Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 00:25:00 -0700 From: "Charles Burns" <burnscharlesn@hotmail.com> To: vince@oahu.WURLDLINK.NET Cc: seanp@loudcloud.com, jgowdy@home.com, lplist@closedsrc.org, kris@obsecurity.org, mwlist@lanfear.com, freebsd@sysmach.com?, questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: the AMD factor in FreeBSD Message-ID: <F145O22ZhCl8aii08N800001cb0@hotmail.com>
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> > >These are the only differences between the chips from my understanding >(if > > >I am > > >wrong I am sure someone here will set me straight) > > > > Right except the FSB is the same on both. FSB speed differs only between > > Intel chips. > > True except lots have been saying the Intel Celeron II 800 is >really the Celeron 533 overclocked. Well, yes, of course it is.Do you think there is any physical difference between the two besides labelling? Intel/AMD make their chips en masse. Bob's Athlon 1000 may well have been on the exact same silicon wafer as Joe's Athlon 1300 and Sam's Athlon 800. They test each chip and then mark them accordingly. If there is suddenly a huge demand for 900MHz Athlons and nobody wants the 1200's, AMD will sell 1200's as 900s. They are all the same chips made at the same time from the same plant (other than Durons) and all cost the same to manufacture. My computer--an Athlon classic week 42 (good week, heh) was sold as 500MHz, is marked as 600MHz, works at 700MHz just fine and with voltage boost will run at 800 rock-solid. There are several factors that determine what your chip runs at by default. Some are: *What it was tested to run at *What the market wants *What week the chip was manufactured in. AMD and Intel tweak their manufacturing process weekly and often get better yields later on. That's why the first Athlon's would be hard pressed to surpass 800 but can now often surpass 1500. *What size the transistors are (.18 micron, .25 micron, etc.) *What plant they were manufactured in *What metal is being used to connect the transistors (i.e. copper, aluminum) Chips that are close to the center of the silicon wafer (which is from 6 to 12 inches in diameter) tend to be better than those closer to the outside. *What semiconductor material is used. Some exotic chips use Gallium Arsenide or Germanium rather than silicon. Don't worry about this unless you are playing with Cray-class puters though. The final official clockspeed is usually more a matter of market conditions than what the chip is really capable of. The exception is that if you get a top of the line chip it is usually close to it's limit. The latest Athlons seem to be doing quite well as far as "overclocking" goes though. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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