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I’m looking for advice on buying a laptop that I can use for PovRay-ing.
The only caveats I have is that it must be lightish (<2.5 kg) and powerful.
I won’t mention money as I’m working ATM.
Any suggestions?
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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Stephen escreveu:
> I’m looking for advice on buying a laptop that I can use for PovRay-ing.
> The only caveats I have is that it must be lightish (<2.5 kg) and powerful.
> I won’t mention money as I’m working ATM.
> Any suggestions?
I believe any laptop these days is more powerful than my desktop. :p
certainly far more powerful than what you had when you first went poving...
In any case, I think having multicore is a must...
--
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9
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nemesis <nam### [at] gmail com> wrote:
> I believe any laptop these days is more powerful than my desktop. :p
But probably not as powerful as an equivalent desktop PC.
I haven't really followed CPU design all that much, but I have the notion
that laptops use special versions of desktop CPUs which consume less power
and need less ventilation (because that's kind of mandatory in a laptop)
at the cost of being less efficient than the desktop counterpart of the
same CPU.
Of course that doesn't mean that the fastest laptop CPU today isn't faster
than the fastest desktop CPU of 5 years ago.
--
- Warp
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On 05/11/2010 07:11 PM, Warp wrote:
> I haven't really followed CPU design all that much, but I have the notion
> that laptops use special versions of desktop CPUs which consume less power
> and need less ventilation (because that's kind of mandatory in a laptop)
> at the cost of being less efficient than the desktop counterpart of the
> same CPU.
Yeah, laptops have several conflicting design constraints. Users want
the fastest, most powerful CPU and the biggest baddest GPU and stacks of
RAM and the fastest HD and the biggest, brightest LCD. But they also
want the batteries to last for 8 hours straight without recharging. And
they want it to be small, and light. And not get hot. And be quiet.
Obviously, more CPU power = shorter battery life. And more heat. You can
have more fans and make it louder, or you can have fewer fans and roast
somebody's lap. Craming stuff into small spaces is also hard, especially
if it gets hot.
Jesus, I'm glad I don't design laptops! >_<
So yeah, the best desktop will out-perform the best laptop, and if you
have a desktop and a laptop of the same performance, the laptop will be
far, far more expensive. (But not as expensive as a Mac, obviously.)
> Of course that doesn't mean that the fastest laptop CPU today isn't faster
> than the fastest desktop CPU of 5 years ago.
Sure.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On Fri, 05 Nov 2010 19:57:55 +0200, Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote
:
> I’m looking for advice on buying a laptop that I can use for P
ovRay-ing.
> The only caveats I have is that it must be lightish (<2.5 kg) and
> powerful.
> I won’t mention money as I’m working ATM.
> Any suggestions?
>
>
http://www.alienware.com/Landings/laptops.aspx
You can customize it any way you like.
-Nekar Xenos-
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I've been looking at fast multi-core laptops too, trying to decide what to buy,
specifically which fast processor. Intel's core i7-980x Extreme Edition would
appear to be *the* processor to get--with 6 cores and 12 threads!--but there are
only a few such laptops out there at present (not to mention *expensive*); and
in any case, they wouldn't be as fast as an equivalent desktop model AFAIK, for
the reasons already mentioned.
I was wondering something: With Intel's Hyper-Threading technology, would the
core i7-980x be able to run Pov-Ray on *12* simultaneous, parallel threads, or
only 6 (because it has only six cores)? Sorry if that's a naive question; I'm
still trying to understand the difference between 'cores' and 'threads' and how
they impact Pov-Ray performance.
Ken
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Kenneth wrote:
> still trying to understand the difference between 'cores' and 'threads' and how
> they impact Pov-Ray performance.
A "hyperthread" is basically an ALU, registers, etc, but not the logic to do
memory access. So three cores with two "hyperthreads" each has three ways
to get to memory but six ALUs. The advantage is that while one of the ALUs
is waiting for data to come in from memory, the other can be doing
computation. Obviously having more cores is better than having more
hyperthreads, but two hyperthreads are cheaper than two complete cores.
A 'thread" in POV-ray is a software construct that basically consumes one
ALU, so one POV-ray thread would match one "hyperthread" core in your CPU.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Serving Suggestion:
"Don't serve this any more. It's awful."
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> A 'thread" in POV-ray is a software construct that basically consumes one
> ALU, so one POV-ray thread would match one "hyperthread" core in your CPU.
>
Thanks; some good info. Lots to learn! ;-)
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On 08/11/2010 4:42 PM, Nekar Xenos wrote:
> On Fri, 05 Nov 2010 19:57:55 +0200, Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
>
>> I’m looking for advice on buying a laptop that I can use for
>> PovRay-ing. The only caveats I have is that it must be lightish (<2.5
>> kg) and powerful.
