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Of Penguins, P55, and Patriot...
Of Penguins, P55, and Patriot...
Date: August 18th, 2009
Author: Gary Key
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We receive all sorts of unique products on a weekly basis and I use the term unique loosely in this case. Let’s just say a majority of these trinkets are barely good enough for target practice, much less taking up valuable shelf space. In fact, it is not every day we open a non-descript box in the lab and discover an Emperor Penguin snuggled amidst the packaging peanuts. Today was such a day and I have to say it was a pleasant surprise.

Actually, it was not a live emperor penguin, but a scaled down replica that doubles as a Bootable Linux USB (BLU) thumb drive. Linux, Penguins, USB drives, it’s all good as far as we are concerned. I made a promise to myself to refrain from using words like adorable or cute when describing this product. However, the female visitors in the lab used both words around 27 times when playing with, err, using the drive today. If that was not bad enough, the fact that 5% of the retail purchase price of the Penguin Drive is donated to the World Wildlife Fund means that I foresee more of these drives ending up in my home.

Active Media Products also manufactures the Polar Bear and Panda USB drives in capacities up to 16GB that feature the same partnership agreement with the World Wildlife Fund. However, our Penguin drive is unique as it comes with a full installation of Ubuntu Linux, version 9.0.4, and is setup as a BLU. Besides having a great Linux distribution installed and ready for quick use, the drive can also be utilized as a normal USB 2.0 storage device on just about any Windows or Mac system that features USB support. Windows 7 recognized it as a ReadyBoost device the first time we attached the drive.

If you have ever had a Windows installation go south, and to be honest who has not. Then this drive makes for an excellent emergency recovery solution as you can quickly back up critical files in a matter of a few minutes. The penguin drive comes in capacities from 1GB to 16GB and is made from non-toxic silicone rubber. It is also free of PVC, lead, and mercury so it probably would not hurt a penguin in the wild. Pricing ranges from $8.95 to $39.95, which is reasonable for this product.

We suggest you consider one of these drives the next time you a need for a portable USB device, not just because they are cute, affordable, and help a good cause, but due to the fact that they are actually well made and performed admirably in our initial testing.



We discussed the problems that several of the motherboard manufacturers had with the Marvell SATA 6GB (88SE9123) chipset earlier this summer. The problems were so bad in certain (dual chipset) configurations that Marvell had to respin the chipset. That left the motherboard suppliers either dropping the extra 6G SATA ports all together or installing the JMicron 3Gb/s (JM363/362) controllers in its place for additional SATA connectivity.

ASRock informed us that although it is too late to include the revised 88SE9123 chipset on its P55 Deluxe board, it not too late to offer it as an upgrade option via a PCI Express x1 add-in card. If you purchase their P55 Deluxe board when it is launched next month, the package will contain the add-in card that features an eSATA port along with two internal 6G SATA ports. Kudos to ASRock for coming up with this option quickly and including in it their product, now we just need the drive manufacturers to release some 6G capable SATA drives.



Besides a bevy of P55 motherboards arriving on a daily basis, we also have several P55 specific 4GB memory kits starting to make their way into the lab before the platform release next month. One of the first kits comes from Patriot Memory. Their new 4GB PVV34G2000LLK kit features 8-8-8-26 2N timings at DDR3-2000 on 1.65V. Our engineering kit contains the final IC and PCB selection, but the heatsink design will change before retail launch in a couple of weeks.



We decided to take this kit for a quick spin today and it had no problems running 8-8-8-26 1N timings at DDR3-2000 on 1.63V. We also set timings to 7-7-7-20 1N at DDR3-1600 on 1.58V on the same board. Look for this kit and others to be featured when the P55 platform launches (officially) shortly.

Speaking of the P55, if you were one of the lucky customers in the US to pick up a Core i5-750 or i7-870 at Frys last week and need a motherboard, then Provantage has an early selection of boards for sale. However, the prices are a higher than the suggested MSRP listings from Gigabyte and ASUS but that is the price to pay for being an early adopter.


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Why? by TA152H, 94 days ago
Why would anyone in their right mind buy an i5, and then pay extra for a motherboard? Great idea, get a degraded processor setup for the same cost as the real one.

People get so caught up with the hype, they don't realize this is just a lobotomized version of the i7. If the price isn't right, there's no point in it. So why pay extra for the motherboard?

They should have called this brain-damaged processor the i7SX. It's kind of like the 386SX from 20 years ago. It was a terrible processor at first, because it costed way too much, and ran slower than a 286 on code they could both run. Idiots still bought it, though. Why? Who knows. Eventually the prices came down where it really made sense if you couldn't afford a real 386, but needed the virtual 86 mode (essentially nothing used protected 386 early on).

I'm sure the i5, or lobotomized i7, will settle into a point where it makes sense, but if you're going to pay as much for it as a real i7, just because it's new, it's silly.

