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Opportunities for Students
From Undergraduate Engineering Handbook
Volunteer for Wind Energy Project in Peru
Volunteering for WindAid is an great way to explore Peru, implement renewable energy solutions, learn in-depth the design, construction, and installation of a wind turbine, and see its social impact on families, communities, schools, and the growth of micro-enterprises. Applications are now open for 2014; see the website for dates and the application form.
Volunteers are involved in every part of the process of building and installing the wind turbines. They will learn and gain expertise in such materials and processes as; carbon fiber, fiber glass, resin composites, steel structures and welding, electrical systems, aerodynamics, and much more. We welcome all disciplines and levels of learning. We seek out passionate, enthusiastic individuals hungry to have the experience of a lifetime affecting positive change in the lives of others.
Course on Tech Innovation & Business Development
Econ 10: Silicon Valley meets Wall Street will be offered in Winter 2013-14 on Wednesdays from 4:15-6:05PM.
This one-unit seminar in applied economics will focus on the microcosm of Silicon Valley, how growth companies are originated, managed and financed from start-up to IPO. The seminar will be led by Tom Shanahan, Stanford '68, Harvard Business School '72, with 40 years' experience on Wall Street, in venture capital investing and as co-founder and chief financial officer of multiple Valley companies. Sessions will be in round-table discussion format. The course is applicable to those students with an interest in technical innovation and business development.
Enrollment is limited to 10 students, to be selected based on a short application, resume and unofficial transcript and priority given to juniors and seniors with majors in physical sciences, engineering, computer science and economics. Email your application, resume and unofficial transcript to firstname.lastname@example.com by December 16, 5pm.. If your application is selected, you will be notified and given a permission number to enroll in the course.
Course Evaluations for Fall/Winter/Spring 2011/12 and 2012/13 (can be checked online) – Overall -- 4.75, 4.70, 4.70 on 5-point scale.
Selected student comments (all comments can be checked online) –
"Awesome class. A must take!"
"Best class I've ever taken at Stanford."
"Shanahan does a great job explaining concepts... He is always very enthusiastic."
"Tom was fantastic at interacting with each student on an interpersonal level."
"Focus[es] on experience and anecdotes, not on HBS-type generalizations"
"Great group of students in this class and Tom is excellent"
"I learned so much from him."
Plan for It
Even Engineers Go Abroad!
As summer fun grows short, think about this: You could go abroad this year -- yes, even engineering students can carve out time to go abroad! Think about it -- here are the Top 8 Reasons to Travel in 2013-14:
- Profs Sheri Sheppard and Edward Carryer from ME will be teaching in Berlin, Spring 2014
- Prof Marcus Covert from BioE will be teaching in Paris, Winter 2014
- Language requirement for Winter quarter 2014 in Florence is waived -- a one-time deal
- Winter quarter is a good time to go abroad as there is often less impact on curriculum
- Coterms who have not yet conferred their BS are still eligible to travel
- BOSP offers ways to fulfill requirements in GERs (including language), WAYS, ENGR 40, and ENGR 50
- Internship and research opportunities are offered at several campuses
- Consider Summer 2014 in Santiago -- this is a new program offering this year
Check out all the facts at the BOSP site -- your undergrad years are the best time to travel with a group of your favorite peers.
Other 2013-14 REU Possibilities from Every SoE Department
Amazing research goes on within Stanford's School of Engineering and you can be a part of it. Through the REU program, undergraduates have a unique opportunity to work on cutting-edge research guided by Stanford faculty. Professors are excited to work with bright, enthusiastic undergraduates. If you are interested, look below to learn more:
Who Should Apply for REU?
If you are a Stanford undergraduate interested in engineering research, you should consider applying. Each engineering department has its own requirements for applicants; visit the links in the How to Apply section for more information.
How to Apply
The application process is department-specific, so pick one (or several!) departments that interest you and visit the department's website to learn more. Most departments open up applications for summer research in mid-winter or early spring quarter. Not all majors are listed below. If you want to work with one of your professors in an area not listed, talk to them directly about opportunities.
Here are the departments that have offered REU in the past. Some provide a webpage and application, in others a person within the department to contact about possible research opportunities:
Aeronautics and Astronautics
Contact the AA professor you would like to work with. For help, you may contact Patrick Ferguson at firstname.lastname@example.com
Visit BioE REU site and contact Teri Hankes firstname.lastname@example.com. Applications are due by end of the first week in February
Chemical Engineering
The deadline early March; REU details on the CHE REU page. Contact Pamela Dixon email@example.com or Prof Andrew Spakowitz, email@example.com
Civil and Environmental Engineering
This year's application for summer research is due by in mid February; check this site for details:
Computer Science
For summer research, apply to CURIS (http://curis.stanford.edu/) by 5pm on Friday, Feb 14.
Electrical Engineering
For summer research, apply to the REU Summer Program (http://ee.stanford.edu/reu.php)
Applications are now open. Contacts are Meo Kittiwanich or Olav Solgaard.
Engineering Physics
Management Science & Engineering
Contact Lori Cottle, firstname.lastname@example.com
Materials Science and Engineering:
This year's application for summer research has not opened yet. Last year's application (http://mse.stanford.edu/current/vpue.html) was due on March 15th
Mechanical Engineering
For summer research, consider SURI (http://me.stanford.edu/current_students/ug_research.html)
There is no application; students should contact affiliated ME faculty directly by the end of May to secure a position for the summer.
I've never had any research experience before. Is the REU program really a possibility?
Everyone starting research has that question, so do not be deterred. Around 200 students are part of the program each summer. If you are eager and ready to learn you will almost certainly succeed. Be persistent.
I missed the deadline for applying to my department's summer research program. Can I still get involved in research?
Try contacting a particular professor in the department that you would like to work with, and ask if he or she still has openings for undergraduates. Realize, however, that the number of positions in limited.
What is the stipend?
For the most part, a summer research program will provide a full-time stipend of up to $6000 for the 10-week summer session.
Pay for ECON Research Participation
Interested in participating in economics research studies? The Stanford Economics Research Laboratory (SERL) is recruiting participants for ongoing studies in economic decision making and behavior.No skills are required, and we are located centrally in the Landau Economics Building on the Stanford campus. All participants are paid. Studies are conducted year round, and can be as short as 30 minutes. To participate, please visit our website. Signing up takes less than two minutes. Also, please feel free to pass this message on to friends, classmates, or housemates who are Stanford students, faculty, or staff.
