1. GSBUG Hardware Info SIG May 8, 2003

2. 2 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Agenda – May 8, 2003 7:00 – 7:05 Administration 7:05 – 8:15 Featured Topic – System RAM plus Motherboard Features Beyond Core Logic (Chipsets): 2003 Update 8:15 – 8:30 Hardware News 8:30 – 8:55 Random Access (Q&A) 8:55 – 9:00 Recap, Preview, and Close

3. May 8, 20033 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Administration Welcome! Please Sign In. What the SIG is…and is not. Is – an information resource for computer users and potential computer users Is NOT – a way to get your computer built or repaired (contact the GSBUG Daytime Hardware SIG) Log – Random Access/Q&A (First Come…)

4. May 8, 20034 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Administration (continued): Presentation materials will be posted at: http://gsbug.apcug.org/hwinfosig.htm Prior presentation materials are also posted.

5. May 8, 20035 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG System RAM: 2003 Update “System RAM” – the off-processor (off-processor- module), random access memory (RAM) used to store instructions and data. “DRAM” – dynamic RAM (only retains data when power is applied/refreshed) Primary types: SDRAM (synchronous DRAM) RDRAM (Rambus DRAM) or DRDRAM (Direct Rambus DRAM)

6. May 8, 20036 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG System RAM: 2003 Update (continued) CAS Latency (CL) – definition per Crucial Technology (division of Micron): “The amount of time in nanoseconds (often measured in clock cycles) between a request to read the memory, and when it is actually output. SDRAMs are typically referred to as CL 2 or CL 3, with CL 2 parts being faster.” Today, frequently also CL 2.5 Unbuffered vs Registered vs Registered ECC – consult your motherboard manual for what you need. For the curious, see http://www.crucial.com/library/glossary.asp

7. May 8, 20037 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG System RAM: 2003 Update (continued) SDRAM All types have a 64-bit wide data path SDR (single data rate) SDRAM PC100 (seldom seen today) - 100MHz PC133 (used with older desktops & servers) - 133MHz Supported by all the current SDR SDRAM chipsets 168-pin DIMM (dual in-line memory module)

8. May 8, 20038 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG System RAM: 2003 Update (continued) SDRAM (continued) DDR (double data rate) SDRAM PC1600 (DDR200) - 100/200MHz PC2100 (DDR266) - 133/266MHz PC2700 (DDR333) - 166/333MHz PC3200 (DDR400) - 200/400MHz Requires corresponding chipset support – see last presentation (on Core Logic/Chipsets); varies by chipset 184-pin DIMM

9. May 8, 20039 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG System RAM: 2003 Update (continued) RDRAM 16-bit wide data path Two speed grades (current): PC800 - 800MHz PC1066 - 1066MHz PC1200 (1200MHz) announced 184-pin RIMMs (Rambus In-Line Memory Modules) Requires “Continuity RIMM (CRIMM)” in empty sockets

10. May 8, 200310 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG System RAM: 2003 Update (continued) RDRAM (continued) Compatible chipsets – currently only Intel 850, 850E and 860, SiS R658 (SiS R659 announced) Installed in pairs (dual channel) NOW priced at roughly 2x the cost of quality DDR400 Performance – depending on the configuration and application, may be faster than other forms of DRAM

11. May 8, 200311 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG System RAM: 2003 Update (continued) Memory bandwidth: pipe width (in bytes) x speed (in MHz) x number of channels = memory bandwidth (in GB/sec) “speed” is “effective speed”; e.g., 100MHz SDR, 200MHz DDR (both on a 100MHz clock) Example: PC2100 DDR SDRAM 8 bytes x 266MHz (133MHz DDR) x 1 channel = 2128MB/sec (2.1GB/sec)

12. May 8, 200312 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG System RAM: 2003 Update (continued) Memory bandwidth (continued): Current system memory product implementations: PC100 SDR SDRAM0.8GB/sec PC133 SDR SDRAM1.06GB/sec PC1600 DDR SDRAM (DDR200)1.6GB/sec PC2100 DDR SDRAM (DDR266)2.1GB/sec PC2700 DDR SDRAM (DDR333)2.7GB/sec PC3200 DDR SDRAM (DDR400)3.2GB/sec PC800 RDRAM (dual channel)3.2GB/sec [PC800 RDRAM = 2 bytes x 800MHz x 2 channels]

