IBM announces 500GHz chip
Posted by Dr. Macenstein
Some rag called The New York Times is reporting that researchers over at I.B.M and the Georgia Institute of Technology have produced a computer chip running at 500GHz. Now, before you get your panties in a bunch second-guessing His Royal Steveness’ decision to steer the good ship Macintosh towards the Intel iceberg, let me point out this 500GHz chip is apparently running at a temperature of 451 degrees BELOW zero (just 9 degrees shy of absolute zero). At room temperature the chip only runs at a measly 350GHz, not THAT far above the 2GHz chips Intel is currently delivering us.
All joking aside, while 500GHz is nothing to sneeze at, the actuality of such a chip finding its way into consumer electronics anytime soon is unlikely. If you think your MacBook Pro runs hot NOW, imagine another 170 or so chips crammed in there.
Anyway, it seems this chip is only a single-core chip, so we’ll wait for the dual-core version, thank you very much (no sense in investing in obsolete technology).
I hope someone at georgia tech is working on a heat sink the size of saturn. That thing would probably overheat on boot.
Immagine paying your electric bill with one of those things. It’s gotta suck up a lot of juice.
I’m confused!!! 450 degrees below zero doesn’t seem “just 9 degrees shy of absolute zero” to me – it seems 450 degrees shy of absolute zero.
How is a 350 GHz chip not that much faster than a 2 GHz one? There’s a 348 GHz difference there, even if it is single core.
Can someone please explain???
absolute zero is nowhere near zero.. google it.
the 350 being close to 2 was a joke…
-451 degrees is measured on the Kelvin scale, which is either 230 or 270 degrees more then a Celsius measurement (0 degrees Celsius=230 (or 270) degrees Kelvin).
Absolute zero is the temperature that all atoms stop moving. (extremely hard to get to). So there’s your physics lesson.
As for the second part of your question, the word “that” is Italicized, meaning sarcasic.
That was a joke, if you reread ityou will see “All joking aside” shortly after that comment.
Quote:
-451 degrees is measured on the Kelvin scale, which is either 230 or 270 degrees more then a Celsius measurement (0 degrees Celsius=230 (or 270) degrees Kelvin).
OK, sorry for the correction here, but -451 is actually measured in Fahrenheit. The Kelvin scale does not go below zero (thus, *absolute* zero). O degrees Celsius is 273 K (plus some decimals). You are right that absolute zero (-459.7 F) is the point at which motion ceases.
OK, enough of that kind of talk. Keep up the good work GT 🙂
just thought to point out that absolute zero is theoretical. and in that theory i believe light also stops at absolute zero, or is slowed down, don’t remember the actual thing…but wiki it…
Well, scientists have cooled atoms to within a few billionths of a degree of absolute zero to slow down light to a few miles an hour. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/655518.stm for more info. In looking that up I came across several articles pointing to the fact that it’s likely that one of the big constants in science, the “normal” speed of light (186,000 mps) has been slowing down as the universe expands.
Maybe these new chips can, er, shed some light (sorry, had to!) on some of this new scientific knowledge.
Can we finally look forward to smart AI in games finally?, doubt it !!.