Tutor for Athletes
The Academic Athletic Resource Center (AARC) provides drop-in tutoring hours, as well as course-specific group tutorial sessions, for Stanford student-athletes. We're seeking graduate students or advanced undergraduates to fill tutoring positions in CME 102, Engr 14, and Engr 30. The typical time commitment is two evening hours per week; the pay is competitive. For information on how to apply, contact Lindsay Shaffer at <firstname.lastname@example.com> in the UAR.
China Summer Internships
Would you like to spend the summer in China? Both declared undergraduates and graduate students are eligible to gain work experience interning at a company in China. Find out more at the China Internship website.
Breakthrough Technologies Scholarship
This scholarship will be awarded to 3rd or 4th year engineering/science students pursuing a career that involves the use of micro and/or nano technologies (MEMS, Solar PV, Thin Film or the like). There are currently 2 scholarships being awarded annually – one Spring Award, and one Fall Award. Each scholarship award is for $1000. The purpose is to help students to meet the financial requirements as they pursue their degree, over and above any financial aid or other scholarships that they may receive. - See more at the Critical Systems site.
To be eligible for a Breakthrough Technologies Scholarship, students must meet and/or demonstrate the following:
- Current Junior or Senior standing at an accredited United States university
- Official transcripts that confirm a cumulative GPA of 2.75/4.0 or higher.
- Enrollment in your school's college of engineering or material sciences (or equivalent), with at least 12 credit hours completed towards your major.
- Completed at least 6 credit hours of classroom and/or lab work towards your minor/certificate/specialized area of study in one of the aforementioned technologies. These credit hours can be can be part of the overall 12 credit hour requirement.
- Successful completion of the application form and 700 word or less written essay
- Financial situation and/or monetary awards previous scholarships have no bearing on this scholarship award
Note: An official transcript will need to be mailed as part of your application, and must be received by the end of the application submission period. The application form will provide a physical address where transcripts are to be sent.
Application Submission Periods:
Submission Period I (Spring Award): March 15th, 2014 – April 30th, 2014
Submission Period II (Fall Award): September 15th, 2014 – October 31st, 2014
Scholarship Award Winner Announcements: Winners will be announced on this web page on the following dates:
Award Announcement for Period I Submissions (Spring Award): May 15th, 2014
Award Announcement for Period II Submissions (Fall Award): November 15th, 2014
Click HERE to link to the scholarship application.
Scholarship for UGs in Semiconductor/Nano Fields
Critical Systems is now offering the Breakthrough Technologies Scholarship. This scholarship will be awarded to 3rd or 4th year engineering/science students pursuing a career in Semiconductor and related specialty areas such as Nanotechnology, MEMS, Solar PV, Thin Film, or other advanced technologies. There are currently 2 scholarships being awarded annually – one Summer Award, and one Winter Award. The purpose is to help those students to meet the financial requirements as they pursue their degree, over and above any financial aid or other scholarships that they may receive.
Find more at the CSE Scholarship website
Nuvation Offers $1000 Engineering Scholarship
Write an essay to enter a contest for a $1000 spscholarship.Upcoming or current US or Canadian college students are eligible. Click here for more detail.
Engineers in the Arts Scholarship
Sponsored by the School of Engineering to encourage engineering students to continue their music studies while at Stanford. To be considered, applicants must be officially declared in the School of Engineering (graduate or undergraduate programs). The fund is for private music lessons and the applicant must be in financial need.
Haas Center Public Service Fellowships
For public service opportunities, visit the Haas Center's Fellowships Database: http://bit.ly/uUXMuG
For more information, go to the Haas Center website.
Haas Center Undergraduate Summer Fellowships
Offering over 100 fellowships which provide nine-week-long public service experiences in the U.S. and abroad. http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/haas/fellowships
Contact: Jeff Hawthorne at firstname.lastname@example.com
Stanford in Government (SIG) Summer Fellowships
SIG is a non-partisan student group, dedicated to promoting political awareness and connecting students with opportunities in public service. SIG offers 40 paid fellowships annually and this year is launching a stipend program to support students with self-identified public service internships.
Request Funding for School of Engineering Activities
Student Group Funding
Does your student group need funding for an activity that benefits the School of Engineering community or furthers the goals of your association, for instance, attendance at a national convention? The SoE accepts applications to assist groups with limited funding (there is no money provided for snacks at meetings). Click here for a proposal template; if you have questions, contact Darlene Lazar in 135 Huang Engineering Center or at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Proposals are accepted and reviewed quarterly. Submission deadlines for academic year 2013-14 are:
• Winter: February 7, 2014
• Spring: April 25, 2014 (submit by April 11 if you need funds by mid-late spring quarter)
• Autumn*: October 24, 2014
Submit one paper and one electronic copy of your proposal to Darlene Lazar
• Use our template to provide information on your proposal , including data on other sources of funding received at Stanford
• Grants will not exceed $5,000
• Incomplete proposals will not be considered
- Proposals for early fall activities should be submitted the previous spring quarter
Tutoring for Engineering Courses
Tutoring for Engineering Classes from CTL or TBP:
If you need help finding tutoring for an engineering course, please use this link for Center for Teaching and Learning tutoring services:
If you would like to add content to this page, email Darlene at email@example.com.
How to Explore Engineering by Topic
Introductory Seminars:
Frshman and Sophomore IntroSems are designed to explore a topic that often isn't otherwise part of the curriculum for a particular major, and do it with a faculty instructor in a small-class setting. To get a further hint of the emphasis of the class, check the offering department in column two. See page 3-4 of the 2011-12 UGHB for a list of this year's offerings.
Engineering Fundamentals by Topic:
BioE and/or ChemE:
ENGR 20. (S, 3 units) Overview of chemical engineering through discussion and engineering analysis of physical and chemical processes.
ENGR 25B. Biotechnology (S, 3 Units) Biology and chemistry fundamentals
ENGR 50M. Intro to Materials Science, Biomaterials Emphasis (W, 4 units) relationship between atomic structure and macroscopic properties of man-made and natural materials; mechanical and thermodynamic behavior of surgical implants
ENGR 80. Intro to Bioengineering (S, 4 units) Overview of bioengineering focused on engineering analysis and design of biological systems
ENGR 90. Environmental Science and Technology (A, 3 units) Introduction to environmental quality and technology of understanding environmental issues
ENGR 60. Engineering Economy (A, Sum 2012 is last offering; 3 Units) Fundamentals of economic analysis
ENGR 62. Intro to Optimization (A, S, 4 Units) Formulation and analysis of linear optimization problems
ENGR 40. Introductory Electonics (A, S; 5 units) Overview of electronic circuits & applications.
ENGR 40C. Engineering Wireless Networks (S, 5 units) A hands-on introduction to the design and implementation of modern wireless networks.
