products in the recent past.
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ZLevee
02/24/09

@Pootie Tang: There's no need to apologize for AMD when they clearly bested intel on some of the tests.

They are competitive for the moment, and the review says so, but points out that they will need to make further architectural improvements to stay competitive, as intel is already set on an easier performance growth path.
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