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193 Comments
- dubloe7, on 04/16/2008, -4/+105'scientists figure out that optical is faster than electrical'
are you kidding me? thats like 'scientists figure out steel is harder than styrofoam' - Smaulz, on 04/16/2008, -6/+96Insert obligatory "Crysis" meme here.
- travis6690, on 04/16/2008, -4/+55No. NOTHING RUNS CRYSIS.
- nominalgeek, on 04/16/2008, -0/+37It's called heat.
- CC440, on 04/16/2008, -1/+37300ghz should be enough to run it without any graphics processing.
- chanop, on 04/16/2008, -10/+40but, does it run Crysis?
- skeen07, on 04/16/2008, -8/+36want
- Spuy767, on 04/16/2008, -0/+20Sorry, what I said is confusing, transmitting via optical circuits is generally faster, but that is irrelavent to the point here. The problem with electrical components in previous high ghz machines was excess heat causing efficiency to drop exponentially at higher speeds. Without the heating problem, processor speed could be ramped up indefinitely.
- Lapper, on 04/16/2008, -2/+22Yeah, and these will be on the market... when? We seem to be stuck in the low single digits of gigahertz.
- inactive, on 04/16/2008, -1/+20They are underestimating the power of Crysis.
- wbienek, on 04/16/2008, -0/+19Its just the writer thats a fool.. Scientists have known this, but not now to actually use it (light) in a meaningful way
- Zaggynl, on 04/16/2008, -0/+19It will run Crysis.
But will it run Crysis 2? - renegadeafk, on 04/16/2008, -3/+21Crysis
- ChefAnubis, on 04/16/2008, -0/+18yeah right, you obviously dont know the folks over at crytek
- Pete0430, on 04/16/2008, -1/+17Heat. With current processors (for example my QX6700 quad core) with multicores (imagine a quad as two dual cores strapped together with a very fast bus (or wire) line between them), heat his a huge problem. If you dont want to melt the processor one u-second are boot, then you're going to need some amazing cooling to pass even the 6 to 8 ghz range, let alone 300 ghz
- renegadeafk, on 04/16/2008, -2/+18They're busy tightening up the graphics.
- renegadeafk, on 04/16/2008, -0/+13heat
- Lokke, on 04/16/2008, -0/+12Several reasons, and while heat is an issue, its not the only one. Switching a transistor takes relatively large amounts of energy, which is expended as heat. Furthermore, transistors can only switch so fast, as they also act like a capacitor. Therefore to switch on and off any faster you need more voltage, and that increases your current which increases your heat.
Beyond heat you also noise. High frequencies and close wires causes noise. Finally, I believe wires have a capacitor or inductor effect with high frequencies which can be a bit of an issue as well. - shockingbird, on 04/16/2008, -2/+13How about putting all that effort into an operating system that doesn't hog 90% of my resources.
- dubloe7, on 04/16/2008, -1/+12moore's law deals with transistor density. i don't think the article said anything about transistor density.
- KraftDinner101, on 04/16/2008, -1/+12They've developed a prototype. Mass producing prototypes is not economically viable. Now when you said, "they have the technology to make it a few hundred Mhz faster with each release", that's not technically true anymore. Because they've shrunk the size of a processor so small (smaller means faster, essentially) they can't go any smaller electrically because the electrons physically jump from one circuit to another. This is very bad and simply will not work. But since they developed a way to use optical circuits (The use of light pulses instead of electrons, which is much, much faster) They're able to make a huge leap in the speed of the processor without fear of electron jumping. So they may be able to develop this type of processor even further for say a 900 Ghz processor, but remember, this is a first prototype and it's a huge breakthrough, IMO; If they can mass produce them effectively.
- NoCt1, on 04/16/2008, -1/+11I know right.. I have seen these for a while.. oh we hit 10ghz now we are at 300ghz.. Ok.. Then why is my duo at 2.6? for over 250$ if your lucky?
- boxlight, on 04/16/2008, -2/+12When they do all that fast processing, the little conduits heat up. You can overclock you existing CPU to double it's speed by just switching a couple voltage settings, but it will burn out in 5 minutes due to excessive heat. Much like running a car's engine into the red zone. To make faster processors, then figure out how to put in bigger pipes, or they figure out how to get it to run cooler. This takes research and innovation, and it happens over time. I have not read the article, but from the headline it sounds like they can get to 300GHz if they use optical circuits instead of electric circuits -- less heat.
- Dylson, on 04/16/2008, -0/+9You could probably squeeze out about 45 frames per second if you look at the ground.
- knowitman, on 04/16/2008, -0/+8Metal atoms are arranged in a crystal structure. We already use crystals.
- eekthekat, on 04/16/2008, -6/+14It's called Windows and I believe they are delve loping a special new resource hog edition as we speak.
