Talk:Central processing unit/Archive 2

message: I'd like to add some more visuals to the new sections I'm writing for modern CPU design considerations.  However, I'd like to do so without resorting to block diagrams.  No offense to block diagrams, but they just aren't visually arresting nor something that the non-engineer/non-programmer would likely be interested in looking over.  Any suggestions on interesting visuals to provide for ILP and TLP?  I'm leaning towards just inserting an image of a monster like POWER5 or Sun's UltraSPARC T1 into the article for the latter :) -- uberpenguin 05:33, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Tried adapting the style of diagram Jon Stokes (Hannibal) uses for this purpose? -- Wayne Hardman 16:10, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Visuals 

message: I've been toying with the idea of including some sort of discussion of CPU cache design and methodology as well as some blurb about RISC vs CISC.  However, I keep coming back to a couple of major mental blocks.  First, the article is already fairly lengthy, and I'm afraid to add any more major sections for risk of making it too all-inclusive.  Second, I want to keep the article as close as possible to a discussion of STRICTLY CPUs (not computers, not memory, not peripherals, not software), and I somewhat feel that RISC vs CISC is an ISA topic first and foremost and should be covered in discussions of ISA design, not CPU design.  Finally, the section discussing the motivations for and function of superscalar architecture does very briefly touch on why CPU caches are necessary for very deeply pipelines, so I'm tending to believe that a lengthy diversion into cache methodology would be overspecific and largely detract from the flow of the article.  Input is appreciated on any or all of these points! -- uberpenguin 06:16, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The cache subject really belongs in the memory arena than in the CPU area; cache is a memory function despite the fact it is coupled to the cpu design and often is on the same chip as the cpu core. Thus it doesn't seem like it should have more than a mention in passing in this article.  RISC/CISC is really an ISA issue.  It certainly affects the details of a cpu design (and vice versa), it is a more detailed and somewhat separate and divorced subject.  As you say, the article is already large, and thus shouldn't be expanded with these topics IMHO.  Also, note Wikipedia has other articles which can and do treat these. -R. S. Shaw 01:08, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd like to point out that CPU cache is already a FA. MarSch 14:06, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I have long since dropped the idea of adding much of a discussion of cache here. -- uberpenguin 16:00, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  To add, or not? 

message: Hey,
I'm thinking that something on clustering should be added to this article?  What do guys think? --ZeWrestler  Talk 16:56, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The article already touches on SMP and NUMA as TLP strategies.  Cluster computing is a systems-level design approach and really has nothing to do with CPU design at all. -- uberpenguin 20:02, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, thanks. --ZeWrestler  Talk 16:45, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  CPU Clustering 

message: check this out, might make our lives slightly easier. in particular with citing sources. --ZeWrestler  Talk 17:28, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  new inline citation 

message: "Arbitrary-precision arithmetic" generally refers to bignums, and the arbitrary-precision arithmetic page does so as well; that's not, for example, how 32-bit C "long"s were done on 16-bit processors, and it's not how 64-bit "long longs" are done on 32-bit processors, so that really doesn't fit in "arbitrary-precision arithmetic".  For example, it only takes two instructions on PPC32 to add 2 64-bit values, each stored in two registers (addc followed by adde on PPC32), and it only takes two instructions to load the two halves into registers - the equivalent ops are equally cheap on x86 - and it's typically done in-line, so it's arguably misleading to refer only to bignums when discussing that case. Guy Harris 22:51, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: True, I just didn't want either the footnote or the text to get too bulky on a side point...  Several folks who prowl FAC are pretty ardently against great elaborations that could conceivably be moved to another article.  I'll change the text a bit to mention hardware big int support. --uberpenguin 23:12, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  64-bit arithmetic on 32-bit processors, etc. 

message: I find the picture labeled "Approximation of the square wave..." slightly misplaced, the subject of the article isn´t at all related to fourier series, and cpu clocksignals are generated by other means. I suggest that it be removed or replaced, and it would be great if someone would bother to draw one that shows rising and falling edges (would aid understanding of DDR memory for instance).
Daniel Böling 14:07, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree totally.  It was always a bit out of place; I was grasping for straws to find a picture for that section, had that extra one laying around and stuck it in "temporarily."  What would really be neat/appropriate there is a picture of a logic analyzer hooked up to some small microprocessor like a Z80...  If nobody else has something like this I'll see if I can set it up sometime soon. -- uberpenguin 22:52, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ehh... Well the logic analyzer with the counter is an improvement for now.  I'll see if I can find or make something better in the future. -- uberpenguin 02:48, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Square wave pic 