>> I won’t mention money as I’m working ATM.
>> Any suggestions?
>>
>>
>
> http://www.alienware.com/Landings/laptops.aspx
>
> You can customize it any way you like.
>
Arrg! Dell! LOL ;-)
A good idea but I want to walk into the store, hand over my bit of
plastic and walk out carrying my new purchase.
Besides that Dell have a very poor reputation for customer service in
the UK.
But thanks for posting the link.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On 09/11/2010 12:05 AM, Kenneth wrote:
> I've been looking at fast multi-core laptops too, trying to decide what to buy
I'm thinking of buying a Toshiba Satellite A660-1F4.
Weight is a contributing factor and this is just under £800 and 6 lb
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On Tue, 09 Nov 2010 21:01:35 +0000, Stephen wrote:
> On 09/11/2010 12:05 AM, Kenneth wrote:
>> I've been looking at fast multi-core laptops too, trying to decide what
>> to buy
>
> I'm thinking of buying a Toshiba Satellite A660-1F4.
>
> Weight is a contributing factor and this is just under £800 and 6 lb
Send me your CC details, and I'll buy a bunch of different systems and
evaluate them for you and make a recommendation based on my
experiences. ;-)
Jim
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On 10/11/2010 1:04 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 09 Nov 2010 21:01:35 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>
>> On 09/11/2010 12:05 AM, Kenneth wrote:
>>> I've been looking at fast multi-core laptops too, trying to decide what
>>> to buy
>>
>> I'm thinking of buying a Toshiba Satellite A660-1F4.
>>
>> Weight is a contributing factor and this is just under £800 and 6 lb
>
> Send me your CC details, and I'll buy a bunch of different systems and
> evaluate them for you and make a recommendation based on my
> experiences. ;-)
>
> Jim
Sure, that’s a good idea but you will have to wait a bit. I’ve just
depleted my account by transferring money to the Oyibo bank of Nigeria
as it seems that an uncle, I’ve never met, has died in a plane crash and
left me 6 million USD. ;-)
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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> Sure, that’s a good idea but you will have to wait a bit. I�
��ve just
> depleted my account by transferring money to the Oyibo bank of Nigeria
> as it seems that an uncle, I’ve never met, has died in a plane
crash and
> left me 6 million USD. ;-)
>
At one stage I used to get those e-mails just about daily :p
Then I found out about message rules :)
-Nekar Xenos-
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On 10/11/2010 5:41 AM, Nekar Xenos wrote:
>
>> Sure, that’s a good idea but you will have to wait a bit. I’ve just
>> depleted my account by transferring money to the Oyibo bank of Nigeria
>> as it seems that an uncle, I’ve never met, has died in a plane crash
>> and left me 6 million USD. ;-)
>>
>
> At one stage I used to get those e-mails just about daily :p
> Then I found out about message rules :)
>
> -Nekar Xenos-
You mean it's a scam? OMG!!!
Have you seen this site?
http://www.419eater.com/index.php
Hmm, it has changed a bit but there was some good reading there.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On Wed, 10 Nov 2010 08:36:55 +0200, Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote
:
> On 10/11/2010 5:41 AM, Nekar Xenos wrote:
>>
>>> Sure, that’s a good idea but you will have to wait a bit. I�
��ve just
>>> depleted my account by transferring money to the Oyibo bank of Niger
ia
>>> as it seems that an uncle, I’ve never met, has died in a pla
ne crash
>>> and left me 6 million USD. ;-)
>>>
>>
>> At one stage I used to get those e-mails just about daily :p
>> Then I found out about message rules :)
>>
>> -Nekar Xenos-
>
> You mean it's a scam? OMG!!!
>
> Have you seen this site?
>
> http://www.419eater.com/index.php
>
> Hmm, it has changed a bit but there was some good reading there.
>
Cool!
B)
-Nekar Xenos-
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On 11/9/2010 2:48 PM, Stephen wrote:
> Besides that Dell have a very poor reputation for customer service in
> the UK.
No. I think poor customer service from Dell is pretty much global,
Definitely not limited to the UK by any stretch. ;)
--
~Mike
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On 11/9/2010 10:24 PM, Stephen wrote:
>
> Sure, that’s a good idea but you will have to wait a bit. I’ve just
> depleted my account by transferring money to the Oyibo bank of Nigeria
> as it seems that an uncle, I’ve never met, has died in a plane crash and
> left me 6 million USD. ;-)
>
If he's not willing to help, I'll help... What's my cut? :D
--
~Mike
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On 10/11/2010 1:37 PM, Mike Raiford wrote:
> On 11/9/2010 10:24 PM, Stephen wrote:
>
>>
>> Sure, that’s a good idea but you will have to wait a bit. I’ve just
>> depleted my account by transferring money to the Oyibo bank of Nigeria
>> as it seems that an uncle, I’ve never met, has died in a plane crash and
>> left me 6 million USD. ;-)
>>
>
> If he's not willing to help, I'll help... What's my cut? :D
>
Carotid Artery :-P
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On 10/11/2010 03:42 PM, Stephen wrote:
> Carotid Artery :-P
Ah yes, the carotid artery, favourite blood vessel of the NCIS script
writers...