ENGR 40P. Physics of Electrical Engineering (W, 5 units) How everything from electrostatics to quantum mechanics is used in common high-technology products
ENGR 25E. Energy: Chemical Transformations for Production, Storage, and Use (W, 3 units) An introduction and overview to the challenges and opportunities of energy supply and consumption.
ENGR 50E. Introduction to Materials Science - Energy Emphasis (A, 4 units)
Materials structure, bonding and atomic arrangements leading to their properties and applications
ENGR 50. Intro to Materials Science, Nanotechnology Emphasis (S, 4 units) The structure, bonding, & atomic arrangements in materials leading to their properties & applications.
ENGR 14. Introduction to Solid Mechanics (A, W, S; 4 units) Introduction to engineering analysis using the principles of engineering solid mechanics.
ENGR 15. Dynamics (A, W; 4 units) The application of Newton's Laws to solve static and dynamic problems, particle and rigid body dynamics, freebody diagrams, and writing equations of motion.
ENGR 30. Engineering Thermodynamics (A, W, Sum; 3 units) The basic principles of thermodynamics
ENGR 70A (same as CS 106A). Programming Methodology (A,W,S,Sum; 5 units) Introduction to the engineering of computer applications
ENGR 70B (same as CS 106B). Programming Abstractions (A,W,S,Sum; 5 units) Abstraction and its relation to programming. Uses the programming language C++
ENGR 70X (same as CS 106X). Programming Abstractions Accelerated (A, 5 units) Intensive version of 106B
General Engineering:
ENGR 10. Intro to Engineering Analysis (A, Sum; 4 units) Integrated approach to the fundamental scientific principles that are the cornerstones of engineering analysis
If you would like to add content to this page, email Darlene at email@example.com.


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Nehalem - Everything You Need to Know about Intel's New Architectureby Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/3/2008 1:00 PM EST
- Posted in
- CPUs
36 Comments
Back to Article
steveyballme - Monday, November 03, 2008 - linkAll you really need to know is that it was designed to run Vista only!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com">http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com Reply
rflcptr - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - linkThe origin of Turbo Mode isn't Penryn, but rather Intel's DAT first found in the Santa Rosa mobile chipset, of which both Merom and Penryn were compatible (and functioning with the tech activated). Reply
hoohoo - Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - linkOutside of games the only area where raw performance matters to me is running high performance code - for me this is graphics processing and 3D rendering code, and it's just a hobby. I have some dealings with the HPC crowd though.
In the HPC biz memory bandwidth is a big issue. AMD has won hands down on that metric against Intel until perhaps the past six months. Nehalem server chip looks like it will beat Opteron on this metric.
Another important metric for HPC is linear algebra performance. GPUs are very good at linear algebra, but GPUs have strange programming requirements for the people who understand scientific programming - these people want to worry about the science or engineering and not about the specific cache architecture of an Nvidia or ATI GPU.
Just because I could, last winter I wrote some 2D graphics processing routines for an 8800GT+CUDA+AthlonX2-5200: gaussian blur, sharp filter, the like. I achieved on the order of 20x speed improvement on the 8800GT vs the AthlonX2 all on Linux - but it was a moderately brutal programming experience and I doubt your average researcher will do it. And, well, the PCIe bandwidth bottleneck would be a problem for large scale batch processing for such a simple calculation.
I don't know about ATI GPUs yet. I got a 3870 eight months ago and installed the AMD HPC GPU SDK ('nuff acromyms for ya?), but I can't face the pain of using it if after booting all the way into XP I could be fragging away in HL2 or Q4, or conquering the world in Civ2 Gold instead - and nobody really uses Windows servers for HPC clusters anyway. I think about write Brook+ code on my 3870 sometimes but honestly I don't care that much. It'll be similar performance to the 8800, and it'll be *Windows* code.
If Intel can produce a chip that is somewhere between Larabee and Nehalem, matching memory bandwidth with an easily programmed but highly parallel chip then Intel will have an opportunity to define a new sub-market: HPC processors.
It is indicative of the deficiencies of AMD marketing that it has a good GPGPU and the only way to program it is on the one OS that HPC shies away from: Windows. Clusters mostly run on Linux or UNIX.
But, AMD is working on a CPU+GPU product that could compete in that market.
Which of AMD or Intel will realize that there is money to be made with a chip that combines 2 or 4 CPU cores + 4 or 8 GPU style linear algebra cores, all with IEEE double precision ability?
Whither the Cell?
:-) Reply
hooflung - Monday, November 03, 2008 - linkI think you are minimizing what an operating system is. While it is true that Linux, AIX and Solaris account for a large number of HPC and cluster environments that doesn't mean Windows is poor in this regard.
There are solid options for windows HPC where infiniband is very, very solid. Microsoft helped define the spec. However, it isn't done often enough in the public's eye like Linux. Remember, AIX and Windows were the most solid platforms for J2EE for a long, long time.
Also, Windows Clusters can be the better TCO solution for people. EVE-Online used Windows 2000 (now 2003 x86 and x64 ) and wrote their own load balancing software in Stackless ( and now have their own async IO stackless library ) which holds 33k at any given time of the day.
You really just have to decide what market you are trying to reach when considering OS choices. They all can provide similar performance.
Pixy - Friday, September 05, 2008 - linkAll this sounds nice... but I have a question: when will laptops become fanless? The CPU is fast enough, work on turning down the heat! Reply
Davinchy - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - linkI thought I read somewhere that if the other processor cores where not working then they shut down and the one that was working got more juice and overclocked.. So wouldn't that suggest that for the average consumer This chip will game much faster than a penryn?
Dunno Maybe I read it wrong Reply
jediknight - Sunday, August 24, 2008 - linkFor desktop builders.
My aging S754 Athlon64 is dying.. so it's time to start thinking of building a new one. My laptop can only hold me out for so long, though..
Will I be able to buy a quad-core Nehalem processor in about the $250-300 range by the end of the year? Reply
UnlimitedInternets36 - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkCore i7 wins big time for 3D rendering, modeling, and CAD programs.
Turbo is the best feature. I hope, at least in the Extreme Edition we can set the Turbo headroom to like 5Ghz!!! and have a totally dynamic over-clock scaling FTW!