I still think it's shameful that sites put up picture articles of the Lynnfield motherboards. I've never seen so much hype over a degraded processor. For the original Nehalem and Conroe, sure. Not that the Lynnfield is worthless, it's just not very exciting. It's a mid-level processor. Strange how much build-up this one is having.

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RE: Why? by MadMan007, 94 days ago
If your post wasn't so grammatically coherent I'd swear it was written by snakeoil. btw have you seen any of the preview benchmarks for LGA1156 i5/i7? The 7xx and 8xx CPUs are looking very good and when 6xx and lower Clarkdales come they will be great replacements for the lower half of the lineup. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to get a $250 LGA1156 motherboard, sure, but when did the flagship motherboard ever make much sense?

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RE: Why? by flipmode, 94 days ago
Capitalized letters at the beginning of the sentences, periods, commas, and the lack of that snarky question -- definitely not snakeoil.

Personally, I'm excited about Lynnfield because it will be Nahalem level performance but only 2 channels of memory and so it will be cheaper. I'm excited about Lynnfield because I'm currently using an X2-3600 and it is time for an upgrade and Lynnfield and 1156 looks like a good foundation for a build that will last 3-5 years.

Every Intel CPU launch has been exciting since Conroe. I really wish the same could be said for AMD. The last time and AMD launch was actually exciting was the Athlon X2 launch which was... 2004? 2005? Phenom 2 was almost exciting but it was like watching a Bengals game - they finally scored a touch down but the other team is still way ahead. And the Penryn core still outperforms the Deneb core in terms of IPC.

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RE: Why? by taltamir, 93 days ago
I am extremely excited about the i5... but only because of the price. The idea is a budget nehalem, almost as good for much less money. To buy it at rip off prices is retarded.

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RE: Why? by Flyboy27, 93 days ago
LOL the Bengals! That was great.

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RE: Why? by TA152H, 93 days ago
I saw the preview articles and was astounded at how poorly the processor performed, for what it was. I'm chocking that up to pre-release hardware though, as the degraded memory controller can't possibly account for that much performance loss. It's not that the processor performs so badly that it's useless, it just performed badly for what it was. Naturally, the reviewer didn't really understand it, but there was around at 5%, and in some cases as much as 10% performance loss just from the memory controller. Considering a dual channel memory controller should have lower latency, and the large L3 caches on these processors, that was unusually poor. Even with that though, it's still a decent processor, but, there's no way it should run that poorly based on what we've been told. Maybe there's another change in it, but most likely it's just pre-release hardware performance numbers that are responsible.

I think people aren't making the distinction between interested in, and excited by. I'm moderately interested in it, if the performance is better than the reviews I have seen, but surely not excited by it. It's like being excited by a new Pentium release. They might make a lot of sense for a lot of people, but it's hardly an exciting processor.

When you see picture article after picture article, not just from this site, but from others, it's bizarre. It's the largest build-up I have ever seen, and it's for a degraded version of an existing processor. I'm interested in performance numbers, to be sure, to see if it's improved since the earlier tests, but pictures of motherboards for a mainstream processor? And then, selling motherboards for extra money, which evaporates the whole purpose of the processors? Bizarre.

Sometimes high-end motherboards do make sense. But, not for a mainstream part. That's my point. This isn't a high-end motherboard, it's a mainstream motherboard you get to pay extra for, because it's new. You can't get high end for these parts, they are inherently inferior. If it were a brand new, high-end part (like the original i7), and there were some extra costs, I'd understand it. If it saves people time, and lowers labor costs, they can pay for themselves. But, for a degraded processor, it just makes it run into the price range of the full version, and thus becomes useless at that price point. Just like the 386SX was when it came out. Like the 386SX, this one should settle down in price, but as long as it costs as much for the platform as the real version of the processor, it just makes no sense.

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RE: Why? by JarredWalton, 93 days ago
My recollection is that the 386SX was never actually worse than a 286... but there were times when it wasn't any better. The whole reason for 386 back then was so that you could access "Expanded Memory" modes (not Extended Memory) - games like Wing Commander and Ultima VII made use of Expanded Memory, and so you got some benefit. I believe 386SX was a full 386 internally, but it was crippled by 16-bit accesses to memory - just like a 286.

I remember all this because I had purchased a 286 system and spent an extra $200 or so (maybe $300?) to get 2MB of memory instead of the standard 1MB most "high-end" systems were using. Then along comes Wing Commander and I can't use the "super quality" enhancements since I didn't have EMS memory. Oh the horror! Of course, 386SX wasn't much better than a 286 in that case, since while you could use EMS memory modes you would also increase the strain on the 16-bit memory bus, resulting in better quality graphics but lower performance.