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On 10/11/2010 3:46 PM, Invisible wrote:
> On 10/11/2010 03:42 PM, Stephen wrote:
>
>> Carotid Artery :-P
>
> Ah yes, the carotid artery, favourite blood vessel of the NCIS script
> writers...
It was the first one that came to hand. :-D
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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Nekar Xenos wrote:
> At one stage I used to get those e-mails just about daily :p
> Then I found out about message rules :)
The best one I got recently was "This is the Nigeria Secret Service. We've
caught a bunch of scammers and taken away the money they stole. We want to
return to you your money. Send us your bank details and $250 in filing fees
and we'll transfer the money to you."
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Serving Suggestion:
"Don't serve this any more. It's awful."
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On 10/11/2010 3:59 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Nekar Xenos wrote:
>> At one stage I used to get those e-mails just about daily :p
>> Then I found out about message rules :)
>
> The best one I got recently was "This is the Nigeria Secret Service.
> We've caught a bunch of scammers and taken away the money they stole. We
> want to return to you your money. Send us your bank details and $250 in
> filing fees and we'll transfer the money to you."
>
I got one from the FBI it even had the FBI seal.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On Wed, 10 Nov 2010 04:24:39 +0000, Stephen wrote:
> Sure, that’s a good idea but you will have to wait a bit. I’ve just
> depleted my account by transferring money to the Oyibo bank of Nigeria
> as it seems that an uncle, I’ve never met, has died in a plane crash and
> left me 6 million USD. ;-)
LOL
I thought it couldn't hurt to offer, after all, you MIGHT just have taken
me up on it. In which case, I'd happily oblige in finding the best
laptop for your purposes by doing a lot of very thorough testing and
research. :-)
Jim
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On 10/11/2010 7:14 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Nov 2010 04:24:39 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>
>> Sure, that’s a good idea but you will have to wait a bit. I’ve just
>> depleted my account by transferring money to the Oyibo bank of Nigeria
>> as it seems that an uncle, I’ve never met, has died in a plane crash and
>> left me 6 million USD. ;-)
>
> LOL
>
> I thought it couldn't hurt to offer, after all, you MIGHT just have taken
> me up on it. In which case, I'd happily oblige in finding the best
> laptop for your purposes by doing a lot of very thorough testing and
> research. :-)
>
No worries. Tell you what. When My account is in the black again, I'll
transfer some cash into your account if you give me your details. ;-)
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On Wed, 10 Nov 2010 20:47:52 +0000, Stephen wrote:
> No worries. Tell you what. When My account is in the black again, I'll
> transfer some cash into your account if you give me your details. ;-)
We may have to negotiate that over a beer or three. ;-)
Jim
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On 11/5/2010 1:57 PM, Stephen wrote:
> I’m looking for advice on buying a laptop that I can use for PovRay-ing.
> The only caveats I have is that it must be lightish (<2.5 kg) and powerful.
> I won’t mention money as I’m working ATM.
> Any suggestions?
My laptop is seven years old. As long as I can test render I'm cool.
Regards,
John
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On 10/11/2010 9:26 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Nov 2010 20:47:52 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>
>> No worries. Tell you what. When My account is in the black again, I'll
>> transfer some cash into your account if you give me your details. ;-)
>
> We may have to negotiate that over a beer or three. ;-)
>
> Jim
Suits me
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On 11/11/2010 1:53 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
> My laptop is seven years old. As long as I can test render I'm cool.
My laptop is only just over a year old but it has some quirks that have
been getting more annoying. As it is the only machine I use for
rendering I want something that has more bells and whistles.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On 11/10/2010 9:42 AM, Stephen wrote:
>
> Carotid Artery :-P
>
I think I'll pass, but thanks anyway!
--
~Mike
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On 11/11/2010 2:10 PM, Mike Raiford wrote:
> On 11/10/2010 9:42 AM, Stephen wrote:
>
>>
>> Carotid Artery :-P
>>
>
> I think I'll pass, but thanks anyway!
>
Wimp! ;-)
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On Thu, 11 Nov 2010 09:35:04 +0000, Stephen wrote:
> On 10/11/2010 9:26 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Wed, 10 Nov 2010 20:47:52 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>>
>>> No worries. Tell you what. When My account is in the black again, I'll
>>> transfer some cash into your account if you give me your details. ;-)
>>
>> We may have to negotiate that over a beer or three. ;-)
>>
>> Jim
>
> Suits me
Just need to find a time to come visit. We're thinking maybe next summer/
fall, primarily a visit to Edinburgh (but we never limit our trips to
just one destination typically).
