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

To: Scumbria who wrote (59415)	5/24/1999 1:19:00 AM
From: kash johal	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1572963

Scumbria, As a CPU designer I thought you might enjoy this post from one of the AMD hypers on the Yahoo thread. The lack of technicalknowledge on that thwead is amazing. I know Ace is joking but..... You asked: "Could someone please explain to me what is done to a CPU to increase its clock speed? For instance, to go from a 300 mhz chip to a 400 mhz chip, what is done to the chip? Are there internal wiring changes to the chip, or is it merely an increase in the clock speed?" I might not be able to help much, but dis is what I know. The clock speed is largely governed by it's main spring. If you tighten it too much though it will snap. When da spring is very tight, den the ticks go a little faster. Da flywheel generally keeps it from ticking too fast. If ya really need to ta tick very very fast, ya have ta take out da old flywheel and put in a smaller one. Sometimes ya do have ta go in and make a few minor "internal wiring changes". For example, if your clock has ticked too fast for a long time, the best thing to do, in take it apart and reverse all the "+" wires with all the "-" wires so the clock will run backwards for a while. The only thing that you must not do while your clock is running backwards on your computer - is your tax refund computations. All other times, your computer will be fine. If you want to really run your computer at absolute max clock speed, you have to send it back to the factory wherein they will sometimes just replace it for free with a one horsepower, high speed DC motor. No rewiring is required, but it does keep you awake at night if you forget to switch your comupter off. Not that you would need such speed most of the time, but super clock speed bursts are attained if you temporarily disconnect that little ratchet thingibob connected to the flywheel. You just wouldn't believe the speed then! Wheerrrr, zoom, bag! That little clock will just tick it's bloody heart out for ya - for about 3 seconds!! Then, all ya need to do - to do it all again, is ask your Polish wife to hold the windup spring for you as you walk around her in circles. Then tell her to let go and yer good for another 3 seconds of super clock speed. None of these clock speed enhancements are difficult as you can see. AMD has been working on simplifying these methods for about 30 years. Simple isn't it? And if ya think this is really neet, you should try intel's products!! Now there is a really sophisticated computer chip manufacturer. They have arranged their chips so you don't have to go inside and change any interna; wiring as you suggested. All you have to do with intel chips, is turn up a little dial and you get any clock speed you want. When you decide to turn up the clock speed on intel chips, you just send them 10 times what you originally paid intel and just go ahead and over-clock. Isn't that simple?? Yes, this chip industry sure is simple huh? Not like the good ol days at all. Yup, they can just change a few little wires here and a few there, and whalla! You have a whole new chip generation. AMD is on their 7th generation right now. Bet you can't imagine how complicated that one is gonna be huh? Probably has green red and BLUE wires too. Huh? Ace