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Mobo Jojo

My beautiful black case came in the mail yesterday. Special thanks to BUYPCDIRECT for providing the first step in my journey.

Building a computer is a monumental moment for any computer geek. It is like the same feeling that a wrenchead (one who likes to build their own car or motorcycle) has when they begin building their first vehicle.

My parents think that this project will occupy most of my time and that I won't stick to my regular work. Not true!

This project does cost money, and will need to be spread out over the next few months. This means I will still stay on task while I work on one of my greatest achivements.

That's another thing that concerns them: cost. My brother did a project like this a couple years ago. He ponied up for the biggest most expensive stuff that was out their.

I, on the other hand, have plans on building something a bit more moderate and less expensive.

While I have no interest whatsoever in Windows Vista, Microsoft has brought forth the need to upgrade to 64-bit computing.

In order to keep up with the Gates (as oppose to keeping up with the Jones), I have decided to build my computers based on x86-64 architecture.

If there is one thing that the people at Microsoft and the resistant group of geeks (including myself) agree on it is that Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has the better architecture for this task. AMD has been working on 64-bit architecture for several years now, even while Intel was promoting the Pentium 4.

In 2005, one of the most significant competitions in the computer industry begain since the Browser Wars of the mid-1990s. This hype as we now know it is called the "Core Wars".

The "Core Wars" brought forth Dual-Core processing, an idea forged from the concept of parallel computing. Many of us have seen the ads for products from Intel.

For those of you who are not computer geeks, the products that Intel has advertized over the years are for computer chips called microprocessors. A microprocessor is nothing more than a piece of plastic with this little teeny-tiny switches on them that are arranged with such precission that a machine must be used to manufacture them. A computer has many of these devices embedded into them into a big circuit board called the motherboard, or mobo for short. One chip that is heavily advertised, and one of the most important, is called the central processing unit, also known as the CPU or "core". The CPU is "the brain" of the computer. It works so hard, a fan is attached to it to displace the amount of heat. On newer desktop machines, the CPU has its own fan separate from the other fan that keeps everything cool and well ventelated. Some cases have come with thermal gauges to monitor and regulate the amount of heat a computer puts out, especially the CPU.

Until last year, the concept of having more than one core in your computer was reserved for the highly skilled computer engineer or the hardcore gamer. To be quite honest, having one core is good enough for me. But the concept of multi-core systems, though more expensive, does have its advantages.

A computer with one core puts out alot of heat. If the heat is not pushed out of the system, other parts of the computer become warped from the high temperature. To alleviate the stress caused by such a high amount of thermal energy, computer engineers took a page from the supercomputer industry.

If the name is not enough to tell you, a supercomputer is a computer with such high amount of processing capabilities that only a select few research laboratories, industries, and the government use them. A supercomputer, despite the recent advances in miniaturization brought on by improvements in nanotechnology, is about the size of a phonebooth and put out so much energy that it needs its own room with a large fan to blow out the hot air and draw in cool air. I read in some computing magazine that because these machines put out so much wasted energy, some companies in California channel the hot air into the air conditioning system to heat up the building in the winter time. Another company developed another, more practical idea to circulate the air in the room by reusing the air using convection. Convection occurs when hot air rises out of a heat source, then cools down causing the air to sink back to the floor where it is sucked back in again.

A supercomputer is able to process large amouts of information while generating less heat using a concept called parallel computing. This means a computer with dual-core processing uses two processors that have half the processing power as a single processing unit but because they work together, they computer the same amount of processing power as the single processing unit.

Because two processor with half the processing capabilities as a single processor but work just as dynamic, Intel has hyped up the concept with their "do more advertisement." *in that loud Kevin Spacy as Lex Luthor voice* WRONG!. Dual-core processing does not allow you to do work twice as fast as a single-core system unless you purchase a dual-core system with two processors that have the same power as the single-core processor EACH!

So what about this hype about "quad-core" (4 CPUs on one CPU)? Same concept. One big processor divided into four smaller processors with about a quarter of the processing capability as the single processor EACH!

The entire concept of the CPU was to store all those teeny-tiny switches onto ONE microprocessor. They way I see it, multicore processing is a step backwards, that or the chip manufacturing industry trying to cut cost instead of trying to find way to keep the computer from possibly burning up without burning a hole in your wallet, or worse burning the house down. (I'm talking to you Dell Computers!)

The downside to x86-64 architecture is that everything you know about assembly programming (especially for 16 and 32 bit systems) needs to be modified to include 64 bit systems. Fortunately, C and C++ programmers won't need to change the way the program too much. But if you use low level programming, now would be a good time to brush up on 64-bit assembly as technology marches on.

Labels: C++, diy, fud, linux, mod, tech, windows

posted by Bushido Hacks 2/03/2007 08:46:00 AM