clock cycles

well this is a very basic question but somewhat myu
concept is not clear

i am looking at system like before they were very slow
but in last few years in systems clock cycle has
increased at a rapid rate i.e system used t ocome with
speed of 350MHz then it raised 700 MHz and slowly 1
GHz now it is all in GHz

what actually this speed does ? what happens by making
this clock fast. does it say how many instruction it
can have in a clock cycle or something

thanks

ankit jain

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Re: clock cycles

Ankit Jain wrote:

>well this is a very basic question but somewhat myu
>concept is not clear
>
>i am looking at system like before they were very slow
>but in last few years in systems clock cycle has
>increased at a rapid rate i.e system used t ocome with
>speed of 350MHz then it raised 700 MHz and slowly 1
>GHz now it is all in GHz
>
>what actually this speed does ? what happens by making
>this clock fast. does it say how many instruction it
>can have in a clock cycle or something
>
>
>
Not exactly. The processor speed is an indication of how fast it can
carry out instructions, but on CISC (complex instruction set computing)
computers (x86, x86-64) some instructions take more than one clock cycle
to complete. Intel has pushed the clock speed (as much for marketing as
for any other reason - AMD produces processors that can do comparable
work at a lower clock speed) just about as far as it can go - they are
having severe problems with manufaturing the 3.6 GHz chips.

It is only an accurate speed comparison between chips in the same
processor family - the last of the Pentium 3 chips were actually faster
than the higher-clocked early Pentium 4 releases - and it's been that
way ever since the 486 days. The 486DX4-100 was faster and more
reliable than the Pentium-60 and Pentium-66 - that first Pentium design
was actually scrapped because it was plagued with unresolvable heat and
performance issues.

Clock speed is an indication of instructions per second only on RISC
(reduced instruction set computing) hardware (PPC, SPARC, MIPS), since
the goal of RISC is to have all instructions execute in one clock
cycle. It makes the processor less difficult to design and manufature,
since there is less silicon required for a smaller instruction set, but
it makes the job of the compiler more difficult, since there are less
instructions available to implement a program.

To be fair, a lot of the instructions in the x86 family involve legacy
application support - the 8086 processor, the ancestor to all of the PC
processors in existence today, was designed in the late 1970's - early
1980's. DOS has a lifespan only 10 years shorter than UNIX - and it's
still in use in cash registers and industrial automation to this day,
and modern processors still need to support those legacy applications.

So, processor speed is an indication of how fast the processor can do
work, but it is only a fair comparison within a single processor
family. After all, my 67 MHz POWER1 RS-6000 will blow the doors off a
Pentum-133 in byte-for-byte math work - it's a toy compared to modern
processors, but the comparison carries through. The POWER4 chip in the
newest IBM pSeries is a rocketship - 1.9GHz dual-core chips that,
processor-for-processor, can compete with the Opterons, and, especially
in hard-core math, eat Xeons for lunch.

*sigh* if only there was enough room in my apartment for one of those
babys -
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Fwd: Re: clock cycles

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Received: from [202.164.100.133] by web52902.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Wed, 13 Oct 2004 05:10:50 BST
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 05:10:50 +0100 (BST)
From: Ankit Jain
Subject: Re: clock cycles
To: Jim Nelson
In-Reply-To: <416C4521.9010207@verizon.net>
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First of all Thanks a lot for help

see inline

--- Jim Nelson wrote:
> >
> Not exactly. The processor speed is an indication
> of how fast it can
> carry out instructions, but on CISC (complex
> instruction set computing)
> computers (x86, x86-64) some instructions take more
> than one clock cycle
> to complete. Intel has pushed the clock speed (as
> much for marketing as
> for any other reason - AMD produces processors that
> can do comparable
> work at a lower clock speed)

Sorry could not understand this. What is making AMD
processors work faster than Intel processors at a
lower clock cycle. also i want to know how to prove
this that AMD 64 bit processors will work faster than
Intel 32 bit processor even if they have clock cycles
like 3.6 GHz....