Jim
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On 11/11/2010 6:56 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> Just need to find a time to come visit. We're thinking maybe next summer/
> fall, primarily a visit to Edinburgh (but we never limit our trips to
> just one destination typically).
>
You might be able to squeeze in a visit to the Edinburgh festival if you
time it right.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On Fri, 12 Nov 2010 11:03:48 +0000, Stephen wrote:
> On 11/11/2010 6:56 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Just need to find a time to come visit. We're thinking maybe next
>> summer/ fall, primarily a visit to Edinburgh (but we never limit our
>> trips to just one destination typically).
>>
>>
> You might be able to squeeze in a visit to the Edinburgh festival if you
> time it right.
Ooooh, now there's an idea. :-)
Jim
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On 11/11/2010 7:44 AM, Stephen wrote:
> On 11/11/2010 1:53 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
>> My laptop is seven years old. As long as I can test render I'm cool.
>
> My laptop is only just over a year old but it has some quirks that have
> been getting more annoying. As it is the only machine I use for
> rendering I want something that has more bells and whistles.
/me shrugs.
For me, the laptop's portability is the main thing. I can model and
render anywhere.
Regards,
John
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On 12/11/2010 7:47 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Nov 2010 11:03:48 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>
>> On 11/11/2010 6:56 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> Just need to find a time to come visit. We're thinking maybe next
>>> summer/ fall, primarily a visit to Edinburgh (but we never limit our
>>> trips to just one destination typically).
>>>
>>>
>> You might be able to squeeze in a visit to the Edinburgh festival if you
>> time it right.
>
> Ooooh, now there's an idea. :-)
>
It is :-D
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On 13/11/2010 1:15 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
> On 11/11/2010 7:44 AM, Stephen wrote:
>> On 11/11/2010 1:53 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
>>> My laptop is seven years old. As long as I can test render I'm cool.
>>
>> My laptop is only just over a year old but it has some quirks that have
>> been getting more annoying. As it is the only machine I use for
>> rendering I want something that has more bells and whistles.
>
> /me shrugs.
>
> For me, the laptop's portability is the main thing. I can model and
> render anywhere.
>
My situation is different.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> On 05/11/2010 07:11 PM, Warp wrote:
>
> > I haven't really followed CPU design all that much, but I have the notion
> > that laptops use special versions of desktop CPUs which consume less power
> > and need less ventilation (because that's kind of mandatory in a laptop)
> > at the cost of being less efficient than the desktop counterpart of the
> > same CPU.
>
> Yeah, laptops have several conflicting design constraints. Users want
> the fastest, most powerful CPU and the biggest baddest GPU and stacks of
> RAM and the fastest HD and the biggest, brightest LCD. But they also
> want the batteries to last for 8 hours straight without recharging. And
> they want it to be small, and light. And not get hot. And be quiet.
>
> Obviously, more CPU power = shorter battery life. And more heat. You can
> have more fans and make it louder, or you can have fewer fans and roast
> somebody's lap. Craming stuff into small spaces is also hard, especially
> if it gets hot.
>
> Jesus, I'm glad I don't design laptops! >_<
>
> So yeah, the best desktop will out-perform the best laptop, and if you
> have a desktop and a laptop of the same performance, the laptop will be
> far, far more expensive. (But not as expensive as a Mac, obviously.)
>
> > Of course that doesn't mean that the fastest laptop CPU today isn't faster
> > than the fastest desktop CPU of 5 years ago.
>
> Sure.
>
> --
> http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
> http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
This may be of little consolation now, but maybe in 20 years or so...
http://www.tech-faq.com/dna-computer.html
Imagine a computer with a CPU about the size of a coin, capable of 66 Gigaflops
and having 700 Terabytes internal memory AND a power consumption of ~
0.0000000001 watts (minus the screen and interface devices, of course).
That should speed up rendering!
D103
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On 01/12/2010 11:01 PM, D103 wrote:
> This may be of little consolation now, but maybe in 20 years or so...
>
> http://www.tech-faq.com/dna-computer.html
>
> Imagine a computer with a CPU about the size of a coin, capable of 66 Gigaflops
> and having 700 Terabytes internal memory AND a power consumption of ~
> 0.0000000001 watts (minus the screen and interface devices, of course).
>
> That should speed up rendering!
While I'm not disputing the factual content of your statement, the
article linked to is... well, essentially it's dumbed down so much that
they might as well be talking about computers powered by Pixie Dust.
"[T]here is a limitation to how small, fast and compact silicon computer
chips can be. DNA computers show promise because they do not have the
limitations of silicon-based chips."
