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CPU

How To Straighten Bent Pins on a CPU

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Computer processor (CPU)

So you’ve somehow managed to bend the pins on your CPU, don’t freak out! There are few things you can do to try to fix this.

Yes, in my early days of tinkering and building my own PCs I did end up bending a pin or two. Hopefully, once you’ve done it you’ll learn to never do it again.

  • The first thing you want to do is get a credit card, not to buy a new CPU of course, but to help you straighten out the pins on the chip. A gift card, drivers license or similar sized card may work as well.
  • Make sure the card slides between the pins easily but still comes in contact with the pins. You don’t want it to be too thin or it won’t straighten out the pins.
  • Slide the card through the rows of pins that are affected from both top to bottom and side to side. This will ensure that the pins are straightened from every side.
  • Once your sure everything looks good, carefully attempt place the CPU into the socket. Don’t force it into place or you will likely bend more pins! If you have any trouble, take out the CPU and re-align your pins.
  • If the pins are are in really bad shape you can use an empty mechanical pencil tip to place over the pin and stand it upright.

That’s all you should need to do!

*It’s important to note that after several attempts the pins can break and no one wants that, so make sure you do your best to align them in the first few attempts.

AMD Does 5 GHz

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AMDFXLogo

Using eight cores built on AMD’s Piledriver architecture, the FX-9590 is the world’s first processor to reach 5GHz that will be available to consumers from a chipmaker.  The 5GHz barrier has been broken before in labs and basements where extreme cooling techniques were applied to CPUs but not in a boxed chip thats available to the public.

The FX 9590’s frequency will range between 4.7 to 5GHz and will utilize AMD’s AM3+ socket. The processor will be built on a new 32 nanometer die and have 8MB of L2 and L3 cache. The chips power consumption is considerable at 220W but that’s to be expected with a chip like this, especially early on. AMD has always had great pride in producing a lot of bang with a small amount of power and it’s my guess that power consumption will likely get better. It’s also important to note that AMD’s power management will likely keep the CPU “Cool n’ Quiet” when there isn’t a large demand for power from the system.

The new chip isn’t cheap as it will cost you around $900 to pick up and although early benchmarks indicate that the performance is solid, it may not be the ultimate processor we are looking for AMD to release. Still, 5GHz is impressive and well, awesome.

Intel’s Graphics Get Serious With Iris

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Integrated graphics haven’t really been know for their performance, for years they were really just there to give us the most basic video features, but today’s mobile oriented market and demand for rich media has changed the game.

Intel made a solid effort with the HD 4000 series chip which performs surprisingly well under a lot of different conditions. You can actually get a semi-solid frame rate with most games on low to medium settings and performance in most other gpu dependent applications is solid. Now, Intel is getting serious with it’s next generation chip, Iris, which will offer more than 2x the performance of current the GPU.

IntelIris2
Source: Intel

Intel says that their next step in graphics will be a 75x increase in performance over earlier efforts since 2006, which shows off Intel’s ever increasing attention to GPU performance, but without sacrificing efficiency. The 4th generation Haswell (Intel’s Codename) line will be very power efficient and that’s critical now that the focus has shifted to a battery powered and mobile world.

intelIris
Source: Intel

Clearly, there’s a lot to look forward to in the next year or so as we continue to see better overall performance numbers from onboard graphics. It is interesting to think about what AMD and Nvidia will do in response to Intel’s recent efforts. At the very least it will force chip makers to continue to be innovative and to rethink and rework non-discrete graphics, something that could help bring down costs as well.

 

How To Test Your CPU Performance with SuperPi and wPrime

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superPi

For a custom PC builder there’s nothing more satisfying than finishing up your build so you can put it to the test. Sure you can open up an application and perform certain tasks to give you an idea of how your new build is performing, but you can also use specific programs that are designed specifically to benchmark.

One of these applications is actually quite simple. SuperPi calculates Pi to a specific number of digits and then displays the time it took to calculate the answer for each iteration. You can also determine the accuracy of the calculation which can also help determine stability of the system, this is perfect for overclocking.

It’s important to note that SuperPi is intended to test single threaded performance, if you’re looking to test multi-threaded performance you can utilize wPrime.

wPrime uses a recursive call of Newton’s method for estimating functions, with f(x)=x2-k, where k is the number we’re square rooting, until Sgn(f(x)/f'(x)) does not equal that of the previous iteration, starting with an estimation of k/2. It then uses an iterative calling of the estimation method a set amount of times to increase the accuracy of the results. It then confirms that n(k)2=k to ensure the calculation was correct. It repeats this for all numbers from 1 to the requested maximum.

 

Apple Thinking About Dropping Intel

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Apple has been very successful when it comes to developing  their own chips, like the new Dual Core A6X. These chips are growing more and more powerful with each iteration and soon, according to Bloomberg, Apple feels that they will eventually be able to cram enough power into their chips to run their laptops and desktops as well. In 2005 Apple decided to bring Intel into the mix when it came to processing power for the Mac. Intel makes some of the fastest an most powerful chips on the planet including the i7, which is the current chip used across the Mac experience.

Mac Pro


The idea here is to create a seamless experience across their entire product line up, something Microsoft is also trying to achieve. Having the same chip architecture in each device can make that happen. There’s no doubt that Apple will try their hardest to make everything they can in-house, but how will this impact the Apple community?

Can Apple really create a chip that can do everything just as well as a world class Intel chip can do? After all, were not talking about Angry Birds here. I am trying to imagine running applications like Adobe Photoshop and Final Cut Pro on an Apple CPU, it just doesn’t feel like it’s possible.

Apple can attract the talent needed to design great chips but this is still new territory for them and they will need time to grow and learn as a chip manufacturer. Yes, mobile devices are very powerful these days but the processing demands of pro users is many times that of any current mobile chip and at least for now, I can’t see any immediate change in the near future. As for the the next ten years or so, we could be looking at a much different story.

One of the great benefits of Apple moving to an Intel based machine was the ability to run Microsoft software on Apple hardware. If Apple were to switch chips, would you still be able to run Microsoft Windows on the Mac? How well would other developers receive that new chip line up? I think that this could potentially isolate Apple again and in way that works against them. Could this move be as bad as the decision to abandon Google and release an unfinished Map product? It’s not just the power of the Intel chip, it’s also about the name. Consumers want to see “Intel Inside” their Mac computers, it gives us confidence in that product’s capabilities, it’s a name we have grown to trust over the years.

It’s important to note that these are just rumors at best, but I don’t have any doubt in my mind that Apple is hard at work trying to find ways to put the Apple logo on everything they can inside their machines.