The story has a happy ending, though, as my dad helped me sell off my 286 to one of his work contacts and I broke even, putting the money into a full 386 33MHz. It wasn't until Strike Commander came out that my 386 felt inadequate again. LOL

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RE: Why? by TA152H, 93 days ago
Actually, the 386 ran roughly the same speed as the 286, clock normalized, on 16-bit code. The 386SX ran somewhat slower than each. Now, that's an apples to apples comparison. Particularly for the 386, they would often add a cache on the motherboard (which, relatively speaking, was twice as fast as the Nehalem's L1 cache, in that it took two clock cycles for a cache hit), which would make the 386 faster, clock normalized, because it was VERY unusual to do that for a 286.

There were some 286s that ran without wait states, like the PS/2 Model 50z, and thus didn't require cache, but they were running at relatively slow clock speeds (i.e. 10 MHz to 12.5 MHz), and thus were not competitive with the 386. The 16 MHz and 20 MHz 286s all needed cache to run without wait states, and to my knowledge, none were couple with cache memory.

Expanded memory was actually available on the PC, and PC XT. It would actually bank switch sections of the 1 MB memory map of the original PC in and out, 16 kb at a time. Expanded memory was actually available to the 286, and used the extended memory addressing of the 286, by switching to protected mode and back.

The 386SX had an additional limitation. It only used the 24-bit address bus, like the 286. Considering the time, and that many 386 computers were limited to 16 MB because that's all the DMA chips on the motherboards supported, this wasn't a big deal in practice.

The 386 added two new modes, 386 Protected, and Virtual 86. The former gave one an ability to use any size segment, up to 32-bits. A lot of people said that going to 32-bit 386 mode got rid of segments, but it's not technically correct. It's just that you could make the segment 32-bits, and thus effectively eliminated segmentation. AMD got rid of it for x86-64, which is strange, since not having it hurts performance. The reason for segmentation was mainly to get greater code density; you'd specify a 16-bit address instead of a 20-bit (in the case of the 8088/8086), and it would generate a 20-bit address by moving value in the appropriate segment register over 4-bits, and then adding it to the address register. If AMD had kept 32-bit segments, you'd only have to specify 32-bit addresses, for those apps which don't need more than 4 GB for themselves. This would increase code density, and thus cache hit rates, and thus performance. You'd have the best of both, all the new registers, and the same code density.

Anyway, another reason the 386 was so important was you could run 8088/8086 apps together, with 386 or 286 apps, seamlessly. The 286 was kind of compatible with the 8086, in that it started in the same "real" mode of the 8086. So, it could run like a fast 8086. You could also switch it to protected mode (it was only named protected 286 after the 386 came out) to get all the features of this very powerful chip. The problem was, you couldn't switch it back. The way they had to do is was to essentially reset the processor, and make it come back up. The 386 could switch modes seamlessly, and support multiple "real mode" sessions at the same time in the Virtual 86 mode. With the huge installed base of DOS apps, this was very important.

So, I wasn't saying the 386SX wasn't important in that regard, it just wasn't important when it came out because it costed as much as the 386 itself! It settled down eventually, and the best selling machine for a long time was a 386SX (PS/2 Model 55SX) based computer. This was my point about the Lynnfield. If the costs are the same as the real i7, because of extra costs associated with it being new, then it doesn't make sense. Like the 386SX when it first came out.

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RE: Why? by TA152H, 93 days ago
In the above message, I meant to say the 286 could actually use Extended Memory, not expanded. It could use Expanded too, of course, being able to emulate an 8086, but the 8086 could not use Extended Memory, lacking 24-bit addressing.

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RE: Why? by yuhong, 90 days ago
"The 386 added two new modes, 386 Protected, and Virtual 86. The former gave one an ability to use any size segment, up to 32-bits."
BTW, the former was not actually a completely new mode, what they actually did was to extend the 286's protected mode by using fields previously marked as "reserved" by Intel (e.g. the last 2 bytes of a 8 byte descriptor table entry) to add the extended fields, like extending the segment base to 32-bit by using the last byte (byte 7) of a GDT/LDT entry. Also, the "32-bit" segment base was actually a 20-bit base with the high 4-bit being packed in to the low 4-bit of the byte 6 of the GDT/LDT entry along with some other bits in the high 4-bit. One of the important bits in that high 4 bit was the Granularity bit. If that bit was zero, the segment limit was treated as in units of bytes. If it was one, the limit was treated as in units of pages (4 KB). In other words, if the G bit was one, the 20-bit segment limit was shifted by 12-bits when loaded by the 386 or later processor to form a 32-bit limit. Another important bit in that area was the D bit. That determined the default operand/address size of the processor. If the D bit was one, the default operand/address size was 32-bit, used for new 32-bit code designed for the 386. If the D bit was zero, the default operand/address size was 16-bit, used for older 16-bit code designed for the 8086/80286. Now paging was introduced with the 386 as well, and had to indeed be enabled by putting the root page table address into CR3, and then set the high bit of the 32-bit CR0 register, which was an extension of the 16-bit MSW that was in the 286, to enable paging.

