Talk:Central processing unit/Archive 1
Note: The below comments generally refer to this article before it was totally rewritten; they are largely irrelevant to the article as it exists today. -- uberpenguin 05:28, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Case contents vs. CPU
From the entry: "Manufacturers and retailers of desktop computers often erroneously describe the computer case and its contents as the CPU which is misleading."
My question (and consider mentioning this in the entry): What then is the best terminology for the case and contents? Seems to me "PC usually means the case, contents, monitor, kbd, mouse etc" Saying just "case" sounds like I mean the empty case. How should we call that *THING*, (case with all contents fully assembled)? (i.e. PC minus monitor and peripherals) What?? Glueball 07:03, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- I call the "CPU" the computer if I'm talking about parts, and I call the whole system the computer if I'm just talking about it in general. It depends on the context. Paul Cyr
I use computer and sometimes PC to refer to the case and contents and occasionally use computer system to refer to the computer plus peripherals. This seems to be in line with most literature, as well.
There are many people who will think that you are talking about the monitor when you say computer, and will say hard drive when talking about the computer. ~~
It may be a good idea to have a computer glossary page for common components, which the various computer-related articles can link to. It's frustrating to tell a user the hard drive died, and they start thinking in he hundreds of dollars, or worse yet (barely), you can't seem to get across to them that their data is gone. A glossary would an easy way to help ensure that everyone is on the same sheet of music, so to speak.
If no one else starts such a page, and one doesn't already exist, I'll see about doing it in the next few days. It would be useful as a gateway page for other computer-related articles. --Scott. 07:11, 2004 Feb 9 (UTC)
See this page, it lists the components of a computer case. Computer_hardware --Scott. 06:03, 2004 Feb 10 (UTC)
Multicore processor
The article states: IBM, SUN, AMD and Intel have started to push the idea of a future and somewhat controversial architecture: a multicore processor (mostly a dual-core processor).
I just attended a presentation by AMD in which they claimed to be releasing dual-core processors in the second half of this year. Perhaps this sentence should not, therefore, make it sound like it's so far away. Does anyone agree? --202.74.200.242 10:59, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- Multicore ICs have been around for several years; for example, IBM's POWER architecture has used a multicore design since POWER4. The statement you referenced is a bit too PC-centric, I'll edit it to something more appropriate. -- uberpenguin 00:53, 2005 Apr 18 (UTC)
bytes per second?
What would be the formula to calculate the megabytes/second processed in a 500 MHz 32-bit processor, considering the IPC is constant at 1?
MBps = (500 * 1000000 * 32) / 8)) / 1024000 ?
Does this look about right?
- Mebibytes per second is a measurement of bandwidth, and a very limited one these days. It's difficult to impossible to measure CPU performance in "bytes per second" because it does not simply transmit and receive data. Some traditional benchmarks have been MIPS and FLOPS, though these too are very limited metrics when you consider the high amount of TLP, ILP, and vector capabilities in a modern "general purpose" processor. -- uberpenguin 03:06, 2005 Jun 6 (UTC)
Cleanup
The links section is in need of revision. Some of the links there are irrevelant and/or repeated. --cheese-cube 11:50, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
Did some link cleaning up today but the article still needs a serious rewrite. MansonP 12:34, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
Merger
Regarding the proposed merger of the articles "Central processing unit" and "Microprocessor": The terms "Processor" and "Central processing unit" are more general, while "Microprocessor" refers only to CPUs that fit on one integrated circuit chip, thus excluding all computers where processing is distributed among more than one component, i.e., all earlier computers, and some later ones.
I've done some preliminary work on this user subpage of mine. Work is still undergoing though and it's far from complete.
Anyone care to load it up, tell me what you think, maybe make a few changes to it? Leave any comments on my user talk. Thanks.
Also, we'll need to decide if we do go ahead with the merger which page to keep and which to change to a #redirect..
splintax 14:47, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
- I personally oppose merging CPU with microprocessor. CPUs existed before ICs. Ancheta Wis 16:35, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
- Correct, but I think the article would actually be more informative if we discuss pre-IC and IC CPUs in the same article. --R.Koot 17:37, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
- Agree with Ancheta Wis totally. In its current form the CPU article sucks because incorrectly assumes that the only CPUs in existence are digital, binary, electronic, Von Neumann architectures. I've started to make some edits to correct this and hope to turn this into a respectible CPU article sometime soon. However, this should DEFINITELY stay separate from the microprocessor article (which is largely a catalogue of microprocessor designs anyway; perhaps it should be renamed accordingly). -- uberpenguin 12:59, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
Merging CPU and Microprocessor is not a good idea. They're quite distinct subjects, with lots to be said about each. -R. S. Shaw 00:27, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I also emphatically agree: the topics are distinct and should remain so. While many people do sometimes refer to a microprocessor as a CPU, the CPU predated the microprocessor. To my understanding, the central processing unit (CPU) refers to the processor (miro or otherwise) together with memory (not storage), support circuitry, bus, and perhaps the interfaces to IO devices and other peripherals—essentially the contents of the typical cabinet that contains the processor (from mainframes to PCs). Finell 09:44, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with merging CPU and Microprocessor. CPU an microprocessor are two different categories. Current microprocessors include not only a CPU but one to three cache memory levels; in some cases (AMD Opteron or the proposed Alpha EV7) even integrate the memory controller. Dual core (e.g. IBM Power5 or Itanium Montecito) and multi core microprocessors have more than one core. Today superescalar or multithreaded cores include the CPU plus split instruction and data caches and bank prediction stuff that makes up what we call the first cache level, and can be considered as functional units fully integrated in the CPU datapah, actually.Briz 10:25, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Merge is a bad idea since CPU and microprocessor aren't the same thing. I'm removing the {{mergedisputed}} tag. Quale 08:38, 10 October 2005 (UTC)