Zbrush can utilize 256 processors, so I think a 2 socket Core i7 will help me out just fine. Sure is don't automatic boost FPS in games, but but that's partially a programming issue as well. Sooner or later the coding will catch up. Reply
munyaka - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkI have always stuck with amd but this is the final Nail in the coffin. Reply
X1REME - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkIs there anything you see that we don't, please explain why? Reply
niva - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkWell it is another step forward for Intel while AMD is still falling farther and farther behind the times. I want to caution that at this point there is no software actually optimized to run on i7 and any potential new instructions the chips will have. Once that happens and games are patched/recompiled or new games come out to take advantage of the massive CPU/memory bandwidth i7 offers it will be lights out.
Waiting on AMD to come out with the next best thing is becoming really old. I have a Phenom system, I won't need a new one for at least another year or two but even though I wish AMD would do better they're just being dominated by intel right now. Reply
qurious69ss - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkYou sound like one of those sad fanboys from amdzone. Tell dimentia to get a life. Reply
X1REME - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkwow, this whole cpu is a copy of a amd cpu and you expect amd fan boys to not get amd with you, secondly this fantasy is baseless until you can compare it to an offering from the AMD team (Shanghai & Deneb). AMD is still KING with there OPTERON and most likely will be in the future with there new cpu coming soon for the server and also for the desktop. Reply
DigitalFreak - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkLearn to spell, you goober. Reply
X1REME - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkOK DORK, am sure you have never made a mistake (there=their) Duh. I bet your some kid all hyped up for the i7 who wishes Xmas comes early lol. Anyway it's not a desktop chip, it's a sever chip DUH. It's meant to compete with the AMD Opteron chip (the best). Although Opteron will lose its crown, it won't be to i7 but to Shanghai (AMD new latest and greatest). And like I said b4, Deneb will clear anything up out of place.
The reason amd does not grab a microphone and star shouting at the top of their voice is because amd doesn't have the resources and money in comparison with Intel. If it reveals too much about its future strategy and Intel likes that strategy (like the Opteron, HT, On-board mem etc) there is a big theoretical chance that Intel could take this idea and deliver a product well before AMD. So it's not over until amd says its.
snakeoil - Thursday, August 21, 2008 - linknehalem fails,it was supposed to be superior to core 2, intel was against the wall this time, why?, because, the old front bus architecture was lagging more more in the server arena and becoming a bottleneck ,compared to hypertransport, so intel is forced to abandon the front side bus, but the strong point of core 2 is that because you don't have and integrated memory controller you can stuff the processor with a huge L2 cache.
so, nehalem sucks in gaming,there is no way that the enthusiast is going to pay more for a processor that produce less fps that they actually have.
and the hyperthreading is a risky move, hypertrheading is known por being power hungry, and although produce gains in some applications,some servers applications actually runs slower, so in many cases the old hyperthreading had to be disabled.
nehalem is crippled for the enthusiast,and the regular user.
nuff said. Reply
AssBall - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkYou musta missed where Anand says several times its not intended for better gaming? It will be significantly faster than Penryn for multithreaded applications. I guess I don't see how this makes it "fail". Maybe in your fantasy world where 90% of the CPU market are "enthusiasts".
snakeoil - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkenthusiasts drive the market you fruityass Reply
UnlimitedInternets36 - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - linkLOL this year Satan err Santa is going to take away your PC because you don't deserve to have one anymore You Jaded nerd. Reply
Gasaraki88 - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkThanks! I never knew there was a expert on CPU design in the house. I've learn so much from your well researched, tested and thought out comment... Reply
pool1892 - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkfirst of all the enthusiast market is a very tiny niche, it would not kill intel if you were right.
but you are not. the L2 of penryn (and banias) is much more like the nehalem L3 than the nehalem L2. and if you have a single threaded game it now has 8mb at similar latencies, but with a second buffer, the 256k L2, and a MUCH smaller cache miss penalty.
concerning hyperthreading: please read the article first. nehalem switches off what it does not need, powerwise. and about fiftytwo other very vaild arguments. Reply
smilingcrow - Thursday, August 21, 2008 - linkYou do realise that you aren't meant to drink the snakeoil as it can rot your brain…. Reply
JarredWalton - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkI don't think Nehalem will "fail" at running games... in fact I expect it to be faster than Penryn at equivalent clocks. I just don't expect it to be significantly faster. We'll know soon enough, though. Reply
chizow - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkI'd agree with the OP, maybe with a different choice of words. Also, Johan seems to disagree with you Jarred, citing the decreased L2 and slower L3 along with similar maximum clock speeds as to why Nehalem may perform worst than Penryn at the same clocks in games. We've already seen a very preliminary report substantiating this from Hexus:
There's still a lot of questions about overclockability as well without a FSB. It appears Nehalem will run slightly hotter and draw a bit more power under load than Penryn with similar maximum clockspeeds when overclocked.
What's most disappointing is all of these new, hyped features seem to amount to squat with Nehalem. Where's the benefit of the IMC? Where's the benefit of the triple channel memory bus? Where's the benefit of HT? I know....I know...its for the server market/HPC crowd, but no one finds it odd that something like an IMC is resulting in negligible gaming gains when it was such a boon for AMD's Athlon 64?
All in all, very disappointing for the Gamer/Enthusiast as we'll most likely have to wait for Westmere for a significant improvement over Penryn (or even Kentsfield) in games. Reply
cornelius785 - Sunday, August 24, 2008 - linkFrom looking at that article, I have doubts that it could be worse than penryn in games. I also doubt that the performance increase is going to be the same as it was for Core 2. People are expecting this and since their figuring out that their unrealistic expectations can't be realized in Nehalem, they call Nehalem trash and say they'll go back to amd, ignoring the fact that Intel is still king in gaming with EXISTING processors. It is also not like 50 fps at extremely high setting and resolution isn't playable. Reply
JarredWalton - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkGiven that is early hardware, most likely not fully optimized, and performance is still substantially better than the QX6800 in several gaming tests (remember I said clock-for-clock I expected it to be faster, not necessarily faster than a 3.2GHz part when it's running at 2.93GHz).... Well, it's going to be close, but overall I think the final platform will be faster. Johan hasn't tested any games on the platform, so that's just speculation. Anyway, it's probably going to end up being a minor speed bump for gaming, and a big boost everywhere else. Reply
Felofasofanz - Thursday, August 21, 2008 - linkIt was my understanding that tick was the new architecture and tock was the shrink. I thought Conroe was tick, Penryn tock, then Nehalem tick, and the 32nm shrink tock? Reply
npp - Thursday, August 21, 2008 - linkI think we're facing a strange issue right now, and it's about the degree of usefulness of Core i7 for the average user. Enterprise clients will surely benefit a lot from all the improvements introduced, but I would have hard time convincing my friends to upgrade from their E8400...