O RLY?
"For one, DNA based chip manufacturers will always have an ample supply
of raw materials as DNA exists in all living things; this means
generally lower overhead costs."
And you understand that silicon chips are MADE OF SAND, right? You know,
as in "worthless as sand"? Given planet Earth's gross elemental
composition (60.2% silica, 15.2% alumina, >5% everything else), I
suspect that silicon is rather more abundant than DNA. And let us not
even get into the fact that DNA for computers would be utterly different
in sequence to DNA from living organisms.
It's like saying "people all over the world have windows made of glass,
therefore we can easily make silicon chips". The stuff in a modern IC
isn't very much like window glass.
"Secondly, the DNA chip manufacture does not produce toxic by-products."
Riiight. So because the end product is DNA, a molecule that already
exists in nature, therefore you can produce it with no toxic by-products?
And the DNA itself wouldn't be toxic, no?
"Last but not the least, DNA computers will be much smaller than
silicon-based computers as one pound of DNA chips can hold all the
information stored in all the computers in the world."
Current computers are much, much larger than strictly necessary mainly
due to issues of heat dissipation. You can already make RAM chips that
hold absurd quantities of information; it's just that they tend to melt
when you switch them on.
Besides, just because a strand of DNA can /store/ a lot of information,
it does not necessarily follow that you can build a working
/computational device/ which is only slightly larger.
"a DNA computer the size of a teardrop will be more powerful than
today's most powerful supercomputer."
Possibly. But if you want it to do something /useful/, the teardrop by
itself won't be much help. You still need I/O devices, for example.
"The capacity to perform parallel calculations, much more trillions of
parallel calculations, is something silicon-based computers are not able
to do."
I beg to differ. It would be more accurate to say that nobody has come
up with a way of structuring computer programs as trillions of
independent steps. We could totally build really parallel silicon chips.
For example, recent GPU designs involve executing several hundred
computations in parallel. There's no particular reason why you can't
scale that up to thousands or millions - it's just that the extra R&D
work probably wouldn't pay off in extra sales, because the software to
utilise that much parallelism is lacking.
"In the current technology of logic gates, binary codes from the silicon
transistors are converted into instructions that can be carried out by
the computer."
This is a highly questionable and very muddled statement. It's hard to
read something like this and continue to believe that the writer has any
clue what they're talking about.
"though it may be very fast in providing possible answers, narrowing
these answers down still takes days."
This rather suggests that the operation of a DNA computer is
non-deterministic (and hence, applicable to a much smaller set of
problems than a Turing-complete machine).
I won't hold my breath for this happening any time soon. :-P
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On 12/2/2010 3:37 AM, Invisible wrote:
> "[T]here is a limitation to how small, fast and compact silicon computer
> chips can be. DNA computers show promise because they do not have the
> limitations of silicon-based chips."
>
> O RLY?
Of course there's a limit. And there's likely a limit on how small/fast
a DNA-based machine could be as well. The higher the clock frequency,
the more susceptible it is to external influences such as EMI. The
faster the clock, the more limitations on the actual circuit design
there are, but you knew that.
> "For one, DNA based chip manufacturers will always have an ample supply
> of raw materials as DNA exists in all living things; this means
> generally lower overhead costs."
>
> And you understand that silicon chips are MADE OF SAND, right? You know,
> as in "worthless as sand"? Given planet Earth's gross elemental
> composition (60.2% silica, 15.2% alumina, >5% everything else), I
> suspect that silicon is rather more abundant than DNA. And let us not
> even get into the fact that DNA for computers would be utterly different
> in sequence to DNA from living organisms.
The advantages of living on a planet with a primarily silicate crust:
Lots and lots of silicon to go around. Not sure what the ratio is of
silicon to carbon, but I imagine its not hard to find a rock containing
some sort of silicate.
>
> "Secondly, the DNA chip manufacture does not produce toxic by-products."
>
> Riiight. So because the end product is DNA, a molecule that already
> exists in nature, therefore you can produce it with no toxic by-products?
>
> And the DNA itself wouldn't be toxic, no?
Not unless it codes for something that could cause illness or kill you,
but who's paying attention anyway. Organic compounds are some of the
most toxic to us, because they are the most likely to interact. To be
sure, there are a lot of extremely toxic inorganics as well.
> "Last but not the least, DNA computers will be much smaller than
> silicon-based computers as one pound of DNA chips can hold all the
> information stored in all the computers in the world."
Storage is not the same as computation. No mention as to how fragile
that pound of DNA is. UV light or any form of ionizing radiation?
consider your data hopelessly corrupt. so much for DNA computers in the
space program. Other chemical and even physical processes could degrade
it. If it happens to get contaminated by bacteria, they'd certainly
enjoy the amino-acids that used to compose your photos from your latest
family vacation to Hawaii. Not stable in the least!
