X-Nico

unusual facts about CPU-Z


CPUID

CPU-Z, a Windows utility that uses CPUID to identify various system settings


AMD Accelerated Processing Unit

It was based on the K10 architecture and built on a 32 nm process featuring two to four CPU cores on a TDP of 65-100 W, and integrated graphics based on the Radeon HD6000 Series with support for DirectX 11, OpenGL 4.2 and OpenCL 1.2.

Apollo PRISM

The original PRISM design was introduced in 1988 in the one-to-four-CPU Apollo DN10000 workstations.

ARINC 653

An abstraction layer managing the timer and space partitioning constraints of the platform (memory, CPU, Input/output).

Asteroids Deluxe

The hardware consists primarily of a standard MOS 6502 CPU, which executes the game program, and the Digital Vector Generator (DVG), vector processing circuitry developed by Atari themselves.

Awesome Android

The board, originally depicted as a chalk board, was retconned into a digital display screen with a Wi-Fi connection to his CPU.

Blitter

A blitter is capable of copying large quantities of data from one memory area to another relatively quickly, and in parallel with the CPU, whilst freeing up the CPU's more complex ISA for more general operations.

Clock rate

The first commercial PC, the Altair 8800 (by MITS), used an Intel 8080 CPU with a clock rate of 2 MHz (2 million cycles/second).

Coldplug

In most computer systems, CPUs and memory are coldpluggable, but it is common for high-end servers and mainframes to feature hotplug capability of these components.

Dan Dodge

After moving to Kanata, Ontario, (a high-tech area outside Ottawa) to start Quantum Software Systems (later renamed QNX Software Systems to avoid confusion with the famous hard drive manufacturer), the first commercial version of QNX was released for the Intel 8088 CPU in 1982.

Destruction Derby Raw

There are 2 vehicles per team and your partner is a CPU-controlled armour-plated Hummers, which are very strong, but also very cumbersome.

EncFS

This option creates a large amount of CPU overhead, as each block's checksum must be calculated when data is read (to verify integrity) or written (to update the checksum).

Erratum

Design errors and mistakes in a CPU's hardwired logic may also be documented and described as errata.

Fair-share scheduling

Fair-share scheduling is a scheduling strategy for computer operating systems in which the CPU usage is equally distributed among system users or groups, as opposed to equal distribution among processes.

G34

Socket G34, a CPU socket designed by AMD to support AMD's multi-chip module Opteron 6000-series server processors

GotoBLAS

It was initially optimized for the Pentium 4 processor and managed to immediately boost the performance of a supercomputer based on that CPU from 1.5 TFLOPS to 2 TFLOPS.

Hans Peter Anvin

Previous employers include Transmeta, where he performed as architect and technical director; Orion Multisystems, working on CPU architecture and code morphing software; and rPath.

Heka

AMD Phenom II, core name for a triple-core in the Phenom II CPU-line from AMD.

IL2CPU

IL2CPU (IL To CPU) is an AOT compiler that is written using a Common Intermediate Language compliant language (C#).

In-circuit emulator

A header and cable assembly connects the adaptor to a socket where the actual CPU or microcontroller mounts within the embedded system.

Intel Quick Sync Video

Intel Quick Sync Video is Intel's hardware video encoding and decoding technology, which is integrated into some Intel CPUs.

LGA 1356

LGA 1356 is one of the two sockets designed as a replacement for the LGA 1366 CPU socket, the other being LGA 2011 (which is known as Socket R).

Macintosh IIx

It replaced the 16 MHz Motorola 68020 CPU and 68881 FPU of the II with a 68030 CPU and 68882 FPU (running at the same clock speed); and the 800 KB floppy drive with the 1.44 MB SuperDrive (in fact, it was the first Mac to have one).

Macintosh Quadra 650

There are two versions of the Centris 650: One with 4 MiB of RAM soldered to the logic board and an FPU-less Motorola 68LC040 CPU, and one with 8 MiB of logic board RAM, a full Motorola 68040, and added an onboard AAUI port for Ethernet.

Macintosh Quadra 660AV

Like the 840AV, the 660AV features video input/output capability and an onboard AT&T 3210 digital signal processor (here clocked at 55 MHz) to make the video handling less of a burden on the CPU.