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RE: Why? by yuhong, 90 days ago
"Expanded memory was actually available on the PC, and PC XT. It would actually bank switch sections of the 1 MB memory map of the original PC in and out, 16 kb at a time. Expanded memory was actually available to the 286, and used the extended memory addressing of the 286, by switching to protected mode and back."
Indeed what the poster was referring to was probably that the 386 could simulate expanded memory using EMS emulators, which used virtual 8086 mode and paging to map extended memory into the aformentioned sections inside the first megabyte (which was referred to as the EMS page frame). Later as these "EMS emulators" gain additional features, such as support for Upper Memory Blocks (UMBs) to load TSRs in, they began to be referred to as memory managers (in fact later memory managers could be set to not provide EMS at all to make more room for UMBs).

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RE: Why? by yyrkoon, 93 days ago
Well, the 386 added a new instruction set, which was huge by comparison to the 386 -> 486 difference. Looking on wikipedia, it is much larger than I even remember it being. It also added 32bit registers into the CPU, even on 386/sx system. EAX, EBX, etc. Also, did the 286's have the capability of FPU's ? I know the 386/sx *could* often have one, if you added it in. Also known as Math Co Processors. It is also my understanding that the 386/dx system already had them, possibly even on die, and that they had a true 32 bit data bus. Also, I had read somewhere that the 386 was supposed to work with all backwards compatible application ( read: applications written for the 8086, 286 etc ), but this was not always the case. That is the reason why 386/sx's often had what they called a "turbo button" on them. I think but am not sure this disabled the L2 cache on the system, and then I do know this dropped the frequency from 25MHZ to 16 MHZ. To this day, if you have compatability issues with older applications for similar reasons, you can often do the same thing by disabling the L2 in the BIOS.

The AMD 386/DX 40MHZ CPU were actually faster in some things than the early 486's according to wikipedia. Now since I owned one such system, what I can say is that playing X-Com UFO / Lucas arts x-wing was definitely faster. At the very least, it was noticeable.

I would also like to add that 8086's could also use extended/expanded memory ( thus 286's as well ). I had an expansion card for mine that had 2, maybe 4 MB worth of expansion, which could then be used to play the games I wanted. Some of which had requirements listed as being 386, and above. I do not however recall if this required a special driver or not. It was too long ago.

So in short, the 386/sx was technically a 32bit system( because of the 32bit instruction set/registers ), with a slightly narrower bus, and without a standard FPU. 386/dx's on the other hand were *supposed* to have a wider true 32bit bus, a standard FPU, and the ability to address up to 32MB of RAM, instead of up to 16MB.

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RE: Why? by TA152H, 93 days ago
The 386 was the move to 32-bits. The 486 was integration/performance. The 386 was a pretty good size move over the 286, but smaller than the 286 over the 8086 (the 80186 was actually developed at the same time as the 286, so wasn't really the predecessor).

The main purpose of the 386 was to move to 32-bits, not performance. The 286 was functionally much more powerful than the 8086, and much faster. It easily represents the largest jump in generations in the x86 world.

386s did NOT have integrated FPUs, that had to wait for the 486. In fact, when they were first introduced, the 387 wasn't even out, so the earliest ones actually used 287 coprocessors. Strange, but true. Even the original 8088/8086 had math coprocessors available to them, the 8087, so the 80286 certainly did too. The interesting this is though, it was essentially an 8087, but divided the clock signal by 3, instead of by 2 which the processor used. So, the early 286s often ran the math coprocessor at a different speed than the CPU. Why Intel did this, I still don't know.

You're getting the 386SX and 486SX confused, I think. The 386SX was a 386 with a 16-bit data bus, and 24-bit address bus. The 486SX was a 486 with the math coprocessor, which was internal on the 486, disabled.

There was no such thing as a L2 cache when the 386 was out. There was no internal cache at all. All cache was on the motherboard, which was fine since the motherboard ran at the same speed as the processor. Consequently SRAM on the motherboard could be read at two clock cycles, which is twice as fast (relatively speaking) as the slow Nehalem L1 cache, which takes four clock cycles.

The Turbo button was around even on 8088s, and 286s. It was for timing sensitive programs, and throttled the CPU clock speed down to a compatible mode. It was either 6 MHz, to be the same as the PC/AT 139 and 239, or 8 MHz, to be compatible with the 8 MHz PC/AT. For 8088s, they would throttle down to 4.77, or as high as 10 MHz.

The AMD 40 MHz 386 was NEVER faster than the fastest 486s out. It was released long after the 486, but could run faster than the 16 MHz, and 20 MHz 486s, in many apps. But, even when the 486 was introduced, there were 25 MHz parts, and AMD was still making 286s. So, by the time the 40 MHz 386s came out, it wasn't competitive with the 486s. It was very popular in mobile computers though, having a very low power characteristic, and was quite cheap compared to the 486 as well.

The 8086 could NOT use extended memory. That's plain wrong. Only 286+ processors could use extended memory. 8086s, as I mentioned, could use the LIM (named after Lotus, Intel, Microsoft) Expanded memory. Extended memory used the additional addressable memory available to 80286+ processors in their protected mode. The 8086 didn't have a protected mode.