- travis6690, on 04/16/2008, -3/+11Vista came out already.
- groumpf, on 04/16/2008, -0/+8What about climatology, meteorology and all these things that need huge amounts of numerical computations? That's just some examples. You can also go for symbolic computation, such as program verification/proof that could definitely use a 'bit' more speed and are useful domains, provided you're interested in not falling from the sky when you're flying across the world. But yeah, maybe you're right, nobody as an individual needs one of these right now... but it's not like anybody as an individual could afford to buy it and keep it running, anyway.
- inactive, on 04/16/2008, -1/+9What's the deal with morons on Digg, claiming to be THE one to debunk a scientific principle (which they usually don't even understand), and summing it up with "fail".
- rlbond86, on 04/16/2008, -0/+7The problem with optical logic is that, at the moment, there is no way to use a signal buffer without generating a new photon. In CMOS logic, input voltages to a logic gate are tied to the gate of a MOSFET, and theoretically, no current flows through the gate of a MOSFET. The output signal is taken directly from ground or the 5V rail, meaning that even if an input is 0.5 V (a somewhat "dirty" signal), a clean 0 or 5 volt signal will still come out.
But, for optical logic, if a dirty signal comes in, a dirty signal will still come out. So, for the complex logic of an optical processor, signal degradation is still a huge problem. If someone could solve this problem, without reading the photon's state, and outputting a new photon, which requires a large assembly and is comparatively slow, optical processors will have a huge future. They have optical logic gates, but you can't put more than a few together; and if you know how a processor is built, you would know that there are huge numbers of logical blocks inside even the simplest PC processor. - Ibox, on 04/16/2008, -0/+7FTA:
“All we’ve done is made the wires” for terahertz circuits, Nahata says. “Now the issue is how do we make devices [such as switches, transistors and modulators] at terahertz frequencies"” - blitzkriegpunk, on 04/16/2008, -0/+7This calls for more tumbling barrel and box videos.
- RyanHCO, on 04/16/2008, -6/+13I'm not a huge tech person, so can someone explain to me why the engineers don't just make a ridiculously fast processor now? Like they have the technology to make it a few hundred Mhz faster with each release, why don't they just go all out and make one uberfast? They developed 300 GHz circuits, why don't they do exactly what they just did, except double or triple it and make one that's 900 GHz? Obviously there's a reason they don't, but what is it?
- KraftDinner101, on 04/16/2008, -2/+9No need to be rude.
- inactive, on 04/16/2008, -0/+7But you still HAVE the 2 GHz processor, even though you don't use more than the equivalent of a Pentium III 866. Why did you buy it?
- KraftDinner101, on 04/16/2008, -0/+7If we didn't need 300Ghz processors then my and the other 200 institutions wouldn't have million dollar racks of 1,000's of processors each (called Sharcnet(sic), I beleve) all networked together to run applications that otherwise would take a very long time to complete (probably years).
- umerok, on 04/16/2008, -0/+6on medium settings
- nominalgeek, on 04/16/2008, -0/+6I thought thats what digg was about? Being extremely uninformed about topics you are comment to or extremely rude to people extremely uninformed about topics you/they are commenting to.
- pak314, on 04/16/2008, -0/+6300 GHz speed will bring about a more fundamental issue of the speed of light and the time it takes for a signal to propagate from one point in a chip to another. Already at 1 GHz and higher range CPUs have to be designed with pipeline stages just for signals to propagate. 1 GHz is equal to 1 ns. 300 GHz is equal to 3 ps. This connectivity issue will make it harder to make an arbitrary circuit which can be clocked at 300 GHz.
- bryxal, on 04/16/2008, -0/+6http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law
Please read as you seem to fail to understand the underlying principle. - mtekk, on 04/16/2008, -0/+6More like just a burnt finger, a modern processor will shutoff if it is about to overheat.
- RussellDovey, on 04/16/2008, -0/+5...at 640x480.
- itsmattgw, on 04/16/2008, -2/+7great advancement in science; now my computer won't run choppy when I open multiple porn videos
- Ibox, on 04/16/2008, -0/+5Linux?
- jordn, on 04/16/2008, -0/+5in 256 colours.
- inactive, on 04/16/2008, -0/+5Sarcasam fool? I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that type of fool.
- Ibox, on 04/16/2008, -0/+5Turn the power off to your computer, Take the cooling fan and cooling fins off the processor, put your finger on the top of the processor, and turn the computer back on... you will then have your answer...( burnt finger and a destroyed computer.)
- Ibox, on 04/16/2008, -0/+5are you planning on reading the article of something?
- mitch37, on 04/16/2008, -2/+7Or just engrave 0's and 1's in stone. Rewritable with wet cement.
- thwoom, on 04/16/2008, -1/+5so many things about this reply are wrong
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