And it's not about badly-threaded applications, the ones an average user has installed simply don't require such immense computing power. Look at your browser, or e-mail client - the tasks they execute are pretty well split over different threads, but they simply don't need 8 logical CPUs to run fast, most of them simply sit idle. It's a completely different matter that many applications who happen to be resource-hungry can't be parallelized to a reasonable degree - think about encryption/decryption, or similar, for example.
It seems to me that the Gustafson's law begins to speak here - if you can't escape your seqential code, make your task bigger. So expect something like UltraMegaHD soon, then try to transcode it in real time... But then again... who needs that? It seems like a cowardly manner to me.
Is it that software is laging behing technology? We need new OSes, completely different ways of interaction with our computers in order to justify so much GFLOPs on the desktop, in my opinion. Or that's at least what I'm dreaming of. The level of man-machine interaction has barely changed since the mouse was invented, and modern OSes are very similar to the very first OSes with a GUI, maybe somewhere in the 80s, or even earlier. But for that time span CPUs have increased their capabilities almost exponentially, can you spot a problem here?
The issue becomes clearer if we talk about 16-threaded octacores... God, I can't think of an application that would require that. (Let's be honest - most people don't transcode video or fold proteins all the time...). I think it would be great if a new Apple or Microsoft would emerge from some small garage, to come and change the old picture for good. The only way to justify technology would be to change the whole user-machine paradigm significantly, going the old way leads to nowhere, I suspect. Reply
gamerk2 - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - linkActually, Windows is the biggest bottleneck there is. Windows doesn't SCALE. It does limited tasks well, but breaks under heavy loads.
Even the M$ guys are realizing this. Midori will likely be the new post-windows OS after Vista SP2 (windows 7). Reply
smilingcrow - Thursday, August 21, 2008 - linkSo eventually we may end up with a separate class of systems that are akin to 'proper' sports cars with prices to match. Intel seemingly already sees this as a potential which is why they are releasing a separate high end platform for Nehalem. Unless a new killer app or two is found that appeals to the mainstream I can't see many people wanting to pay a large premium for these systems since as the entry level performance continues to rise less and less people require anything more than what they offer.
One thing mitigating against this is the current relatively low cost of workstation/server Dual Processor components which should continue to be affordable due to the strong demand for them within businesses. It's foreseeable that it might eventually be more cost affective to build a DP workstation system than a UP high end desktop. This matches Apple's current product range where they completely miss out on high end UP desktops and jump straight from mid range UP desktop to DP workstation. Reply
retardliquidator - Thursday, August 21, 2008 - link... think again.
more luck next time before starting the flamebait about not two bytes wide but 20bits.
effective usable speed is exactly 2bytes, as with 10/8 coding you need 20bits to encode your 16 relevant ones.
you fail at failing. Reply
defter - Friday, August 22, 2008 - linkLinks are 20-bit wide, regardless of encoding or whether 1,2,8,16 or 20 bits are used to tranmist the data.
I wonder who is flamebaiting here, a previous poster just mentioned the correct link width, he wasn't talking about "usable speed". Reply
rbadger - Thursday, August 21, 2008 - link"Each QPI link is bi-directional supporting 6.4 GT/s per link. Each link is 2-bytes wide..."
This is actually incorrect. Each link is 20 bits wide, not 16 (2 bytes). This information is on the slide posted directly below the paragraph. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, August 21, 2008 - linkIt's 20-bits but using a standard 8/10 encoding mechanism, so of the 20 bits only 16 are used to transmit data and the other four bits are (I believe) for clock signaling and/or error correction. It's the same thing we see with SATA and HyperTransport. Reply
ltcommanderdata - Thursday, August 21, 2008 - linkSince the PCU has a firmware, I wonder if it will be updatable? It would be useful if lessons learn in the power management logic of later steppings and in Westmere can be brought back to all Nehalems through a firmware update for lower power consumption or even better performance with better Turbo mode application. Although a failed or corrupt firmware update on a CPU could be very problematic. Reply
wingless - Thursday, August 21, 2008 - linkI thought about this when I read about it the first time too. Flashing your CPU could kill the power management or the whole CPU in one fell swoop! Reply

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Drinking Bird : DrinkingBird.co.uk
It's amazing the amount of time you can spend just watching him. Regular cries of 'I think he's stopping... no he's not, there he goes' resound around the office. He's the ultimate low maintenance office pet.
Although smaller than the Classic Drinking Bird we all know and love, the Mini Drinking Bird is still a dedicated drinker and will actually drink faster than the classic.Tags: ethanol, drinking bird, dipping bird, nodding bird, science toys, boiling point, thermodynamic bird, happy drinking bird, dipping duckAdded 7 Years Ago from Drinkingbird


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Which would you buy and why?
Posted 25 February 2013 - 02:32 PM
Posted 25 February 2013 - 04:46 PM
Posted 25 February 2013 - 10:25 PM
DVD . . . you can take with you, play on DVD players, etc. Download . . . it's on your hard drive only, not portable; plus, you need to have a good backup in case your hard drive crashes or you buy a new computer and need to reinstall. I'd probably pay a little bit more and have the DVD on hand. Download might work if you get a license for multiple downloads for your money as long as you have a product key. Not sure that is the case here.
Fully agree here. DVD is better for the long term investment. I have a tendency to build a new computer at least every 5 years, so I like to have things in DVD as they are more permanent. The other end here is if you find you have had enough of it, donate the DVD to a school or library, they would love it, and you get a write off.
#4 Guest_scott312_*
Posted 26 February 2013 - 05:17 AM
I am going to order some of the Ceramic Arts Daily educational videos. Which format would you choose and why? Is there a downside to the download?
I think they should give you the download if you buy the DVD. So you could use your purchase right away.
I think they would sell more that way.
Posted 26 February 2013 - 08:00 AM
I am going to order some of the Ceramic Arts Daily educational videos. Which format would you choose and why? Is there a downside to the download?
I had that same question the other day. Emailed them and was told you could burn to your own DVD after downloading. So not such a bad idea in my mind! Instant gratification, too!
Posted 26 February 2013 - 01:24 PM
Head of Ceramics, Central Washington University
Ellensburg WA
CWU offers; BA, BFA, and MFA Degrees, (Post Baccalaureate also available). Images of CWU Ceramics studio can be seen at
Posted 08 March 2013 - 07:00 PM
I am going to order some of the Ceramic Arts Daily educational videos. Which format would you choose and why? Is there a downside to the download?
Go with the DVD. Call me old fashioned but I like to have the physical object.
Posted 09 March 2013 - 11:02 AM
Dry Ridge Pottery
Posted 09 March 2013 - 11:04 AM
I rarely use my computer since getting an iPad, so I would probably get the download. But only if CAD allowed me to re-download in the future if needed.