386 processors could address 4 GB of memory, not 32 MB, and did not come integrated with a FPU. The 386 used the 387 FPU, and the 386SX, not surprisingly, used the 387SX FPU.

I don't know what the "supposed" to is about with regards to the 386 having a 32-bit bus. They all did. The I/O bus for some 386s was limited by the AT-bus (often incorrectly referred to as the ISA bus) that was standard then, but the memory bus was 32-bits on all 386 machines. Of course, there was nothing to prevent some idiot putting memory on a 8 MHz, 16-bit, AT-bus card, but, thankfully this wasn't normally necessary. IBM introduced their 386s with the Microchannel architecture, which gave them a 32-bit system bus from the beginning. That wasn't true for others though. They would still use AT-bus slots, and have a separate slot for memory cards that could run at full speed.



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RE: Why? by yyrkoon, 93 days ago
No where did I say the 386 had integrated FPU, I said *possibly* because I was not sure, but the point was making is that a dx system *had* a FPU.

I was not confusing a 386 with a 486, and never did I say an AMD 386/40 was faster than all of the 486's either. I said they were faster than the a lot of the EARLY 486's, and this was mostly just 486/sx machines ( they did not have a floating point unit ). Also, No one in their right mind would think a 40MHX 386/dx was faster than a DX5/133 which were known as the 586's briefly ( just a pumped up multiplier on a 486 core ). Many generic IBM compatibles ALSO has sockets for the 0387 FPU. All of the sz system I ever own as a matter of fact had these. Maybe you remember these days ? The days where you could render your HDD unusable simply by low level formating it from within the BIOS ?

L2 cache when first introduced was *never* on die. You sound like you should know this, and if you do WTH are you arguing about ? I do not know *if* the 386 even used an L2 or not, but I know some of the most advanced 486's did, as I had a very old MSI or ABIT board that had 256KB of SRAM added to the motherboard. With the possibility of 512KB. The point here again, had to do with program compatibility, not whether L2 caches were, or weren't on die( which I never even came close to saying ), or that 386's had L2 caches at all.

8086's *could* have extended memory, I know because I *HAD* one. An expansion card, with drivers, and I was playing games that were meant to be played on a 386 because of this limitation ( normally ). 386 Processors could also address 32 MB, again, because a system I owned did such. Without expansion cards no, there were not meant to do this.

As I conclude here . . . IBM adding the micro channel to their desktop systems pretty much ended their PC market domination, if they truly ever had. This was also a good thing, because all of the proprietary crap that was floating around, slowly, and sometimes not so slowly came around into generic standardized hardware. All because IBM showed us what *not* to do ;)

face it guy, you can not know everything, no one can. Take my word for fact concerning my personal experiences, because that is just what they are. Facts. As for everything else, sometimes I remember things that happened well over 15 years ago, and sometimes I do not. Sometime maybe even I though i knew something, and that something was wrong. As for all the 32bit discussion stuff, you know what, you're not even talking about what I was talking about, and it is not worth rehashing.




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RE: Why? by yyrkoon, 93 days ago
"8086's *could* have extended memory, I know because I *HAD* one. An expansion card, with drivers, and I was playing games that were meant to be played on a 386 because of this limitation ( normally ). 386 Processors could also address 32 MB, again, because a system I owned did such. Without expansion cards no, there were not meant to do this."

Last sentence is all about 8086, and nothing about 386. Somehow I must have inserted or flipped the text around ? *shrug*

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RE: Why? by TA152H, 92 days ago
I sense you're not someone who really understands technology, and likes to sound like he does.

All x86 had x87 processors. I don't know what your point was with the 386.

8086s DID NOT have extended memory. Are you really too stupid to look that up on the internet. You had drivers for EXPANDED memory. I guess you don't know the difference. I do.

My point with the 386/40 was, it was never faster than competing 486 systems. It wasn't out when the early 486s were out. AMD couldn't make 486s then, and were still working on it. So, they just kept pumping out 386s at faster clock speeds, rather successfully too. They were respected processors.

You're a complete fool with the L2 cache nonsense. L2 cache was names so, after internal caches were added. No one called the 82385 based external caches L2 cache. No one. They were L1, since they were the only cache.

Every PC had sockets for math coprocessors, outside of the PC jr. and Tandy 1000 (original). If that's not completely true, it's very, very close to it. Saying this one and that one had it, misses the point. They all did. It wasn't considered a feature, but simply part of every PC sold.

Before this period of time, you'd have to low level format your hard disk, since hard disks were voice coil initially. Every few years, you'd have to, so steps would match up to the hard disk. You'd also have problems reading it until the hard disk warmed up and expanded, in some cases. After they went to voice coils, this wasn't necessary. And yes, you could format it from the BIOS. If you knew what you were doing, it was pretty easy, and worked. If you didn't, then you could mess things up. That's how it was then. You have people know overclock by changing parameters, then you'd have to change crystals, by desoldering it and soldering it back in. You'd have to play with interrupts, memory ranges, etc... to get things to work. Now, anyone can do it. Computers are for the masses now, not for the technicians, and that's good in most ways. The technical knowledge of people is much lowered, and you're proof of that, but at least you guys can use computers and feel like you're doing something important.

