Chapter 3 Processing
Maran Illustrated Computers
Front Side Bus
• Front side bus demo
• http://www.intel.com/technology/product/de
mos/fsb/demo.htm
Matched processor and RAM ratings
Processor Model
Front Side
Bus
DDR, DDR2 or DDR3 rating
Memory channels
Bandwidth
T5200, T5300, U7n00
533 MT/s
PC2-4200 (DDR2-533)
Single channel
4.267 GB/s
T5n00, T5n50, T7n00, L7200,
L7400
667 MT/s
PC2-5300 (DDR2-667)
Single channel
5.333 GB/s
PC3200 (DDR400) or PC2-3200
(DDR2-400)
Dual channel
6.400 GB/s
PC2-6400 (DDR2-800)
Single channel
6.400 GB/s
PC3200 (DDR400) or PC2-3200
(DDR2-400)
Dual channel
6.400 GB/s
PC2-6400 (DDR2-800)
Single channel
6.400 GB/s
PC2-4200 (DDR2-533)
Dual channel
8.533 GB/s
PC2-8500 (DDR2-1066)
Single channel
8.533 GB/s
PC3-8500 (DDR3-1066)
Single channel
8.533 GB/s
PC2-5300 (DDR2-667)
Dual channel
10.667 GB/s
PC3-10600 (DDR3-1333)
Single channel
10.667 GB/s
T5n70, Socket P T7n00, L7300,
L7500, X7n00
E4n00/Pentium E21n0/Celeron
4n0
E6n00, E6n20, X6n00, Q6n00 and
QX6n00
E6n40, E6n50, QX6n50
800 MT/s
800 MT/s
1066 MT/s
1333 MT/s
Why doesn't my Windows® PC recognize the whole 4GB of memory I installed?
The maximum amount of memory that your system can use is actually limited in two
ways — not only is there a maximum amount of memory that your computer
motherboard can accept, there is also a maximum amount of memory that your
operating system (OS) can accept.
For instance, when you install 4GB of memory in a 32-bit Windows system (the most
common version; 64-bit systems are typically used only by high-end users), your system
will see (and utilize) only 3GB or 3.5GB. Is the problem bad memory?
Relax, there isn't a problem with the memory. Windows allows for 4GB of memory to be
addressed, but this isn't 100 percent the same as having 4GB of physical memory.
What happens is that some of the addressable memory (regardless of how much you
have physically installed) is reserved for use by page files or by some of the devices that
you are using, such as a graphics card, PCI card, integrated network connections, etc.,
so it's unavailable for use as normal main memory.
The amount of memory needed for these devices is calculated by your system at
startup; if you haven't maxed out the memory in your system, it's invisible to you, and all
your physical memory (the RAM that's installed) is available for use. However if you've
maxed out the DRAM in your system, this amount will be deducted from your physical
memory, so you can't use 100% of your DRAM.
The maximum memory limitation varies by operating system; for
instance, the 4GB memory limitation doesn't exist in 64-bit versions of
Windows.
Memory maximums for current Microsoft® Windows OSs include:
Windows XP Home: 4GB
Windows XP Professional: 4GB
Windows XP 32-bit: 4GB
Windows XP 64-bit: 128GB
Windows Vista Home Basic: 4GB
Windows Vista Home Basic 64-bit: 8GB
Windows Vista Home Premium: 4GB
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit: 16GB
Windows Vista Ultimate: 4GB
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit: 128GB+
Windows Vista 32-bit: 4GB
Windows Vista 64-bit: 128GB+
Windows 7: next generation 32-bit and 64-bit versions available
The next two slides are from a technical post by a homebrew artist
I've spent a lot of time on this issue over the last 6 months or so. I have things working
for the most part. Here are some of the facts I've been able to collect during my
troubleshooting:
1) Of course, 32-bit operating systems won't recognize more than 2.75 - 3.25 GB RAM you have no choice but to upgrade to a 64-bit O/S.
2) Motherboards older than about a year are a toss-up as to whether they'll work with 4
GB RAM or not. Some will, some won't. Higher-end boards do better than entry-level or
mid-range boards. It has more to do with how the motherboard has been designed and
what the BIOS does than it has to do with Microsoft's programming. There are similar
issues with Linux operating systems.
3) Anything above 3 GB RAM conflicts with the PCI-Express video card memory address
space. That's the way boards have been designed for years to make everything
compatible. If your motherboard/BIOS supports memory remapping, then you have a
good chance at making this work. If it doesn't, don't look for software patches - there's
not much you can do. The PAE switches for Windows are very, very unlikely to
work! Buy a new motherboard (sorry). If your BIOS doesn't count to 4 GB, then you
might as well stop there - again, no software patches will fix the way your motherboard
and BIOS have been designed.
4) Most motherboards (except the higher-end ones) don't work well with all 4 memory
slots populated. Most often, you have to bump down the speed of the memory. For
example, if you are using DDR2-800 memory (which is still considered an overclock for
a lot of the motherboards out there), you have to bump it down to DDR2-667 or even
DDR2-533. If you want to run at a higher speed with all 4 slots populated, buy a new,
expensive motherboard (sorry again).
5) If you're running 4 GB RAM and have an nVidia SLI video card configuration (prior to
the 8600/8800 series), you're going to have problems. There seems to be a conflict
(remembering that video card address space conflicts with the 4 GB RAM range). This
does appear to be fix-able via nVidia driver updates. I finally got this working by using a
little-advertised nVidia beta driver version 160.03. Guru3D has this driver, but nVidia
doesn't advertise it at all. Eventually, I expect that the upcoming nVidia drivers will fix
these problems.
