Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: chic_hearne who wrote (102762)	4/7/2000 12:26:00 AM
From: Charles R	Respond to of 1575626

chic, <Chuck, if you want to make an issue of the need of fast processors, address voice recognition or the "bluegene" project I provided you a link too. Like the lab rats told me, "if we build it, they will find a use".> Good. I think I am not getting my point across. I am saying one needs applications like these to justify the processing power. May be we will see voice recognition becoming mass market in the next year or two. Or may be we get other applications that will drive the processing power. I think I beat this issue to death so I will try not post much on this topic. Chuck

To: chic_hearne who wrote (102762)	4/7/2000 12:55:00 AM
From: Joe NYC	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1575626

chic, The fast CPU is a vanity item. People will spend money on it, like they do on expensive cars, even though they can't use them to their full potential, or expensive wine, even though most people can't tell the difference between very expensive and moderatly priced wines. It's about making you feel good about yourself and your purchase, not about need. The "broadband" will not change anything. What is called "broadband" is less than 10Mbs Ethernet connection, it is far less than what a CD-ROM or a DVD drive can deliver. A low range CPU (400-600 MHz) can deal with decompressing a DVD without hardware assistance. Broadband is a small fraction of what a hard drive can deliver: 300 Mbs, compared to 1.5 Mbs of my ADSL connection. When you complain about some application taking too long to start, most likely, your CPU is waiting for the data from the hard disk to load, or waiting for a connection to a server. Suppose the hard drives actually improved their latency 1,000 times, and their throughput 30 times to equal RAM, it would still not be enough, because your CPU, when it is actually busy doing something (more than 1% utilization), it keeps waiting a percentage of the time for the RAM. Just out of curiosity, start the task manager and minimize it to the icon, which shows you the CPU utilization. Once in a while, check the CPU when you think the CPU is really busy. You will most likely see maybe 30 - 40% utilization. Of course there are special cases, some applications that do need the CPU, but the cast majority of the users are fine with the low end CPU. voice recognition Do you really want to talk to your computer? I place voice recognition to the same category as pen computing. It is hyped by people who don't know how to use computers, and are not comfortable with them. There are very few of these people like this left. And I don't think these people are going to be the trend-setters for the industry. Joe