By the way, Microchannel sold very well. The best selling machine for well over a year was the PS/2 Model 55SX, a microchannel machine. After it was discontinued, its successor was. So, really, you don't know much about what you're talking about. Why say anything? All you're serving to do is spread misinformation. That's why I get so angry with people. It's bad enough you don't know, but you try so hard to sound smart, it's at the expense of other people that don't know enough to realize you're a fool. They then repeat your errors. It's all bad.

A few quick facts. IBM lost the PC selling title after they moved from Microchannel, not because of it. Probably it was inevitable, as PCs were becoming commodities, and the high quality IBM was known for was becoming less important than price.

You're also wrong about the AMD 486s. Intel, when they went to 100 MHz, modified their 486s to increase cache to 16K, and make the internal cache write-back. AMD did this with the 133 MHz model. So, it did have some changes compared to their previous models. Again, you're talking about stuff you really don't know about. Leave it to people that do, OK?

By the way, this is my last comment to you. You're really not worth the effort. You're not interesting enough, and just represent a typical guy trying to sound like he knows more than he does. All this serves is to give you a platform to spread more misinformation based on vague thoughts you have.



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RE: Why? by TA152H, 92 days ago
About the hard disks, I meant to say the early hard disks were "stepper" models. They moved a fixed amount. Over time, the hard disk from heating, cooling, etc... could make it so the heads were not precisely near where they needed to be, so you'd have to low level it. This was a big problem if the temperature you were working in was very different from the temperature the hard disk was low leveled in. Sometimes, if the computer was too cold, you'd have to wait for the hard disk to warm up and then you could use it. It sounds charming now, but it wasn't perceived so delicately back then.

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RE: Why? by yyrkoon, 92 days ago
You're opening sentence swings both ways guy, I was just nice enough to not write it out.

Nit picking about details such as "8086's were not able to use expanded/extended memory because it was not possible on the motherboard" or "CPU cache RAM on motherboards was not called L2, it was L1" is moronic. The simple fact that I am even responding to this post is beyond me. But here I am.

No one is perfect, that includes me. I do however know much more about hardware than you give me credit for. Sometimes I forget small details. You know what though. It was all in the past, and I was just trying to make a point, which is now obvious was completely wasted on you.

You must have an exceptionally good life to spend so much time to try and make someone look as stupid as yourself.

Have a nice life, and enjoy the silence.


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RE: Why? by Spivonious, 93 days ago
Hey now, the 386SX was in my first PC! :)

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RE: Why? by formulav8, 93 days ago
Yeps, was mine as well. It was a Tandy 2500?? or something like that. I do remember it was 20mhz and was aweful at number crunching since it did not have a co-processor like the dx models. Still I did alot of AOL and even VB 3.0 AOL proggys with it as well. :)


Jason

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RE: Why? by philosofool, 93 days ago
I don't think it's actually a degraded processor. It will use dual channel memory rather than triple channel and drops QPI. Both are widely considered overkill for normal home use. Also, no hyperthreading in the 750... Whatever, unless you're running a high-demand server.

Turbo Mode (or whatever they're calling it) appears to be improved over the i7 part.

I think people are excited because the platform will cost $180 less than i7. (Single PCIe slot board will be $50 less than the cheapest dual slot options, one less DDR3 DIMM save $30 and the least expensive CPU will save about $100.)

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RE: Why? by yyrkoon, 93 days ago
Why ?

Because some people may be able to afford a $200-$300USD motherboard, but can not afford the price of the CPU that they would really like to match with it. At least, not *right now*.Or maybe, someone would like to have a similar system *now*, and wait for the processor they want to come down in price.

There is also another crowd, a crowd that I personally fit into. The "upgrade as you go" crowd. We buy parts that perform the best, for the best price. We also only buy just what we need( read: motherboard + CPU, possibly memory, and graphics cards).This way, we get what *we* want, keeping our system current, while paying the minimum possible( within reason of course, stability is paramount for me ). For someone who *does* upgrade his system every 6-8 months, I will *not* spend much more than $500. Why ? Because it does not make sense to *me*. Does it make sense to you ? Maybe not.

I could get into a big/long debate with anyone over this, but the simple fact is that someone else's needs may be different from yours, or mine. Me, I love PC games, but do not require SLI, simply because I do not require anything larger than a 19" LCD. So my requirements for performance are obviously going to be much lower. You on the other hand may want triple SLI, and play at a high resolution. Or maybe you can not stand to wait any longer for any given situation than you absolutely have to. There is nothing wrong with that, but these things are not a priority for me, and many others.