You can always rip a dvd and have a "soft copy" backed up for use on portable devices--its a bit messier to go from a soft copy to a dvd.
Posted 14 March 2013 - 04:13 PM
Now to be patient and wait for the DVD to arrive in the mail in 1-3 weeks!
Posted 19 March 2013 - 08:26 PM
Posted 22 March 2013 - 04:39 PM
Posted 22 March 2013 - 10:08 PM
It's some kind of video file extension, but as I am not that familiar with video files or video editing that knowledge does me no good.
Has anyone bought a download version of a video and watch it on their iPad? Does the download run on the iPad without any finagling?
Posted 09 April 2013 - 03:49 AM
Well what about some YouTube videos. I believe that there would be some channels with rich videos. for some years when I was a student I used to watch them and I must say that i learnt a lot. I am sorry I can provide you the links right now.
Accelerate your business today | training and assessment certificate iv
Posted 07 May 2013 - 06:07 AM
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SandForce TRIM Issue & Corsair Force Series GS (240GB) Reviewby Kristian Vättö on 11/22/2012 1:00 PM EST
56 Comments
Back to Article
bradcollins - Thursday, November 22, 2012 - linkOne question, all of the tests at Anandtech for Sandforce performance after being hammered for a period of time are always over the entire drive. Do the drives maintain their performance if the random writes are only over 50% or 75% of the LBA's on the drive? Very few people actually fill up their SSD so I wonder if it is a truely relevant test? Reply
Impulses - Wednesday, November 28, 2012 - linkYou will always eventually use all of your SSD, wear leveling algorithms will spread data across all NAND packages... A certain portion will always be marked "empty" if you haven't filled it to capacity, but that space has been issued and it's subject to the performance degradation conditions AT tests for. Reply
Bullwinkle J Moose - Thursday, November 22, 2012 - linkTime for an article on Cache Analysis?
It looks to me as though the 1GB Dram Cache on the Intel DC S3700 is mainly responsible for smoothing out those peaks and valleys to deliver "Consistant" performance across the drive
As for trim.....
It's time to start with a fresh perspective on SSD's Reply
Bullwinkle J Moose - Thursday, November 22, 2012 - linkI know Intel claimed otherwise on the dram usage, but I don't buy it
Sounds more likely they are just sending the competition on a wild goose chase Reply
Bullwinkle J Moose - Thursday, November 22, 2012 - linkReread DC S3700 review again
256MB of the 1GB is used for cache
OK, my bad Reply
Bullwinkle J Moose - Thursday, November 22, 2012 - linkDoh
If I read it 5 more times I'll get it right eventually Reply
extide - Saturday, November 24, 2012 - linkIf it were that easy, don't you think other guys would have drives like the 3700 out? Reply
Kristian Vättö - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkThe problem with caching in general is that there is no good way to test how much write/read caching the drive is doing. All we got is what manufacturers tell us, which may or may not be accurate. Reply
mayankleoboy1 - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkWith each review, Samsung 840Pro looks better and better. Reply
JellyRoll - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkThis information has been already hashed over by several sites, in particular TweakTown. They have been educating the public for months about the lack of TRIM with Sandforce SSDs.
Other sites have also noticed the read degradation, and commented on it ad nauseum. Reply
FunnyTrace - Wednesday, November 28, 2012 - linkYes, I did read an article on Tweaktown about this in August 2012. Reply
JellyRoll - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkOMG...SandForce does not do dedupe (deduplication). It does not "has to check if the data is used by something else."!!
The drive is unaware of the actual file usage above the device level. That is a host level responsibility.
I cannot believe that this article was not vetted before it was posted. Reply
Kristian Vättö - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkSandForce does deduplication at the device level. It doesn't look for actual files like the host does because it's all ones and zeros for the controller. However, what it does is look for similar data patterns.
For example, if you have two very similar photos which are 5MB each, the controller may not write 10MB. Instead, it will only write let's say 8MB to the NAND because some of the data is duplicate and the whole idea of deduplication is to minimize NAND writes.
If you go and delete one of these photos, the OS sends a TRIM command that tells the LBA is no longer in use and it can be deleted. What makes SandForce more complicated is the fact that the photos don't necessarily have their own LBAs, so what you need to do is to check that the LBA you're about to erase is not mapped to any other LBA. Otherwise you might end up erasing a portion of the other photo as well. Reply
JellyRoll - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkI challenge you to offer one document that supports your assertion that sandforce does deduplication. There ins't any, as it does not. Feel free to link to the technical document to support your claims in your reply.
SandForce supports compression, not deduplication.
Here is a link to documentation and product data sheets.
http://www.lsi.com/products/storagecomponents/Page... Reply
Kristian Vättö - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkSandForce/LSI has published very little about the technology behind DuraWrite and how it works, but a combination of technologies including compression and deduplication is what they have told us.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2899/3 Reply
JellyRoll - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkLinking an Anandtech article is not proof that SandForce does deduplication. A quick Google will reveal that there is no other source, outside of Anandtech, that claims that they offer deduplication on the current series of processors.
As a matter of fact, that article is the only other reference to deduplication and SandForce that can be found.
There was a mistake made in that article. Reply
JellyRoll - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkAs a matter of fact, if deduplication were to apply to the SandForce series of processors then incompressible data would also experience decreases in write amplification. SandForce is very public that they have "top follow the same rules" with incompressible data as everyone else. IE, they suffer the same amount of write amplification.
Since SandForce controllers only exhibit performance enhancing and endurance increasing benefits from compressible data, that alone indicates that deduplication is not in use.
Deduplication can be applied regardless of the compressibility of the data. Reply
extide - Saturday, November 24, 2012 - linkIncompressible data generally doesnt have duplications in it... that's kinda what makes it incompressible... I mean the whole POINT of compression is removing duplications! Reply
JellyRoll - Saturday, November 24, 2012 - linkIf you have two matching sets of data, be they incompressible or not, they would be subject to deduplicatioin. It would merely require mapping to the same LBA addresses.
For instance, if you have two files that consist of largely incompressible data, but they are still carbon copies of each, they are still subject to data deduplication. Reply
extide - Wednesday, November 28, 2012 - linkThat could also be considered compression. Take 2 copies of the same MP3 file and put them into a zip file, how big is the zip file? Pretty close to the size of one copy... Reply
Sivar - Saturday, November 24, 2012 - linkDo you understand how data deduplication works?
This is a rhetorical question. Those who have read your comments know the answer.