>just about as far as it
> can go - they are
> having severe problems with manufaturing the 3.6 GHz
> chips.
> It is only an accurate speed comparison between
> chips in the same
> processor family - the last of the Pentium 3 chips
> were actually faster
> than the higher-clocked early Pentium 4 releases -
> and it's been that

Hows that? /is it due to higher clock cycles in P3 and
less no. of transistor in early P4?


Well definately PowerPC's are faster than Intel. i do
agree. Some what i feel a day will come when CISC
processors will find difficult to servive...

Thanks again

ANkit Jain


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Re: Fwd: Re: clock cycles

> Sorry could not understand this. <1> What is making AMD
> processors work faster than Intel processors at a
> lower clock cycle. <2> also i want to know how to prove
> this that AMD 64 bit processors will work faster than
> Intel 32 bit processor even if they have clock cycles
> like 3.6 GHz....

<1>
An AMD processor may execute a command with
less clock cycles than an Intel processor.
e.g.
It could get more work done with equal clock cycles.
It could get as much work done with less clock cycles.
It could get more work done with less clock speed.

<2>
Why not let someone else prove it and then you can
simply accept their education, skill, and knowledge.

There is more to measuring CPU than clock cycle speed.
How fast does it r/w memory and devices...internal
and external cache, bus speed, ...?

Regards, Chuck

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Re: Fwd: Re: clock cycles

>First of all Thanks a lot for help
>
>see inline
>
> --- Jim Nelson wrote:
>
>
>>Not exactly. The processor speed is an indication
>>of how fast it can
>>carry out instructions, but on CISC (complex
>>instruction set computing)
>>computers (x86, x86-64) some instructions take more
>>than one clock cycle
>>to complete. Intel has pushed the clock speed (as
>>much for marketing as
>>for any other reason - AMD produces processors that
>>can do comparable
>>work at a lower clock speed)
>>
>>
>
>Sorry could not understand this. What is making AMD
>processors work faster than Intel processors at a
>lower clock cycle. also i want to know how to prove
>this that AMD 64 bit processors will work faster than
>Intel 32 bit processor even if they have clock cycles
>like 3.6 GHz....
>
>
>

Say it takes an Intel processor 5 cycles to perform an instruction. If
AMD figures out how to do the same thing in 4 cycles, the Intel
processor would have to be 20% faster in clock speed to keep up with the
AMD.

There are benchmarks done by some reputable companies that have proven
some performance gains. To be fair, the Intel processors can beat the
Opterons in some situations, but they pay for it in others. Processor
design is one of those areas that involve trade-offs - a good processor
design for one situation will be beat by another processor design made
for a different situation.

Best way to prove the performance gains on a 64-bit platform -
benchmarks. There are plenty out there - both the software and the results.

>>just about as far as it
>>can go - they are
>>having severe problems with manufaturing the 3.6 GHz
>>chips.
>>It is only an accurate speed comparison between
>>chips in the same
>>processor family - the last of the Pentium 3 chips
>>were actually faster
>>than the higher-clocked early Pentium 4 releases -
>>and it's been that
>>
>>
>
>Hows that? /is it due to higher clock cycles in P3 and
>less no. of transistor in early P4?
>
>
>

Part of it had to do with larger L2 cache on the last P3's. Part of it
was just that the first P4's were not all that good. Par for the course
for Intel - the Itanium 1 chip was pretty much just an
engineering/developement prototype - but the Itanium 2 is a good, if
rather expensive, processor, and the Itanium 3 promises to be pretty
damn good, if Intel's track record stays firm.

>Well definately PowerPC's are faster than Intel. i do
>agree. Some what i feel a day will come when CISC
>processors will find difficult to servive...
>
>
>

All modern CISC processors have a RISC core. There is an interpreter
built in to the processor that breaks down the instruction set into the
simpler language of the processor core. We could get rid of all that
CISC crap if it wasn't for legacy applications - that's why PC's are
pretty much the only holdout in the RISC/CISC wars, since there's a
whole bunch of binary-only x86-only Microsoft-only applications out
there that too many companies use. So long as there are proprietary
programs for a Microsoft platform, there will be CISC processors.

>Thanks again
>
>ANkit Jain
>
>
>___________________________________________________________ _____________
>Yahoo! Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping"
>your friends today! Download Messenger Now
>http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com/download/index.html
>
>

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