Concerning the 386/sx / 386/dx thing back in the 90's. I myself could afford $1100 for an 386/sx, but could not / did not want to afford $2300 for a 386/dx(and shortly there after the 486's). I was also relatively new to IBM compatible PC's even though had been using various other types of computers for years. A few years later though, I did manage to piece together a nice AMD 386/40 system, and it was every bit as good as most 486/sx system around.

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RE: Why? by TA152H, 93 days ago
You missed the point entirely, but probably so you could just pontificate and pose as someone for choice.

The point is, if you have to pay extra for these new parts, so they cost as much as the i7, why? It's an inferior part, at the same price.

As I made clear, when the price falls to a point where it makes sense, it makes sense. But, why buy an inferior processors, and then pay over MSRP for the motherboard because it's 'new', and end up paying around the same as a superior system? It would be the same as some blockhead buying the Lynnfield with really expensive memory. At that point, unless the numbers change a lot from the earlier ones we've seen, you're better off with the real i7 and cheaper memory.

With the Lynnfield, the price has to make sense because it's a degraded processor. When you're paying extra for the motherboard, you're kind of missing the point. Unless it's only a little more, you're probably running into the i7 920 range, and that's the real deal, not a degraded version. Why eat rump roast when it costs the same as filet mignon?

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RE: Why? by yuhong, 90 days ago
"(essentially nothing used protected 386 early on)."
Well, unfortunately IBM/Microsoft made the "mistake" of designing OS/2 1.x for the 286 processor, it was not until 1992 that IBM released OS/2 2.0 that took advantage of both the 32-bit capablities and the V86 mode of the 386 processor.

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We just need... by MadMan007, 94 days ago
We just need Gigabyte to follow up their excellent EP45-UD3P/R mobo with an equivalently capable featured and priced P55 motherboard and we'll be set. The GA-P55-UD3R looks like it might fit the bill, I don't remember what P vs R means in Gigabyte-speak. Then we need a mATX board which forgoes PCI slots...mmm

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RE: We just need... by nirolf, 94 days ago
If I remember correctly R stands for RAID (ICHxR) and P for Crossfire/SLI enabled mb (2 full PCI-E slots).

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RE: We just need... by enterco, 93 days ago
No, you can't say that 'R' is for RAID or that 'P' does not have RAID, EP45-UD3P includes two SATA/RAID chips: the integrated ICH10R and a Gigabyte branded JMicron.

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I5 makes me remember Intel 815... by greylica, 94 days ago
They will probably release an capped chipset version too, and even if you buy 16 GB of DDR3 (2 pairs), they will only recognize 4 GB...
In the early days of i815, via did a better chipset than intel, that recognizes 1,5 GB of Ram.
But now, Nvidia appears to be stopped by Intel claims over (strange) agreements for chipsets post LGA775.

Who will save our souls this time from capped Intel products like i5 ?

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BLU penguin as secure banking method? by 7Enigma, 93 days ago
Gary,

I have been wanting a flavor of Linux for a long time for the sole purpose of a secure OS to do banking transactions. I had originally planned a dual-boot system with Windows for gaming/productivity and Linux for banking, but it was always a hassle to find an easy way to do this (I'm a hardware guy, non-windows software...not so much).

This penguin drive sounds like it might be just the ticket. My only concern is that the HD is accessable from within the Linux distro. I understand that's great for someone wanting to recover from a crash/backup files, but I'm concerned that could be a loophole in my idea of the secure system I only boot to for banking.

Could you please advise?

Thanks btw for this interesting off-beat article!

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RE: BLU penguin as secure banking method? by geekfool, 93 days ago
You can always "unmount" (disconnect) you HDD after booting from USB. Depending on software version, you'll either have an icon next to the systray where you can "eject" drives or they will appear on the desktop and you can "right-click" them. But why don't you try it yourself, just download an Ubuntu LiveCD and try it, it won't take more thatn a few minutes...

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RE: BLU penguin as secure banking method? by strikeback03, 93 days ago
Dual boot with Ubuntu is pretty easy - install Windows first, and leave a blank partition. Then install Ubuntu to that partition - it will automatically install GRUB to give you a choice of which OS to boot when you start the computer.

Assuming this bootable USB drive behaves like one you would make yourself, you can save your settings, so you could disable the automatic mounting of hard drives, or remove the NTFS driver entirely if you are really paranoid.

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RE: BLU penguin as secure banking method? by Tanclearas, 93 days ago
Perhaps look at the motherboards that offer a slim Linux at boot time. I have seen news items describing such quick boot options that have firefox, IM client, and Skype.

I'm not sure if those prevent access to the HDD, but it's worth looking into.

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RE: BLU penguin as secure banking method? by pcfxer, 93 days ago
http://www.openbsd.org/

If you think the OS is to blame for most "security" issues then here is your ticket. Oh btw, you might also want to ensure that your packets are not readable by anyone, even bank employees because that would be "insecure" right?

