PC Hacks

Chapter 3. CPU Hacks

Hacks #19-29

"How fast can I make it run?" is likely the first question from any PC hacker. In the good old days of the original IBM PC, the answer was a breathtaking 8 MHz, up from 4.77 MHz—but only if you replaced the system's processor, an Intel i8088 CPU, with an NEC V20 chip. (Intel eventually beefed up the i8088 to run at 8 MHz.)

The PC has gone through numerous and tremendous performance improvements, starting with the CPU. At one time, 12 and 16 MHz were the top speeds; then 25 and 33 MHz; then 50 and 66 MHz; then 100, 150, 200, 266, 500 MHz, 1 GHz, and 2 GHz. After 24 years of technological advances, now 3 GHz, nearly 630 times faster than the first PCs, is an everyday, ho-hum, state-of-the-art PC standard.

At every step of CPU performance improvement, the system I/O bus and peripherals have had to catch up. We want the Internet to flash before us, its content challenging the CPU to keep up with the network. There was a time when application programs strained to crunch numbers and print documents; we are now waiting for applications to take advantage of what desktop super-computing capabilities have to offer. Once AMD got the rights to manufacture an Intel i80286 CPU, the horses, cows, pigs, and rocket-fuel powered CPUs were out of the barn, seldom to be corralled again. The functions of the x86 chip were well known and easily replicated: the race was on. The winners are millions of PC users around the globe.

The basic question may be, "Why do I want my ...