I have had success with the eVGA 680i motherboard with 4 GB RAM (OCZ Platinum
4x1GB DDR2-800). I can also get the ASUS P5N-E SLI board to work IF I underclock
the memory to 667 MHz.
Generally, nobody wants to admit they are having some serious problems with 4 GB
RAM - it seems that nobody was expecting so many people to upgrade to 4 GB RAM so
early, but with Vista...it's becoming a requirement for any enthusiasts. You won't likely
see motherboard manufacturers admit that their boards won't handle 4 GB RAM - they'll
blame it on MS or on the type of memory you have, but in my experience, it's always the
board and its BIOS.
Virtual memory is a common part of most operating systems on
desktop computers. It has become so common because it provides a
big benefit for users at a very low cost.
For example, most computers today have something like 512
megabytes to 2 gigabytes of RAM available for the CPU to use.
Unfortunately, that amount of RAM is not enough to run all of the
programs that many users expect to run at the same time.
If a user loads the operating system, an e-mail program, a Web
browser, a word processor, five sessions of the Internet, and a
DirectX 9 game into RAM simultaneously, 512 megabytes may not be
enough to hold it all. If there were no such thing as virtual memory,
then once you filled up the available RAM your computer would have
to say, "Sorry, you can not load any more applications. Please close
another application to load a new one." With virtual memory, what the
computer can do is look at RAM for areas that have not been used
recently and copy them onto the hard disk. This frees up space in
RAM to load the new application.
Because this copying happens automatically, you don't even
know it is happening, and it makes your computer feel like is
has unlimited RAM space even though it only has 512
megabytes installed. Because hard disk space is so much
cheaper than RAM chips, it also has a nice economic benefit.
The read/write speed of a hard drive is much slower than
RAM, and the technology of a hard drive is not geared toward
accessing small pieces of data at a time. If your system has to
rely too heavily on virtual memory, you will notice a significant
performance drop. The key is to have enough RAM to handle
everything you tend to work on simultaneously -- then, the only
time you "feel" the slowness of virtual memory is when there's
a slight pause when you're changing tasks. When that's the
case, virtual memory is perfect
When it is not the case, the operating system has to
constantly swap information back and forth between
RAM and the hard disk. This is called thrashing, and
it can make your computer feel incredibly slow.
The area of the hard disk that stores the RAM image
is called a page file. It holds pages of RAM on the
hard disk, and the operating system moves data
back and forth between the page file and RAM. On a
Windows machine, page files have a .SWP
extension.
CPU
• CPU – wikipedia reference
• Check out the following URL
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Processi
ng_unit
Integrated Circuit (IC)
Intel CPU
Dual CPU Core Chip
8-core Xeon Processor
Intel's Boyd Davis holds up an Intel 8-core Nehalem-EX
processor
Mulit-core Server demo
• http://www.intel.com/business/resources/de
mos/xeon5500/demo.htm
• The above demo shows multi-core processors
in action.
• Should watch.
Processor Competitive
Comparison
AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 and
AMD Athlon™ X2 DualCore Processors
AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 and AMD Athlon™ X2
Dual-Core Processor
Intel Core 2
Duo Processor
socket AM2
Socket LGA 775
Process Technology
90 nanometer, SOI (silicon on insulator)
65 nanometer, SOI (silicon on insulator)
65 nanometer
Number of Transistors
90nm: 164 to 243 million (depending on
cache size) 65nm: 221 million
291 million
64-bit Instruction Set
Support
Yes, AMD64 Technology
Yes, EM64T
Yes
Yes, Execute
Disable Bit
Infrastructure
Enhanced Virus
Protection*
System Bus Technology
HyperTransport™ technology up to 2000MHz, Front Side Bus up
full duplex
to 1066 MHz,
Half duplex
Integrated Memory
Controller
128-bit + 16-bit ECC unbuffered PC2
No, Discrete logic
6400(DDR2-800), PC2 5300(DDR2-667), PC2
device on
4200(DDR2-533), PC2 3200(DDR2-400)
motherboard
Total Processor-toSystem Bandwidth
HyperTransport technology: up to 8.0 GB/s
Memory bandwidth: up to 12.8 GB/s
Total: up to 20.8 GB/s
Total: up to 17.0
GB/s
3D & Multimedia
instructions
3DNow!™ technology, SSE, SSE2, SSE3
SSE, SSE2, SSE3
Chipset support
NVIDIA: Nforce Series chipsets
ATI: Radeon Xpress Series chipsets
VIA: K8 Series chipsets
SiS: 75x Series chipsets or greater
Intel: 975, 965,
963, 946
NVIDIA: Nforce
Series chipsets
45W, 65W, 89W, or 125W
65W or 95W
Total Designed Power
(TDP)
Intel i Family of CPUs
• A new family of Intel processors introduced in 2009
• Initial release is i7 processor – the high end
processor
• Demo
http://www.intel.com/in/irdonline/video_corei7.htm
• http://www.intel.com/products/processor/corei7ee/
index.htm
• Next released is the i5 the mid range processor
• Future is i3 the lower end processor
This is the link to the Intel CPU part
numbering page for the Core 2 Duo
processors
http://www.intel.com/products/processor_
number/chart/core2duo.htm
AMD’s CPU numbering system is a little shorter, until
you get to the Opteron (server) series.
http://products.amd.com/enus/DesktopCPUSideBySide.aspx?id=69&id=70
CPU
Expansion
Slots
Bus
RAM
memory