> Current computers are much, much larger than strictly necessary mainly
> due to issues of heat dissipation. You can already make RAM chips that
> hold absurd quantities of information; it's just that they tend to melt
> when you switch them on.
I believe the bigger limitation on the amount of information that RAM
can ultimately hold is more about the lower limit on the size of a
transistor, rather than heat. What generates heat is the act of
switching. If a latch is held, then there isn't much switching going on,
though I'm sure there is some power consumption leading to some heat.
Processors get burning hot because they constantly switch. RAM gets hot
because of the way its state is maintained and how its accessed, at very
rapid rates nowadays. Flash memory is obscenely high density, yet
generates very little heat, unless it's accessed at its full bandwidth
for an extended period of time, and even then its not nearly as much as
a processor. Its also a few orders of magnitude slower than RAM.
>
> Besides, just because a strand of DNA can /store/ a lot of information,
> it does not necessarily follow that you can build a working
> /computational device/ which is only slightly larger.
>
> "a DNA computer the size of a teardrop will be more powerful than
> today's most powerful supercomputer."
>
> Possibly. But if you want it to do something /useful/, the teardrop by
> itself won't be much help. You still need I/O devices, for example.
>
> "The capacity to perform parallel calculations, much more trillions of
> parallel calculations, is something silicon-based computers are not able
> to do."
>
> I beg to differ. It would be more accurate to say that nobody has come
> up with a way of structuring computer programs as trillions of
> independent steps. We could totally build really parallel silicon chips.
> For example, recent GPU designs involve executing several hundred
> computations in parallel. There's no particular reason why you can't
> scale that up to thousands or millions - it's just that the extra R&D
> work probably wouldn't pay off in extra sales, because the software to
> utilise that much parallelism is lacking.
You'd need the pipelines to do it in the chip die. You'd need to build
very small computational units to get that massively parallel.
I don't get how DNA can compute anything. DNA is essentially a coding
for proteins. What would your end result of a computation be? A glob of
proteins that mean some sort of result?
> "In the current technology of logic gates, binary codes from the silicon
> transistors are converted into instructions that can be carried out by
> the computer."
>
> This is a highly questionable and very muddled statement. It's hard to
> read something like this and continue to believe that the writer has any
> clue what they're talking about.
The statement doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. The instructions,
encoded in binary do tell the computer what to do, yes? But it's
essentially flipping a bank of switches to route the data from the input
of an ALU to one unit or another....
> "though it may be very fast in providing possible answers, narrowing
> these answers down still takes days."
>
> This rather suggests that the operation of a DNA computer is
> non-deterministic (and hence, applicable to a much smaller set of
> problems than a Turing-complete machine).
Huh? Computers can very quickly give exact answers to a wide class of
problems. Modeling complex systems, however, is a different story. I
don't see DNA helping with that. Often performing calculations much
quicker than our organic brains can. That cluster of neurons may be
massively parallel, but it's still not very fast at doing things like,
say, computing a Fourier transform. In fact, before the silicon-based
machines of today, the Fourier transform was regarded as largely useless
because it was so difficult to compute. And still, until FFT was
discovered it was regarded as simply a novelty.
> I won't hold my breath for this happening any time soon. :-P
If you do that, you may cause a catastrophic failure of your DNA-based
system.
I haven't read the article, just adding my commentary to your
selections, but based on what I've seen this sounds like massive
speculation and nothing more. What is needed, really, is more
improvements on existing algorithms to allow them to operate in parallel
on simpler computational units. Once a high degree of parallelism is
met, then we'll see some huge jumps in how fast these silicon machines
can really work.
--
~Mike
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On 12/2/2010 7:34 AM, Mike Raiford wrote:
> I haven't read the article, just adding my commentary to your
as a further aside, tech-faq.com is considered naughty by our stupid
censoring filter. Dumb piece of equipment. I hate that thing
--
~Mike
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>> "[T]here is a limitation to how small, fast and compact silicon computer
>> chips can be. DNA computers show promise because they do not have the
>> limitations of silicon-based chips."
>>
>> O RLY?
>
> Of course there's a limit. And there's likely a limit on how small/fast
> a DNA-based machine could be as well.
In reality, the nature of matter (and quite possibly time and space
itself) is quantum. Therefore *every* technology has limits.
Now a DNA computer could potentially be very much smaller than current
silicon ones. This is not the same statement as "DNA computers do not
have the limitations of silicon-based chips".
>> "Secondly, the DNA chip manufacture does not produce toxic by-products."
>>
>> Riiight. So because the end product is DNA, a molecule that already
>> exists in nature, therefore you can produce it with no toxic by-products?
