Mersenne Digest Friday, December 15 2000 Volume 01 : Number 800 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 01:32:27 -0600 From: "Richard B. Woods" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: Caution about P4 future I urge those of you contemplating a Pentium 4 purchase to read a cautionary note about its future written by Thomas Pabst, author of "Tom's Hardware Guide" at http://www.sysdoc.pair.com Basically, Pabst has written that if you buy a Pentium 4 before next summer, you may not be able to upgrade the processor alone to a faster P4 later on. According to him, Intel plans to change both the P4 chipset and socket in mid-2001; Intel will still produce P4s after mid-2001, but those won't be motherboard-compatible with the current version of P4. Now, if you know you won't ever want to upgrade only your P4 processor without also upgrading the motherboard, or you don't mind having to buy a new motherboard in order to use a faster P4, then this is not relevant. Otherwise, have a look at the part of Pabst's Intel roadmap article at http://www.sysdoc.pair.com/cpu/00q4/001013/roadmap-02.html subtitled "Pentium 4 'Willamette' Is Just A Short-Term Filler". Richard Woods _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 11:32:50 -0500 (EST) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Mersenne: Caution about P4 future > > I urge those of you contemplating a Pentium 4 purchase to read a > cautionary note about its future written by Thomas Pabst, author of > "Tom's Hardware Guide" at http://www.sysdoc.pair.com > > Basically, Pabst has written that if you buy a Pentium 4 before next > summer, you may not be able to upgrade the processor alone to a faster > P4 later on. According to him, Intel plans to change both the P4 > chipset and socket in mid-2001; Intel will still produce P4s after > mid-2001, but those won't be motherboard-compatible with the current > version of P4. > > Now, if you know you won't ever want to upgrade only your P4 processor > without also upgrading the motherboard, or you don't mind having to buy > a new motherboard in order to use a faster P4, then this is not > relevant. Otherwise, have a look at the part of Pabst's Intel roadmap > article at http://www.sysdoc.pair.com/cpu/00q4/001013/roadmap-02.html > subtitled "Pentium 4 'Willamette' Is Just A Short-Term Filler". > > Richard Woods > > _________________________________________________________________________ > Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm > Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers > _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 13:07:27 -0500 (EST) From: Jason Stratos Papadopoulos <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Caution about P4 future On Sun, 10 Dec 2000, Richard B. Woods wrote: > I urge those of you contemplating a Pentium 4 purchase to read a > cautionary note about its future written by Thomas Pabst, author of > "Tom's Hardware Guide" at http://www.sysdoc.pair.com Anyone contemplating a P4 purchase and in need of second, third and fourth opinions should use DejaNews to track down all the discussions in comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips on whether the P4 is a good thing or not at this time. In particular you'll find out that Tom's opinion has flip-flopped about three times on the P4. jasonp _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 09:51:49 -0600 From: "Richard B. Woods" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Caution about P4 future Jason Stratos Papadopoulos has alerted me to my not having sufficiently delimited the scope of my previous P4 future cautionary note in its topic paragraph rather than its final paragraph. That, alas, was a particular example of a persistent weakness in my communication skills. I apologize for it. If I were to recompose my previous message, its topic paragraph would be more like: For those of you contemplating a Pentium 4 purchase -- If you won't ever want to upgrade your P4 processor without also upgrading the motherboard, or if you won't mind having to buy a new motherboard in order to upgrade to a faster P4, then this message is not relevant for you. OTOH, if you want to be able to upgrade your P4 processor without having to buy a new motherboard, I urge you to read a cautionary note by Tom Pabst about Intel's future plans for the P4 at http://www.sysdoc.pair.com/cpu/00q4/001013/roadmap-02.html subtitled "Pentium 4 'Willamette' Is Just A Short-Term Filler". (Tom Pabst is author of "Tom's Hardware Guide" at http://www.sysdoc.pair.com) Then my note might not have given the initial impression that it concerned the P4's merits in general rather than only about the P4's motherboard-compatible upgradability in particular. In response to part of Mr. Papadopoulos's message: >In particular you'll find out that Tom's opinion has flip-flopped about three times >on the P4. If you were referring only to Tom's opinion about Intel's future plans for changing the P4 socket and chipset in mid-2001, then I am not aware of any such flip-flopping and would appreciate your pointing out where such flip-flopping of Tom's opinion about Intel's plans for changing the P4 socket and chipset has been discussed on comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips. If you were referring to Tom's opinion about aspects of the P4 _other than_ Intel's plans for changing the P4 socket and chipset, then I regret that my note led you or others to think that it concerned any aspect other than Intel's plans for changing the P4 socket and chipset. Richard Woods _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 14:53:25 -0800 From: "Ethan Hansen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: Mersenne: Caution about P4 future Richard Woods wrote: [SNIP] If I were to recompose my previous message, its topic paragraph would be more like: For those of you contemplating a Pentium 4 purchase -- If you won't ever want to upgrade your P4 processor without also upgrading the motherboard, or if you won't mind having to buy a new motherboard in order to upgrade to a faster P4, then this message is not relevant for you. OTOH, if you want to be able to upgrade your P4 processor without having to buy a new motherboard, I urge you to read a cautionary note by Tom Pabst about Intel's future plans for the P4 at http://www.sysdoc.pair.com/cpu/00q4/001013/roadmap-02.html subtitled "Pentium 4 'Willamette' Is Just A Short-Term Filler". [SNIP] All the above is quite true. The current version of the P4, in Intel's jargon "Willamette", is manufactured on 0.18um technology. The P4 is a lead product for the 0.15um technology, and again using Intel's nomenclature, will be renamed "Northwood". Northwood uses a different package and pin out than does Willamette, and thus requires a new motherboard. There will be an intermediate version, scheduled for release near the middle of next year, that uses the Willamette die in a Northwood package. This flavor is intended to allow the P4 to be used in notebooks and get people buying motherboards that support Northwood and future products. The hybrid version supposedly will work with both the Willamette and Northwood chipsets, so an interposer could possibly be used for existing motherboards. The moral of the story is that buying today's P4 is much like buying the original PPro -- little or no possibility of upgrades without buying a new motherboard. Whether or not higher speed versions of the P4 are released before the transition to Northwood occurs depends strongly on what performance AMD wrings out of the Thunderbird follow-ons. Regards, Ethan _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 20:47:20 -0500 (EST) From: Jason Stratos Papadopoulos <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Caution about P4 future On Mon, 11 Dec 2000, Richard B. Woods wrote: > Jason Stratos Papadopoulos has alerted me to my not having sufficiently > delimited the scope of my previous P4 future cautionary note in its > topic paragraph rather than its final paragraph. That, alas, was a > particular example of a persistent weakness in my communication skills. > I apologize for it. > If you were referring only to Tom's opinion about Intel's future plans > for changing the P4 socket and chipset in mid-2001, then I am not aware > of any such flip-flopping and would appreciate your pointing out where > such flip-flopping of Tom's opinion about Intel's plans for changing the > P4 socket and chipset has been discussed on > comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips. Mea culpa, I grabbed a chance to be ignorant and sweeping. jasonp _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 10:39:56 +0100 From: Henk Stokhorst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: factoring the higher exponents L.S., I spend the past months factoring the range 16.000.000 up to 17.000.000 form 2^52 up to 2^58. I reported the results once a week, which are included in the database. This week someone else started to work on this as well although up to 2^56. This work is therefor done twice. What is being done and can be done to avoid this? YotN, Henk Stokhorst _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ End of Mersenne Digest V1 #800 ******************************
