14 Oct
2012
14 Oct
'12
11:32 a.m.
On Oct 14, 2012, at 1:51 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 10/14/2012 10:27 AM, Toby Thain wrote:
Depends on what you're doing. I build FPGAs, where even with a
quad-core i7 and 6 GB of RAM, it takes 45 minutes to build some
of the FPGAs I'm working on (longer for some, shorter for others).
There's not much I/O involved in building FPGAs, at least not for
the time-consuming fitting process (which is essentially a limited
exhaustive problem-space search until an acceptable solution is
found), so the speed scales roughly linearly with processor speed
and, depending on which FPGA manufacturer, the number of cores
(because even though it should be an easily-parallelized
algorithm, up until recently, Xilinx only ran on a single thread
despite the fact that they ran on perfectly capable multi-CPU
Solaris boxes a good DECADE ago).
So I do have a valid, work-related need for a fast CPU and good
RAM bandwidth. If they got their act together, FPGA building and
simulation (and SPICE, for that matter) can be massively
accelerated with GPUs, which are for most intents and purposes
massively parallel floating-point-heavy computers with very
limited execution paths. They're actually not too different in
spirit from the dedicated vector units of the supercomputers of
yesteryear.
Also, I do play games. I'm not particularly apologetic for that,
and I don't think they're something to "grow out of" any more
than comic books are (I've never been one for comics, but I don't
think there's anything wrong with them). For me, they're both a
method of recreation with friends who live far enough away that
they can't just drive over, and they also sharpen my problem-
solving skills in very real ways. I'm picky about the games I
play, but there are plenty of creative, independent games that
have come out recently which are far less mindless and far more
creative than you might think.
I'm willing to concede that the above paragraph may be the other
side of a generational divide; I turn 29 tomorrow, so it's what
I grew up on (that, and books, which I also still read and which
take up much more of my time). I'd assert that playing decent
video games is a fair sight better than watching most TV that's
out there.
- Dave
Yep, I fixed TEN that way last year (i.e. every
single one presented).
ALL of my displays came from that sort of failure, with the exception of the last one--a
shorted inverter transformer mandated spending about $5 for a "universal"
inverter.
As far as desktop machines, I'm still running a 2.0GHz Socket 754 Athlon 64 (in
32-bit mode) on Ubuntu. It's more than fast enough for email and browsing
(considering that my DSL connection tops out at 1.5Mbps, the fastest available at my
location).
Why would I need anything faster? Streaming HD video, given my connection speed, is out
of the question, pretty much. So is gaming.
Most people it seems don't do much more than that, so why the "need for
speed"?