>>
>> And the DNA itself wouldn't be toxic, no?
>
> Not unless it codes for something that could cause illness or kill you,
> but who's paying attention anyway.
A virus is nothing more than a stand of DNA or RNA (in some cases coated
with proteins, but not always). Now, it's highly unlikely that the DNA
sequence used by a computer would /just happen/ to code for viral
activity within human cells. It's /completely plausible/ though that if
some of that stuff gets inside you, it will make the cells it enters
synthesize endless amounts of some useless protein until they
prematurely die as a result.
A chemical that kills living cells it touches? Yeah, I'd call that
pretty toxic. (Still, you presumably don't need to make that much of it...)
> Organic compounds are some of the
> most toxic to us, because they are the most likely to interact. To be
> sure, there are a lot of extremely toxic inorganics as well.
To be sure, there are lots of organic compounds which are "designed" to
be toxic to us. But even ones that aren't sometimes end up
"accidentally" being toxic. (E.g., the black widow's venom isn't
supposed to kill mammals, it's meant to kill insects. And, indeed, it's
completely harmless to cats and dogs - yet just happens to be lethal to
humans...)
>> "Last but not the least, DNA computers will be much smaller than
>> silicon-based computers as one pound of DNA chips can hold all the
>> information stored in all the computers in the world."
>
> Storage is not the same as computation.
Agreed.
> No mention as to how fragile that pound of DNA is.
Also agreed, since DNA is very, very definitely biodegradable. (In fact,
human skin is coated in enzymes designed to snip up RNA, as a protection
against viruses composed of RNA...)
>> Current computers are much, much larger than strictly necessary mainly
>> due to issues of heat dissipation. You can already make RAM chips that
>> hold absurd quantities of information; it's just that they tend to melt
>> when you switch them on.
>
> I believe the bigger limitation on the amount of information that RAM
> can ultimately hold is more about the lower limit on the size of a
> transistor, rather than heat.
I still suspect that if you weren't worried about heat, you could
"stack" layers of silicon on top of each other, producing 3D circuitry
which takes up a fraction of the space.
>> "The capacity to perform parallel calculations, much more trillions of
>> parallel calculations, is something silicon-based computers are not able
>> to do."
>>
>> I beg to differ.
>
> You'd need the pipelines to do it in the chip die. You'd need to build
> very small computational units to get that massively parallel.
True. But, as I understand it, transistors are /already/ "very small".
The reason that people like Intel and AMD build chips containing several
thousand million transistors which only comprise two or three "cores" is
because nobody has really figured out how to make use of lots of cores.
(Let's face it, Cray have been making vector machines for decades...)
> I don't get how DNA can compute anything. DNA is essentially a coding
> for proteins. What would your end result of a computation be? A glob of
> proteins that mean some sort of result?
If you read some website which actually *explains*, in technical detail,
what a DNA computer is, you will discover that the DNA is just the
storage medium. Essentially the DNA is your RAM, and enzymes are your
computational hardware. So some DNA goes in with the input data encoded
on it, and new DNA comes out with the result coded on it. (Wikipedia
indicates that the enzymes function something like an actual Turing
machine, with the DNA as the "tape".)
>> "In the current technology of logic gates, binary codes from the silicon
>> transistors are converted into instructions that can be carried out by
>> the computer."
>>
>> This is a highly questionable and very muddled statement.
>
> The statement doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
Indeed.
>> "though it may be very fast in providing possible answers, narrowing
>> these answers down still takes days."
>>
>> This rather suggests that the operation of a DNA computer is
>> non-deterministic (and hence, applicable to a much smaller set of
>> problems than a Turing-complete machine).
>
> Huh? Computers can very quickly give exact answers to a wide class of
> problems.
I'm saying that this description implies that DNA computers aren't
Turing-complete.
According to Wikipedia, actually they can be. It's just that each
"computer" is a single molecule, so typically you run millions of them
at once, in parallel. The slow part, presumably, is synthesizing the
reactants, and then analysing the reaction products to get your answer
back afterwards.
> What is needed, really, is more
> improvements on existing algorithms to allow them to operate in parallel
> on simpler computational units. Once a high degree of parallelism is
> met, then we'll see some huge jumps in how fast these silicon machines
> can really work.
I agree.
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"D103" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
>
> This may be of little consolation now, but maybe in 20 years or so...
>
> http://www.tech-faq.com/dna-computer.html
>
> Imagine a computer with a CPU about the size of a coin, capable of 66 Gigaflops
> and having 700 Terabytes internal memory AND a power consumption of ~
> 0.0000000001 watts (minus the screen and interface devices, of course).
>
> That should speed up rendering!
>
> D103
After posting this I realized that most of my info (apart from the link) was 7
years old, and while perhaps not out of date, it was only hypothesis.
