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Pastimes : Computer Learning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jw who wrote (4530)	7/18/1999 10:55:00 AM
From: wily	Respond to of 110635

The days of the Socket 7 are dimming for me. Have two of those old boxes lying around. Amazing how fast things become obsolete (no offense to those who are still using them <g>). My take is that Intel went from socket 7 to slot1 which was the platform for the BX boards and the Pentium II chips, now the Pentium III's. Not sure where slot2 fits in there. I think it was a way to bring the Level 2 cache closer to the processor. I think they were also trying to shake the copycats like AMD and Cyrix. They ran into trouble when AMD showed good performance with the super 7 designs. I think this was basically the socket 7 with support for AGP and larger dram sizes. Celeron was Intel's answer to the super 7's. The first Celeron was basically a clock-locked PII with zero level 2 cache. It was not received well. Then Intel came up with the idea of on-die level 2 cache (which means the level 2 cache, like the level 1 cache is part of the cpu chip). Level 2 was only 128 KB but it ran at cpu speed, as compared to the PII cache which ran at 1/2 the cpu speed. The reception was overwhelming. I don't know why the first Celerons weren't designed in a socket layout -- maybe there wasn't enough time. This was at a time when Intel was under huge pressure to regain the low-end market that AMD was rapidly gobbling up. Since the slot 1 design was a means to bring the cache closer to the cpu, it held no advantage for the Celeron whose cache was already on die -- you can't get any closer than that. The disadvantage inherent in the slot1 design is that it increases the distance for signals to travel and is more expensive. So when they had a chance they designed a socket interface for the Celeron: Socket 370 also known as PPGA. Part fantasy part fiction -- take it FWIW. >>How does twin CPUs work? Like a twin engine Plane? If one goes Kaput the other keeps on truckin'? I think with a Dual Slot 1 with a Slocket adapter (with switchable voltage) you can run the CPUs at different speeds.<< First off you need an OS that supports SMP (multiple processors). NT is the only MS product that will do this. Linux and Unix do, not sure about BeOS. Next it depends a lot on the design of the software you're running. An application has to be designed specifically for SMP to receive any benefit and there are not too many apps out there that do this (maybe somebody can fill in a little here. I think it has to do with how the threads are divied up. The application has to have instructions for this, otherwise one cpu takes all -- just a guess). OTOH, if you run lots of programs at once, especially cpu intensive ones like burning CD's or graphics, the benefit can be tremendous. The link from my previous post to you about the God Box/Nerd Box showdown is full of benchmarks. On something like RC5 client you double your output. People using dual setups generally say that your computer becomes more responsive. Just think, it only costs the extra amount for the second cpu ($110 in my case). The drawback (a major one) is that you have to migrate to NT. I'll need a dual head vid card and the capture function on my All In Wonder Pro won't be supported. I'll keep win98 on another disk for special purposes. When win 2000 comes out I should be back to having everything (but I'll probably be on to another platform by then). I think the era for SMP in the home may be just dawning as Windows 2000 should support it and more apps will be written with SMP in mind. Everything is going double -- monitors, cpu's, computers (networked). It's the American way! Regarding the slot1 adapter: I believe their time has come and gone. The BP6 allows the Celeron to run in dual mode. I forgot to mention this. Intel modified the Celeron (from its PII origins) to NOT support SMP. Some ingenious hackers figured out first, how to modify the slot1 Celeron by drilling and soldering, to make it support SMP. Second, when the slot1/PPGA adapters came out, how to modify the adapter without touching the cpu. It was a whole lot easier to do it to the adapter (one simple jumper wire) and a lot less risky. The next logical step was to design a dual cpu mobo with the SMP fix incorporated. Enter Abit and behold the BP6. If one goes kaput? Yes, I think it will keep on truckin', although I doubt that is a major consideration as these things only fly at about belly button level. The BP6 also supports ATA66 (the first mobo to do this) and AGP2X (nothing new). Too bad it doesn't have AGP4X support and on-board scsi (probably not too far off). w