Please read the Wikipedia article on data deduplication, or some other source, before making further comments. Reply
JellyRoll - Saturday, November 24, 2012 - linkI am repeating the comments above for you, since you referenced the Wiki I would kindly suggest that you might have a look at it yourself before commenting further.
"the intent of storage-based data deduplication is to inspect large volumes of data and identify large sections – such as entire files or large sections of files – that are identical, in order to store only one copy of it."
This happens without any regard to whether data is compressible or not.
If you have two matching sets of data, be they incompressible or not, they would be subject to deduplicatioin. It would merely require mapping to the same LBA addresses.
For instance, if you have two files that consist of largely incompressible data, but they are still carbon copies of each, they are still subject to data deduplication. Reply
'nar - Monday, November 26, 2012 - linkYou contradict yourself dude. You are regurgitating the words, but their meaning isn't sinking in. If you have two sets of incompressible data, then you have just made it compressible, ie. 2=1
When the drive is hammered with incompressible data, there is only one set of data. If there were two or more sets of identical data then it would be compressible. De-duplication is a form of compression. If you have incompressible data, it cannot be de-duped.
Write amplification improvements come from compression, as in 2 files=1 file. Write less, lower amplification. Compressible data exhibits this, but incompressible data cannot because no two files are identical. Write amp is still high with incompressible data like everyone else. Your conclusion is backwards. De-duplication can only be applied on compressible data.
The previous article that Anand himself wrote suggested dedupe, it did not state that it was used, as that was not divulged. Either way, dedupe is similar to compression, hence the description. Although vague, it's the best we got from Sandforce to describe what they do.
What Sandforce uses is speculation anyhow, since it deals with trade secrets. If you really want to know you will have to ask Sandforce yourself. Good luck with that. :) Reply
JellyRoll - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - linkIf you were to write 100 exact copies of a file, with each file consisting of incompressible data and 100MB in size, deduplication would only write ONE file, and link back to it repeatedly. The other 99 instances of the same file would not be repeatedly written.
That is the very essence of deduplication.
SandForce processors do not exhibit this characteristic, be it 100 files or even only two similar files.
Of course SandForce doesn't disclose their methods, but full on terming it dedupe is misleading at best. Reply
extide - Wednesday, November 28, 2012 - linkDeDuplication IS a form of compression dude. Period!! Reply
FunnyTrace - Wednesday, November 28, 2012 - linkSandForce presumably uses some sort of differential information update. When a block is modified, you find the difference between the old data and the new data. If the difference is small, you can just encode it over a smaller number of bits in the flash page. If you do the difference encoding, you cannot gc the old data unless you reassemble and rewrite the new data to a different location.
Difference encoding requires more time (extra read, processing, etc). So, you must not do it when the write buffer is close to full. You can always choose whether or not you do differential encoding.
It is definitely not deduplication. You can think of it as compression.
A while back my prof and some of my labmates tried to guess their "DuraWrite" (*rolls eyes*) technology and this is the best guess have come up with. We didn't have the resources to reverse engineer their drive. We only surveyed published literature (papers, patents, presentations).
Oh, and here's their patent: http://www.google.com/patents/US20120054415 Reply
JellyRoll - Friday, November 30, 2012 - linkHallelujah!
Thanks funnytrace, i had a strong suspicion that it was data differencing. In the linked patent document it lists this 44 times. Maybe that many repetitions will sink in for some who still believe it is deduplication?
Also, here is a link to data differencing for those that wish to learn..
Radoslav Danilak is listed as the inventor, not surprising i believe he was SandForce employee #2. He is now running Skyera, he is an excellent speaker btw. Reply
extide - Saturday, November 24, 2012 - linkIt's no different than SAN's and ZFS and other enterprise level storage solutions doing block level de-duplication. It's not magic, and it's not complicated. Why is it so hard to believe? I mean, you are correct that the drive has no idea what bytes go to what file, but it doesn't have to. As long as the controller sends the same data back to the host for a given read on an lba as the host sent to write, it's all gravvy. It doesnt matter what ends up on the flash,. Reply
JellyRoll - Saturday, November 24, 2012 - linkAboslutely correct. However, they have much more powerful processors. You are talking about a very low wattage processor that cannot handle deduplication on this scale. SandForce also does not make the statement that they actually DO deduplication. Reply
FunBunny2 - Saturday, November 24, 2012 - linkhere: http://thessdreview.com/daily-news/latest-buzz/ken...
"Speaking specifically on SF-powered drives, Kent is keen to illustrate that the SF approach to real time compression/deduplication gives several key advantages."
Kent being the LSI guy. Reply
JellyRoll - Saturday, November 24, 2012 - linkEntertaining that you would link to thessdreview, which is pretty much unanimously known as the home of misinformation. Here is a link to the actual slide deck from that presentation, which does not ever mention deduplication.
http://www.flashmemorysummit.com/English/Collatera... Reply
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, December 29, 2012 - linkLOL - good job, I will continue to read and see if all the "smart" people have finally shut the H up.
I was hoping one would come by, apologize, and thank you.
Of course I know better.
*Happy the consensus is NOT the final word.* Reply
dishayu - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkGet Kristian on to the next episode of the podcast and make him talk!! Reply
popej - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkWhat exactly does it mean: "I TRIM'ed the drive after our 20 minute torture"?
Shouldn't TRIM function be executed by OS all the time during torture test? Reply
Kristian Vättö - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkMost of our tests are run without a partition, meaning that the OS has no access to the drive. After the torture, I created a partition which formats the drive and then deleted it. Formatting the drive is the same as TRIMing all user-accessible LBAs since it basically tells the controller to get rid of all data in the drive. Reply
popej - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkDoes it mean, that there was no TRIM command executed at all?
Not when torturing drive, because it wasn't TRIM supported partition. Not when you "TRIM'ed" drive, because it was a format.
While I agree that you can notice some weird effects, why do you describe them as TRIM problems? Sorry, but I don't know how your test could be relevant to standard use of SDD, when TRIM is active all the time. Reply
Kristian Vättö - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkFormatting is the same as issuing a TRIM command to the whole drive. If I disable TRIM and format the drive, its performance won't restore since the drive still thinks the data is in use and hence you'll have to do read-modify-write when writing to the drive.
They are problems in the sense that the performance should fully restore after formatting. If it doesn't, then TRIM does not function properly. Using an extreme scenario like we do it the best for checking if there is a problem; how that affects real world usage is another question. With light usage there shouldn't be a problem but you may notice the degradation in performance if your usage is write intensive. Reply
popej - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkBasing on you test I would say, that format is not enough to restore drive performance after using it without TRIM. Quite possible that the state of the drive after torture without TRIM is very different to anything you can get when TRIM is active.