Macintosh Quadra 840AV

At the time of introduction, its 40 MHz Motorola 68040 CPU and interleaved RAM made it the fastest Macintosh available, topping both the nominally higher-end Quadra 950 and the Quadra 800 by 7 MHz.

Memory scrubbing

In order to not disturb regular memory requests from the CPU and thus prevent decreasing performance, scrubbing is usually only done during idle periods.

Microsequencer

It is used as a part of the control unit of a CPU or as a stand-alone generator for address ranges.

Module file

The CPU has to do very little work to play these modules on an Amiga.

Nvision

Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, of MythBusters fame, demonstrated how GPUs solve specific tasks faster in parallel than they can be executed on general purpose CPUs by painting a Mona Lisa with a massively parallel paint gun.

PaRappa the Rapper 2

Completing the game in Cool Mode unlocks a music player where you can listen to any level with a Cool Rating on, along with the full version of the Stage 8 Intro song "Come a Long Way", while completing the Vs. CPU mode on all difficulty levels unlocks the final song, "Say "I Gotta Believe!"", performed by De La Soul featuring Double.

Porting

In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed (e.g. different CPU, operating system, or third party library).

Random-access memory

As suggested above, smaller amounts of RAM (mostly SRAM) are also integrated in the CPU and other ICs on the motherboard, as well as in hard-drives, CD-ROMs, and several other parts of the computer system.

Raster interrupt

Although early games like Super Mario Bros., Castlevania, and The Legend of Zelda managed to produce effective split-screen scrolling with this method, it is quite CPU-intensive, and some later cartridges incorporated MMC circuitry (most prominently Nintendo's MMC3 chip) that kept track of the PPU's address and data lines and generated raster interrupts.

RemoteFX

The RemoteFX Codec does not require any special hardware, and uses the CPU for encoding, with optional hardware-acceleration by either a GPU or ASIC.

RSX 'Reality Synthesizer'

Maximum Dot product operations: 56 billion per second (combined with Cell CPU)

S-100 bus

The backplane was split into four separate cards, with the CPU on a fifth.

ServersCheck

It can perform traditional network related checks (TCP, PING, traceroute) but can also be used to monitor a wide variety of other checks such as internet related checks (url, email chain, database checks, Windows checks (diskspace, CPU, memory, process, services).

Socket 370

Socket 370 (also known as the PGA370 socket) is a common format of CPU socket first used by Intel for Pentium III and Celeron processors to replace the older Slot 1 CPU interface on personal computers.

Software rot

For example, many early computer game designers made assumptions about processing speed of the CPU which the games were designed for.

Synthetic instrument

An analogy to this relationship between specific measurement hardware versus generic hardware with its function totally defined in software is the relationship between specific digital circuits and a general purpose CPU.

Thermally Advantaged Chassis

Its main feature is a Chassis Air Guide that directs room temperature air directly in the path of the CPU fan and heat sink.

Thermally conductive pad

In computing and electronics, thermal pads (also called thermally conductive pad or thermal interface pad) are a pre-formed square or rectangle of solid material (often paraffin wax or silicone based) commonly found on the underside of heatsinks to aid the conduction of heat away from the component being cooled (such as a CPU or another chip) and into the heatsink (usually made from aluminium or copper).

TRIPOS

Those two concepts together allowed for sending and receiving over 1250 packets per second on a 10 MHz Motorola 68010 CPU.

Unreal Tournament 2003

3.5 GB free, 64 MB of video memory recommended

Linux 2.2+ or Windows 98-Win7, 733 MHz x86 CPU, 128 MB RAM, video card with 16 MB RAM, 3 GB HDD space, DirectX 8.1 or OpenGL 1.2

Mac OS X 10.2.6+, 700 MHz PowerPC G4 CPU, 256 MB RAM, GeForce 2 MX or Radeon with 32 MB RAM, 3 GB HDD space

VAX

CPU implementations that consisted of multiple MOSFET custom chips included the 8100 and 8200 class machines.

Windows Task Manager

Windows Task Manager is a task manager, system monitor and startup manager included with the Microsoft Windows, that provides limited information about computer performance and running applications, processes and CPU usage, commit charge and memory information, network activity and statistics, logged-in users, and system services.

XIO

XIO is usually used in a star topology, using a router ASIC called Crossbow (Xbow) to connect up to eight fully symmetrical devices in a system (one of them is usually the memory controller / CPU bridge, called HEART in Octane or Hub in Origin).


see also