message: I have largely reverted the changes to bolding and image spacing.  It baffles me why someone would feel that stacking images on top of each other (thereby removing their correct contextual position in the text) on the right side is more pleasing than having the thumbnails in the correct context and balanced on both sides.  I've therefore reverted back to my original image layout; if you have problems with that please discuss them here before changing anything.
On the subject of bolding which has been discussed before in this article's FA nomination: the reason certain terms are bolded is because they are key to understanding subsequent text and are often unique or have unique meaning to the computer architecture field.  I concede that some terms were unneccessarily bolded, so I've cut down the bolding to what I believe to be fundamental terms in the article.
I also removed the out of place blurb about Mauchly and the Atanasoff-Berry Computer that was added by an anonymous user.  The text had absolutely no relevance to this article and I'm surprised it wasn't removed by somebody else. -- uberpenguin 14:38, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disgaree heartily with the image reversions. While some people (like me) prefer to right justify, and others prefer to scatter, is up to argument. However, no image should be 350px. The usual on articles now, particulalry featured articles, is 250px. Páll (Die pienk olifant) 15:08, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The norm for pictures is |thumb| which sets the image size as per user preferances (but defaults to the rather small 180px wide), and the norm for diagrams is whatever size they're readable at. However, as long as the page works at 800x600 (which this does currently), it's whatever is appropriate for the page. This page is has much more text:image than Zion National Park, makes sense to have them a bit larger. Wouldn't hurt setting most of them to user-defined size though, the assumption is always that people will click on the pic if they want to see the detail. --zippedmartin 17:06, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

text: While I do respect your position, per zippedmartin's comments, could we possibly defer to my preference here?  Where I'm not going against current WP recommended styling I'd just rather have it "my way" in an article I wrote.  I know it's selfish motive, but it's just more pleasing for me to see it this way and the issue is little more than editor preference. -- uberpenguin 04:43, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments on changes 

message: The link to heat sink was removed from See also, with the comment "heat sinks have nothing to do with a discussion of CPUs directly."  This statement is contrary to the following: "Heat sinks are widely used in electronics, and have become almost essential to modern central processing units. ... Due to recent technological developments and public interest, the market for commercial heat sink cooling for CPUs has reached an all time high" (from heat sink) Shawnc 21:43, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I stand by my statement.  You can make the argument that a discussion of thermal dissipation is key to nearly any significant engineering (and especially electrical engineering) scheme, but as it stands a CPU is a functional device, not necessarily a physical implementation.  Thermal issues could justifiably be discussed in an article about, say, integrated circuits, but not here in an article about a functional device with many forms of implementation.  "See also" could easily get out of hand if we included every article that could be logically connected to CPUs and their various incarnations and implementations.  As it is, it should keep to topics that very directly relate to CPUs in the architectural sense. -- uberpenguin 02:44, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, upon reading the heat sink article, I think it's deplorable state makes it a bad example to use here.  If a lay man read that they might think that microelectronics are the singular application of thermal management devices. -- uberpenguin 04:47, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

text: In other words, "already covered in CPU cooling." Alright. Shawnc 03:24, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That too! -- uberpenguin 05:26, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I did some substantial work on the thermal grease article the other week. I have a few ideas and will see what I can do to further these secondary articles along. Thermal dissipation is a way of life here in the Phoenix Valley! ;-) -- Charles Gaudette 19:35, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  heat sinks 

message: After John Atanasoff beeng called by NAVI and making NOL computer project (on advice of John von Neumann) and secretly ENIAC was beeing build while John Mauchly was somehow participating in both projects without the knoledge of John Atanasoff. And somehow the NOL project was shut down again on the advice of John von Neumann. And after finaly John Mauchly admiting in court that he for instance had to take "crash course in electronics" shortly after beeing introduced ABC basics. After the trail John von Neumann used the "stored-program computer" noncence like it's the verry key to computers. The truth it's not even close to any of the Atanasoff finding which he made just in making one version of his computer. Which are those findings : the use of binary base, logical operators instead of counters by using vacuum tubes (transistor), refreshed memory using capacitors, separation of memory and computing functions, parallel processing , and system clock. 71.99.137.20 17:47, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And I put the question to you again: what the heck does this have to do with stored-program CPUs?  All devices ever called CPUs were Von Neumann/Harvard machines.  I'll let you deal with your weird idea that the stored program concept wasn't a huge milestone in computer development, but the fact is that CPUs are stored program machines.  -- uberpenguin 18:39, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

