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Motherboards and Processors

Motherboards and Processors. A primer – bits and bytes The hardware at the core of the computer A history lesson Perspectives on modern systems. http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs. Introduction or refresher. Bits and Bytes A bit (symbol “b”) is a single on/off switch, 2 states (value 0 or 1)

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Motherboards and Processors

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  1. Motherboards and Processors • A primer – bits and bytes • The hardware at the core of the computer • A history lesson • Perspectives on modern systems http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs

  2. Introduction or refresher • Bits and Bytes • A bit (symbol “b”) is a single on/off switch, 2 states (value 0 or 1) • A byte (“B”) is a group of 8 bits – one letter/character (range 0..255) • Why 8 bits? Why not 7 bits for a range of 0..127? • Bytes are the basis of computer data storage http://www.twotechies.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Bit-byte-word11.jpg

  3. Introduction or refresher • Network speed – often shown in shorthand • “Fast Ethernet cards allow 100 Mbps data transfer…” • Is this saying 100 megabits per second or 100 megabytes per second? • It’s a difference of a factor of eight, so you had better be sure! • The information transfer rate is loosely known as “bandwidth” • Wi-fi wireless networking is often quoted as having a “speed” or “bandwidth” of 54Mbps (IEEE 802.11g standard) • This gives an absolute maximum of about 6 megabytes per second

  4. Introduction or refresher • Sizes – Memory (but usually not storage…) • Kilo – one thousand (or 1024, closest binary number) • Mega – one million (or 1024*1024 in binary) • Giga – one billion (1024*1024*1024) • So one Megabyte (1MB) of memory has 1,048,576 bytes • But one Megabit (1Mb) is only 131,072 bytes (=128KB) • Speeds – “xyz per second” is common in computing • Things “per second” = Hz = Hertz (after George Hertz, scientist) • One megahertz is 1MHz, one million times per second • One gigahertz is 1GHz, one billion times per second

  5. Introduction to Motherboards • A motherboard is also known as a mainboard or a “mobo” in web slang • Motherboard designs have changed over the years to keep up with new developments • Updates to the system bus architecture (structure) • Changes in CPU (Central Processing Unit) speed • Integration of system devices • Sound, LAN, Video, USB, IDE/PATA, SATA, FireWire… • Now appearing: Bluetooth, WiFi, USB3, eSATA

  6. The PC/AT • Original IBM PC/AT (1984) • 6MHz 80286 chip, rapidly upgraded to 8MHz • 16-bit CPU (modern ones are 64-bit) • 24-bit address bus (max of 16MB RAM) • Current computers are millions of times faster and have thousands of times more memory

  7. A typical server-style “tower” case showing the motherboard • Lots of spaces for other devices • Examples: • Blu-Ray/DVD drives • SSDs • Control panels

  8. Fast PC/AT motherboards • Later (about 1987) the i386 became available, with a 32-bit data bus • It could run faster than the normal type of RAM! • This lead to a problematic choice • Either run the (expensive) CPU as slowly as the RAM • Or decouple the RAM and CPU clocks so they are no longer synchronised in a simple 1:1 relationship (hard)

  9. The Chipset – Northbridge, Southbridge • Chipset uses two physicals chips: Northbridge and Southbridge • Northbridge • Memory controller hub – buffers link from CPU to RAM • Core chipset that handles the communication between CPU, RAM, PCI-E and South Bridge • Southbridge • Chipset that handles the communication between North Bridge, PCI and other I/O devices such as USB, Firewire and Gigabit Ethernet

  10. Diagram • The two “glue” chips have very different characteristics • The northbridge runs very fast (CPU speed) • The southbridge doesn’t run so fast as it handles relatively slow connections

  11. Modern systems - common figures • The ISA expansion bus [8.33MHz] vanished years ago, good for 16Mbps • The PCI expansion bus ran at 66MHz for a total of about 1Gbps (one gigabit per second) • The basic PCI-e expansion bus runs at 5Gbps per lane with up to 32 lanes per device, maximum total of 160Gbps • PCI-e is 10,000 times faster than the old ISA bus

  12. Processor Characteristics • Socket type – how the CPU plugs into the motherboard • Clock speed • Front Side Bus (FSB) - Connection speed between the processor and the chipset • Cache sizes, usually 2 or 3 levels of caching • Number of cores - multi-core helps to ensure that the system remains more responsive even when the processor load is high

  13. Multi-core processors • Many CPU types are available as multi-core processors

  14. Summary • We have discussed the basics of the motherboard • And a little of the history of changes • We have introduced many terms relating to processors • And discussed some modern developments • Key ideas – continual change, speed increases

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