13. May 8, 200313 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG System RAM: 2003 Update (continued) Memory bandwidth (continued): Current system memory product implementations (cont.): PC2100 DDR SDRAM (DDR266, dual channel)4.3GB/sec PC1066 RDRAM (dual channel)4.3GB/sec PC3200 DDR SDRAM (DDR400, dual channel)6.4GB/sec Coming system memory product implementations: “Quad channel” PC1200 RDRAM (Fall ’03) 9.6GB/sec

14. May 8, 200314 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG System RAM: 2003 Update (continued) Major Memory (Chip) Manufacturers Elpida (Japan) Hynix (Korea) Infineon (Germany) Micron (USA) Mosel Vitelic/ProMOS (Taiwan) Nanya (Taiwan) Samsung (Korea) Winbond (Taiwan) All www.companyname.comwww.companyname.com

15. May 8, 200315 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Other Motherboard Features: 2003 Update Processor Sockets AMD Socket A (462-pin) – supports Athlon, Athlon XP, Duron, and Athlon MP Socket 940 – supports Opteron Intel Socket 370 – supports Celeron (P3 core) and Pentium III S Socket 423 – supports 423-pin Pentium 4 (earliest) Socket 478 – supports 478-pin Celeron (P4 core) & P4 (latest) Socket 603/604 – supports Xeon and Xeon MP VIA Socket 370 – supports C3

16. May 8, 200316 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Other Motherboard Features: 2003 Upd (cont.) “ Slots” AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) 32-bits wide, capable (depending on the AGP spec) of 66MHz(1X) to 533MHz(8X) 264MB/sec (1X) to 2.1GB/sec (8X) transfer rate Video cards only Signaling voltage varies by spec – 1.5V (AGP 2.0, AGP 1X-4X), 0.8V (AGP 3.0, AGP 4X-8X); both use same physical socket Also AGP Pro50 and Pro110 (higher wattage for workstations) Brown connector www.agpforum.org

17. May 8, 200317 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Other Motherboard Features: 2003 Upd (cont.) “Slots” (continued) PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) - typical 32-bits wide, capable of 33MHz (desktop) 132MB/sec transfer rate (desktop) Used for HDCs, sound cards, modems, NICs, and older video cards; various specialty adapters (USB 2.0, IEEE-1394, second parallel, etc.) White connector www.pcisig.org

18. May 8, 200318 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Other Motherboard Features: 2003 Upd (cont.) “Slots” (continued) PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) - other 32-bits wide, 66MHz (desktop/server); 64-bit wide, 33 or 66MHz (workstations and servers) Up to 528MB/sec Used for HDCs, NICs, and some specialty adapters PCI-X (some workstations and most servers) Spec 1.0 - 64-bit wide, up to 133MHz (up to 1.06GB/sec) Spec 2.0 - 64-bit wide, up to 533MHz (up to 4.3GB/sec) PCI Express – coming in 2004 (possibly late 2003) 0.8V, 2.5GHz, up to 16GB/sec transfer – to replace AGP 8X +

19. May 8, 200319 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Other Motherboard Features: 2003 Upd (cont.) “Ports” Serial (1 or 2 ports typ) Parallel (ECP/EPP; 1 port typ) PS/2 (2 ports – keyboard and mouse)

20. May 8, 200320 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Other Motherboard Features: 2003 Upd (cont.) “Ports” (continued) USB (Universal Serial Bus) – chipset dependant Three speeds: Low speed = 1.5Mb/sec (.187MB/sec) – USB 1.1 Full speed = 12Mb/sec (1.5MB/sec) – USB 1.1 High speed = 480 Mb/sec (60MB/sec) – USB 2.0 Attach up to 127 devices – including mice, keyboards, cameras, printers, ZIPs, some HDDs, etc. Number of ports varies – min 2. Combos of USB 1.1 and 2.0. For “outside the box” devices

21. May 8, 200321 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Other Motherboard Features: 2003 Upd (cont.) “Ports” (continued) Audio (sound “card”, down) – line in, line out, mic, joy stick (MIDI port), plus Video (for video “card”, down) NIC (network interface “card”, down) Typically “10/100” (Mb/sec) IEEE 1394a (“FireWire”/Apple, “iLink”/Sony) Today provides a maximum 400Mb/sec (50MB/sec) transfer rate (1394-1995). For “outside the box” devices. Typically used to connect digital video cameras, HDDs.