It would be interesting to compare your test to real life scenario, with NTFS partition and working TRIM. Reply
Kristian Vättö - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkWith most SSDs, formatting the drive will fully restore it's performance, so the behavior we're seeing here is not completely normal.
Remember that even if TRIM is active at all times, sending a TRIM command to the controller does not mean the data will be erased immediately. If you're constantly writing to the SSD, the controller may not have time to do garbage collection in real time and hence the SSD may be pushed to a very fragmented state as in our test where, as we can see, TRIM doesn't work perfectly.
I know that our test may not translate to real world in most cases, but it's still a possible scenario if the drive is hammered enough. Reply
JellyRoll - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkIf the majority of your tests are conducted without a partition that means none of the storage bench results are with TRIM? Reply
Kristian Vättö - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkThat is correct, Storage bench tests are run on a drive without a partition.
Running tests on a drive with a partition vs without a partition is something I've discussed with other storage editors quite a bit and there isn't really an optimal way to test things. We prefer to test without a partition because that is the only way we can ensure that the OS doesn't cause any additional anomalies but that means the drive may behave slightly differently with a file system than what you see in our tests. Reply
JellyRoll - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkWell personally I think that testing devices that are designed to operate in a certain environment is important. You are testing SSDs that are designed for a filesystem and TRIM, without a filesystem and TRIM. This means that the traces that you are running aren't indicative of real performance at all, the drives are functioning without the benefit of their most important aspect, TRIM. This explains why Anandtech is just now reporting the lack of TRIM support when other sites have been reporting this for months.
Testing in an unrealistic environment with different datasets than those that are actually used when recording (your tools do not use the actual data, it uses substituted data that is highly compressible), in a TRIM free environment is like testing a Formula One car in a school zone.
This is the problem with proprietary traces. Readers have absolutely no idea if these results are valid, and surprise, they are not! Reply
extide - Saturday, November 24, 2012 - linkThe drive has NO IDEA id there is a partition on it or not. All the drive has to do is store data at a bunch of different addresses. That's it. Whether there is a partition or not has no difference, it's all just 0's and 1's to the drive. Reply
JellyRoll - Saturday, November 24, 2012 - linkit IS all ones and zeros my friend, but TRIM is a command issued by the Operating System. NOT the drive. This is why XP does not support TRIM for instance, and several older operating systems also do not support it. That is merely because they do not issue the TRIM command. The OS issues the TRIM commands, but only as a function of the file system that is managing it. :)
No file system=no TRIM. Reply
JellyRoll - Saturday, November 24, 2012 - linkexceprts from the defiition of TRIM from WIKI:
Because of the way that file systems typically handle delete operations, storage media (SSDs, but also traditional hard drives) generally do not know which sectors/pages are truly in use and which can be considered free space.
Since a common SSD has no access to the file system structures, including the list of unused clusters, the storage medium remains unaware that the blocks have become available. Reply
popej - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkDifferent drives, different algorithms and different results. But since you are testing drive well outside normal use you should draw conclusion with care, not all could be relevant to standard application. Reply
R3dox - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkI've read everything (afaik) on AT on SSDs the past few years and the powersaving features used to be disabled in reviews. They, at least at some point, significantly affect performance. Back then I bought an Intel 80GB postville SSD and all tests I ran confirmed that these settings have quite a big impact.
I currently have an Intel 520 (though sadly limited by a 3Gbps SATA controller on my old core i7 920 platform) and I never thought of turning everything on again, so I wonder whether the problem is solved with newer drives. Did I miss something or why aren't these settings disabled anymore? Hopefully it's not a feature of newer platforms.
It would be nice if the next big SSD piece would cover this (or feel free to point me to an older one that does :)). I'd really like this to be clarified, if possible. Reply
Bullwinkle J Moose - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkI was kinda wondering something similar
AHCI might give you a sleight performance boost, but does it affect the "Consistency" of the test results having NCQ enabled or the power saving features of AHCI or the O.S. itself
I always test my SSD's in the worst case scenario's to find bottom
No Trim (Not even O&O Defrag Pro's manual Trim)
Heavy Defragging to test reliability while still under return policy
yank the drives power while running
Stuff like that
I predicted that my Vertex 2 would die if I ever updated the firmware as I have been tellyng people for the past few years and YES, it finally Died right after the firmware update
It was still under warranty but I seriously do not want another one
Time for me to thrash a Samsung 256GB 840 pro
I feel sorry for it already
Sniff Reply
Bullwinkle J Moose - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkI forgot
Misaligned partitions and firmware updates during the return policy will also be used for testing any of my new drives during the return policy
I don't trust my data to a drive I haven't tested in a worst case scenario Reply
Kristian Vättö - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkEIST and Turbo were disabled when we ran our tests on a Nehalem based platform (that was before AnandTech Storage Bench 2011) but have been enabled since that. Some of our older SSD reviews have a typo in the table which shows that those would be disabled in our current setup as well, but that's because Anand forget to remove those lines when updating the spec table for our Sandy Bridge build. Reply
R3dox - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkI see, but that doesn't really answer my question :P.
Is there still a performance hit and do you just choose to test under normal rather than optimal conditions or is this a thing of the past? Reply
Kristian Vättö - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkI tested this quickly a while back but there was no significant difference in performance (small variation always occurs anyway):
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=22721... Reply
R3dox - Friday, November 23, 2012 - linkThanks for the replies :).
You say "AFAIK it affected performance with some older SandForce SSDs but when I started testing SSD and asked Anand for all the settings, he just told me to leave it on since it doesn't matter anymore".
But it's a clear difference on my old postville. Granted, the SSD is my boot disc during those tests, but isn't that their most likely use anyway? TBH I'd be interested to know why enabling those powersaving features apparently impact performance only when used as boot disc. When I say 'impact", I mean based on multiple runs, of course.
Lastly, it seems that C-states are the most impactful setting and that one isn't mentioned in the reviews. I suppose you've left those on as well? Reply
JellyRoll - Wednesday, December 05, 2012 - linkthat wasnt testing. Reply
Schugy - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - linkDon/t buy MLC rubbish. SLC is really worth it. Reply
FunnyTrace - Wednesday, November 28, 2012 - linkNice going SandForce.
1) BSOD problem
2) AES-256 hardware doesn't work (seriously??? hardware doesn't work???)
3) TRIM has not been working properly (what, you failed to GC blocks properly?)
As a lot of people mention, these SSD makers want to use early adopters and PC building enthusiasts as guinea pigs. Reply