text: It's very possible that Mauchly got his ideas on how to do arithmetic from Atanasoff - and that seems to be pretty much what the judge said in the court case - it's not good that he stole ideas and infringed patents.  However, no amount of court rulings change the fact that the ABC wasn't a stored program device and ENIAC (eventually) was.  Von Neumann certainly did say that the stored program thing is the very key to computers - and he was absolutely 100% correct.  If you have to step the machine through the algorithm you want it to perform by hand (as was the case with the ABC) then it's completely analogous to a non-programmable pocket calculator.  If you had enough memory and enough time and the right peripherals, the ENIAC could have run Windows 2000, balanced your checkbook and played chess (and any of the other amazing things computers can do).  The ABC could no more have done those things than could an abacus or a pile of rocks.  That ability to run a program is what makes a computer different from a calculator.  If User:71.99.137.20 doesn't/can't/won't understand that then he/she doesn't understand computers AT ALL.  You can imagine a computer with just 'nand' 'shift-right', 'store', 'literal' and 'jump if not carry' as it's underlying instruction set and 'numbers' that are only 1 bit wide!  Amazingly, such a machine is Turing-complete and can therefore (according to the Church/Turing theorem) be used to implement any arithmetic or logic function in software.  So here we see something that you HAVE to call a computer because it can (in principle) run Windows, balance your checkbook and play chess - who's hardware can't increment or decrement - let alone add or subtract - and which can only represent the numbers as high as 1 and as low as 0!  This whole programmability thing isn't just a part of what makes up a computer - it's the ENTIRE thing that is a computer.  Computers with things like adders and multipliers and 32 bit floating point only need them to get higher performance.  SteveBaker 05:54, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  stored-program computer - mombo jumbo 

message: who has done CCIE here ?
--It fayyaz@hotmail.com 17:34, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  CCIE 

message: :Processor was merged into Central processing unit (this article). That history now exists at Talk:Central processing unit/Processor article history.--Commander Keane 07:36, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merged 

message: Sorry for cluttering the talk page, I just want to say this is a really well-written and informitive article. 128.208.41.109 05:25, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good article... 

message: It would be useful to read a comparison of the performances of common processors (either in a table in the article, or an external link).
:I don't care for the idea. Performance comparisons are very involved and detailed discussions, are often quite subjective and subject to testing bias, and would bulk up the article significantly.  Furthermore, a fair sample of performance comparisons from the entire history of CPUs could be very difficult to contain in a table.  That being said, I think it might be an interesting and relevant factoid to include a short sample comparison of, say, the integer performance of a very early von Neumann computer to a modern microprocessor.  If you want to collect some figures on modern microprocessors, I can look up the data for old computers. -- mattb @ 2006-09-14T04:41Z
:: I think there is room for such a table *somewhere* in Wikipedia, but I agree central processing unit is not the place. Please stick that information in benchmark (computing) until we find a better place? --70.189.77.59 17:54, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Check out iCOMP and PR rating. BebopBob 01:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peformance comparison of common processors 

message: Who are the main manufacturers of CPUs and how is performance measured
:1. Too many to briefly enumerate. 2. In too many ways to briefly enumerate.  Reading CPU design may provide a little enlightenment. -- mattb @ 2006-10-22T02:16Z
:: I like the CPU design article. It mentions As of 2004, only four companies are actively designing and fabricating state of the art general purpose computing CPU chips. So -- are 4 too many to enumerate? Or do we need to update that article to include those other companies you are thinking about?
:: Those are excellent questions. Please help us improve Wikipedia to make the answers better and to make the answers easier to find. Many companies that design CPUs are Fabless semiconductor company, who pass their design over to some other Semiconductor companies, which actally fabricate the CPU. CPU performance is measured using benchmarks -- but be aware that there is no one "performance" number -- one CPU may perform one benchmark faster, but some other CPU may perform your actual application faster. Do we need to mention/link to these things in the article? --70.189.77.59 17:54, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  manufacturers of central processing units? 