22. May 8, 200322 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Other Motherboard Features: 2003 Upd (cont.) Other Interfaces, Misc. Internal data cable connectors – floppy, IDE, SCSI USB and IEEE-1394 header(s) IrDA (infrared) header CD-ROM (audio interface) – 1 or 2 Wake-on-LAN Modem (audio for voice modem) Fan headers

23. May 8, 200323 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Other Motherboard Features: 2003 Upd (cont.) Other Interfaces, Misc. (continued) Panel lights (power, HDD activity, sleep) & switches (power, reset, sleep) Jumpers and/or DIP switches (CMOS clear/flash, CPU multiplier, CPU voltage, bus speeds, keyboard power-on, suspend-to-RAM, etc.) Power (ATX, ATX12V, WTX, proprietary) Show-and-Tell

24. May 8, 200324 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Hardware News Processors AMD formally released the AMD Opteron – first x86-64 (AMD64) processor; models 240 (1.4GHz), 242 (1.6GHz), and 244 (1.8GHz) for 1-way and 2-way servers and workstations; 128K L1 cache; 1MB exclusive L2 cache; integrated dual-channel memory controller (5.3GB/sec/CPU using PC2700/DDR333 SDRAM); able to directly address up to 1 terabyte of RAM; FSB = processor clock speed; three 16x16-bit HyperTransport links (6.4GB/sec per link);.13 micron SOI (silicon on insulator) technology; supports SSE2; 940-pin package with heat spreader

25. May 8, 200325 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Hardware News (continued) Processors (continued) AMD released the Athlon MP 2800+ – 2.133GHz, Barton core, 512K L2, 266MHz FSB (no faster chipset support) Core Logic (chipsets) AMD formally released the AMD-8131 PCI-X Tunnel, AMD-8151 AGP Graphics Tunnel (AGP 8X), and the AMD-8111 I/O Hub support chipset for its just-released AMD Opteron processor NVIDIA announced the nForce3 Pro chipset for AMD Opteron workstations – single chip; AGP 8X; IDE RAID support (both PATA and SATA); integrated NIC

26. May 8, 200326 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Hardware News (continued) Core Logic (chipsets) (continued) SiS announced the SiS655 for Intel Pentium 4 – a dual channel memory controller version of the SiS648; supports up to DDR333 VIA announced the UniChrome KM400 chipset (VT8378 Northbridge w/ VT8235CE or VT8237 Southbridge) for AMD Athlon – includes integrated UniChrome 2D/3D graphics processor (AGP 8X); supports DDR400 SDRAM; SATA RAID support w/ VT8237 VIA announced the K8T400M chipset for AMD Opteron – AGP 8X “Northbridge” with high-speed interface to the VT8237 Southbridge

27. May 8, 200327 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Hardware News (continued) System RAM – nothing new Motherboards MSI released the K8D Master (MS-9131) server motherboard for dual AMD Opteron processors. ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI and several others introduce Intel 875P-chipset-based Pentium 4 motherboards. Graphics Processors & Cards 3Dlabs announced the Wildcat VP880 Pro workstation video card – 256MB RAM, AGP 8X, ESP of $499.

28. May 8, 200328 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Hardware News (continued) Graphics Processors & Cards (continued) Matrox announced the Millennium P-series of video cards based on the Parhelia-LX processor – initially released the Millennium P650 ( 2 head) and Millennium P750 (3 head) cards. Both have 64MB RAM and are AGP 8X. Intended for video editing. These are low priced derivatives of the Parhelia. Hard Drives – nothing new

29. May 8, 200329 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Hardware News (continued) Hard Drive Controllers Promise released the “FastTrak S150 TX4” SATA RAID card – supports 4 drives, RAID 0, 1, and 0+1. Other Drives Plextor released the PlexWriter Premium 52x32x52 CD- RW (ATAPI) w/ GigaRec (store up to 1GB data on 700MB media – not readable on other drives).

30. May 8, 200330 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Hardware News (continued) Sound processors & cards – nothing new Modems & NICs – nothing new Chassis & power supplies – nothing new

31. May 8, 200331 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Random Access

32. May 8, 200332 GSBUG Hardware Info SIG Recap, Preview, and Close Recap Preview Featured Topic for June 12, 2003 – Hard Drives and “Floppies”: 2003 Update Close (please police up the area)