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RE: BLU penguin as secure banking method? by yyrkoon, 93 days ago
Operating systems used is less important than the practices used by the user. I personally Bank online from Vista, and have Zero issues.

Anyways, with the above said, ubuntu may not be the best distribution of linux to use in such a situation. Debian which ubuntu is based off of functions the same, and is probably a better candidate. Now if you want the most secure you can get . . . SELinux, but be prepared to spend a long while learning HOW to use it.

Again, learning how to use a computer safely, e.g. the does and don't, and the OS will not matter.

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RE: BLU penguin as secure banking method? by mapesdhs, 92 days ago

Or use an SGI/IRIX system instead, that's what I do. None of the PC
hardware worries, nice & secure. Even a little O2 would work fine,
and they're cheap on eBay. For app speed, a Fuel is better, but takes
up more space, etc. All of the same tools for Linux are available
for IRIX (openssh, openssl, tripwire, Firefox, Seamonkey, Apache,
ipfilter, Samba, sudo, nmap, nessus, etc.) but it's a lot easier to
install, plus of course the same general UNIX facilities are available
such as shadow passwords, timeout delays after failed access attempts,
extra detailed logging in SYSLOG, service restriction in inetd.conf
and so on.

I use Seamonkey on a [url=http://forums.nekochan.net/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=16719759]Fuel/900[/url], via a firewall Indy running ipfilter.
I'd never access online banking from a Windows machine.

Ian.



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Slightly Off Topic by EJ257, 93 days ago
I may be completely off my rockers but does anyone else see the 3 "dead pixels" in the gray area of the article banner? I only notice it when I have Anandtech blocked in noScripts.

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RE: Slightly Off Topic by geekfool, 93 days ago
Yup, those "dead pixels" are tracking bugs... Just view the source and search for "INSERT_RANDOM_NUMBER_HERE", you'll find them. They are located in <noscript> tags so they only appear when JS is disabled. Good observation ;)

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RE: Slightly Off Topic by bigboxes, 93 days ago
Using Adblock Plus I see no banner and no dots. But now that you mention it I do remember a dot(or dots) being left up after blocking ads on another site. Strange...

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correction by the goat, 93 days ago
I know it is just a typo but the version of Linux you are talking about is Ubuntu 9.04 not 9.0.4 The 9.04 means it was released the fourth month of 2009 (April).

The next version of Ubuntu will be 9.10 (released in the tenth month of 2009 -- October).



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Lol by TheHolyLancer, 93 days ago
Who wants to bet that the female visitors pushed for the front page cute WWF advert lol?

Not that is a bad thing tho, spreading this around could save a lot of headaches about asking ppl to fix/recover data by those whom like these sort of thing (that are targeted by the drive) and not a esata w usb power flash drive or usb 3.0 drive that can perform at much better speeds.

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Typo... by mmatis, 93 days ago
in the second paragraph. Should be:

"...the IMAGINARY female visitors in the lab..."

Let's face it - you're a geek. And geeks NEVER have real female visitors...

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RE: Typo... by JarredWalton, 93 days ago
But he's a married geek with daughters. LOL

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RE: Typo... by JohanAnandtech, 93 days ago
Look who is talking :-)

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RE: Typo... by Ryan Smith, 93 days ago
Posting because everyone else is.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go jump off of a bridge...

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RE: Typo... by mmatis, 93 days ago
I figured that might garner some responses. Ah, the pleasures of unadulterated trolling!
}:-]

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"P55 specific 4GB memory kits" by Taft12, 93 days ago
Can I just ask what the hell do OEMs do to make "P55 specific 4GB memory kits". Is it really anything more than cheap marketing speak to make some schlub choose their RAM over the competition (or pay more for the same thing).

Yes, you needed a 3-stick kit instead of 2 for a Nehalem system which was technically a new offering, but this crap from Patriot (and I'm sure OCZ will jump all over this too) is flat-out lame.

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Must be fun... by Flyboy27, 93 days ago
benching the dogs#$t out of the new 5870/50s and core i7/5s. Can't wait for the reviews.

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Wait, 6.0Gb/s SATA on 1xPCI-E? by Doormat, 93 days ago
So they put an interface that can handle 600MB/s on a PCI-E connection that can only handle 500MB/s.

Just be sure not to use one with any new SATA 6.0Gb/s SSDs that will come out.

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RE: Wait, 6.0Gb/s SATA on 1xPCI-E? by mastrdrver, 93 days ago
Ummm, no.

The PCIe 1x on the board, and from the PCH, is 1.0 not 2.0 like the x16 slots. So, 250mb/s limit.......which is less than the 300mb/s rate you get with the SATA2 connector coming from the PCH.

Lots of fail on this move.

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RE: Wait, 6.0Gb/s SATA on 1xPCI-E? by shabby, 93 days ago
You should pass this info along to asrock, it doesn't seem like they know that. Three sata3 ports on a 250MB/sec bus is beyond fail.

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