message: What is physically different between similar processors, eg. one that is 2 ghz, and one that is 3 ghz?
:There may be absolutely nothing physically different about them, or they may be totally different.  You'd need more information than just clock speed to say. -- mattb @ 2006-10-19T19:03Z
::Say they were the exact same model, and only the clock speed is different? Would only the multipilier be changed in the hardware?
:::Well, in some form or another the global clock signal will have its period decreased.  Whether that means changing a clock multiplier or the target frequency of some oscillator is application-specific. -- mattb @ 2006-10-22T02:13Z
:::: Certainly one *can* run a 3 GHz processor at 2 GHz, so there is not necessarily a physical difference.
:::: However, most 2 GHz processors cannot run at 3 GHz -- there *is* a physical difference.
:::: So, from least amount of difference to most difference, we have:
* only the external clock speed is different -- no internal difference.
* only the internal multipler is different.
* They were manufactured the same way, with the same photomask, but chip-to-chip and wafer-to-wafer variations in blurriness and defects made some chips fail to run at the designed speed ("weak transistors"), but the chips passed the test at a slower speed.
* They were manufactured according to the same layout, but a photomask shrink produced smaller, faster transistors and shorter, faster wires.
* The layout was tweaked slightly ("transistor sizing", "strengthening transistors") to improve the critical path.
* the chip was completely re-designed (deeper pipelines, improved clocking tree, smaller cache, etc.) to shorten the critical path.
:::: Does that answer your question?
:::: (Should I move this to the CPU design article?) --70.189.77.59 17:54, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Different CPU models? 

message: Why does this get vandalized so much, anyway??? What makes this a popular target??? 170.215.83.212 07:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You got me...  I guess it's just people trying to mess up a good thing. -- mattb @ 2006-11-17T16:07Z
All people who have vandalized this page should be IP blocked. Especially the monumental asshole with IP 82.42.146.28 who wanted to destroy the whole article!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.203.109.196 (talk) 23:58, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why??? 

message: pointless question. I'm thinking about buying a computer(in pieces) and assembling it, now if something(ArmA) requires a 3.0 GHz prosessor can I use a 2.4?
*RAM 2GB 800GHZ
*HD 500
*GeForce 8800GTX (752)  —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.250.110.93 (talk) 09:02, August 22, 2007 (UTC) 
: This is not the place to ask such questions, but Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing is! This is a lesser known part of Wikipedia where you can ask questions like this. At the Wikipedia:Reference desk you can also ask questions about many other non computer related subjects such as medicine, philosophy and many other subjects. Mahjongg 00:31, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Something of wich wikipedians go crazy about, 

message: The two pictures with Intel chips do not appear. Is it broken? Has it been vandalized?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.203.109.196 (talk) 20:09, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing Pictures all over the place! 

message: This article was vandalized on Monday, November 12th, 2007 at approx. 9:00 a.m. Someone changed various sections of the article from "Central Processing Unit" to "Central Cock Sucking Unit" and committed various other vandalisms. I have tried to fix the article as best I could, but perhaps the article should be reverted to a previous state.
Additionally, I move that this page be partially protected for a while in order to deter the vandal from changing the page again. In addition, I move that the IP of the vandal (or his/her username) be given a temporary ban.
The Ice Inside 14:10, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for partial protection 

message: temporary moved to my User page, because I started this scientific dispute, but I think maybe I should dispute this when I have more knowledge. --Ramu50 (talk) 04:14, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  CPU architecture 

message: What the heck is a mechanical cog?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.117.107.218 (talk) 06:06, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  mechanical cog? 

message: There seem to be two acceptions of the term CPU:
1. a processor chip, often containing more than one core
2. a processor core (used in that sense in Multi-core)
Which one is correct?--87.162.46.235 (talk) 20:42, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: "CPU" or Central Processing Unit usually refers to the actual wafer, or physical chip that you would set into the motherboard's socket, regardless of the number of cores contained within. Useight (talk) 21:36, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  CPU=processor or core? 

message: Talk about flops, please. -X  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.29.63.161 (talk) 04:21, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  FLOPS! 

message: I mention this as a suggestion to the article's regular editors.  The term "central" isn't explained.  Its has its origin in a distinction between the "central" and the "peripheral" parts of a computer.  for a source see Computer structures (Daniel P. Siewiorek, C. Gordon Bell, Allen Newell) google books.  In 2009 we don't refer to a SATA controller as a "peripheral processing unit" but we still have "central processing unit" as a legacy term. patsw (talk) 20:32, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why "Central"? 

message: so im making one... --Xali (talk) 03:00, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  theres no 'components' section