Also, I have yet to finish high-school so my knowledge of computers and how they
work is somewhat limited.
D103
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D103 wrote:
> Also, I have yet to finish high-school so my knowledge of computers and how they
> work is somewhat limited.
Back in high school I found in the library a wonderful text. It was a huge
hardback book about 3 or 4 cm thick. It started with vacuum tubes, tube
diodes and triodes, then went into semiconductor tech, including what a
semiconductor *is*, how the doping affects its behavior, how a diode works,
an LED, a transistor, a thermistor, etc. Then into chips, how to make
transistors on a chip, how the doping is done, then gates from that.
I wish so much I remembered what that book is called. It taught me 90% of
what I know about hardware.
After that, the SAM'S book on the 8080 pretty much taught me the basics of
computer architecture, instruction sets, etc.
It's a shame in some ways that everything has gotten so complicated that you
wind up with either a quantum physics textbook or a "Teach Yourself
Microsoft Word in 24 hours" sort of book, and nothing really in between that
I know of.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Serving Suggestion:
"Don't serve this any more. It's awful."
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Back in high school I found in the library a wonderful text. It was a huge
> hardback book about 3 or 4 cm thick. It started with vacuum tubes, tube
> diodes and triodes, then went into semiconductor tech, including what a
> semiconductor *is*, how the doping affects its behavior, how a diode works,
> an LED, a transistor, a thermistor, etc. Then into chips, how to make
> transistors on a chip, how the doping is done, then gates from that.
> I wish so much I remembered what that book is called. It taught me 90% of
> what I know about hardware.
> After that, the SAM'S book on the 8080 pretty much taught me the basics of
> computer architecture, instruction sets, etc.
Do you really need to know how a vacuum tube works in order to know how
a modern computer works?
I mean, it may be interesting knowledge in a historical sense, but is
there any practical application to this knowledge? (In computing science,
that is. In guitar amps vacuum tubes are quite popular, although for a
slightly different reason.)
> It's a shame in some ways that everything has gotten so complicated that you
> wind up with either a quantum physics textbook or a "Teach Yourself
> Microsoft Word in 24 hours" sort of book, and nothing really in between that
> I know of.
I'm sure there are in-between books as well.
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> Do you really need to know how a vacuum tube works in order to know how
> a modern computer works?
Well, at the time, TVs still ran on vacuum tubes. I guess with the death of
CRTs, only people running medical equipment care about how they work now.
But that's why it was a 1200-page tome. It went all the way from vacuum
tubes to TTL and CMOS circuits. You could probably drop the first half of
the book and it would still work.
You didn't have to know it, but it might be a little easier to understand
semiconductor transistors if you can make an analogy to vacuum tubes, perhaps.
> I'm sure there are in-between books as well.
College text books, I guess, sure. They're just not common. Do a search on
"computer hardware textbook" and you get "how to use Windows 7" and
"Understaning Access" as the first hits. :-)
http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Computer-Hardware-Alan-Clements/dp/0199273138/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1
I mean, look at the TOC of this, the first book on amazon for the search of
"computer hardware textbook". Nothing in the TOC obviously about the
semiconductor level. Gates, yes, bits, yes. 100 pages talking about gates,
zero talking about semiconductors.
The "computer architecture" goes from page 205 to 209, followed by 50 pages
about the instruction set. Nothing actually gets all the way down to the
*hardware*. From what I can tell of the TOC, nothing there tells you how
many pins a transistor has, for example. As I go on, I see chapter 7 looks
like it might address some of the same stuff the SAM's book I referred to
addressed. But still no hardware. Actually, other than that, it looks like a
really good textbook. :-)
That said, *this* one sounds pretty good, but without looking into it it's
hard to say:
http://www.amazon.com/Semiconductor-Devices-How-They-Work/dp/041258770X/ref=sr_1_1
I guess everything just got complexer, to the point where it doesn't make
sense to put it all in one book.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Serving Suggestion:
"Don't serve this any more. It's awful."
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>
http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Computer-Hardware-Alan-Clements/dp/0199273138/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1
>
> I mean, look at the TOC of this, the first book on amazon for the search
> of "computer hardware textbook". Nothing in the TOC obviously about the
> semiconductor level. Gates, yes, bits, yes. 100 pages talking about gates,
> zero talking about semiconductors.
Maybe because this area is more covered by electronics textbooks? In my
courses everything from electrons up to simple logic circuits like
bistables, adders, counters etc were handled in the "electronics" courses.
The "computing" courses started off assuming you knew what logic gates did -
even if you couldn't remember exactly how they did it or how to wire one
up...
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scott wrote:
> Maybe because this area is more covered by electronics textbooks?
It's entirely possible I'm looking at the wrwong search terms. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Serving Suggestion:
"Don't serve this any more. It's awful."
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