Neowin.net

PC buyers awaiting cheaper 3.2GHz Pentium 4 machines rather than splashing out after the chip's launch on 23 June will have to hold off until late October. Intel is not planning to cut the cost of the chip before 26 October, according to Xbit Labs.

On that date, the 3.2GHz P4, which operates with a 200MHz frontside bus quad-pumped for an effective bus speed of 800MHz, will fall to $417, a reduction of 34.5 per cent. Other 800MHz FSB P4 prices will fall too, with the price of the 3GHz chip being reduced from $417 to $278 (a fall of 33.4 per cent), the 2.8GHz version falling from $278 to $218 (down 21.6 per cent) and the 2.6GHz part coming down to $178 from $218 (down 18.3 per cent). The 2.4GHz chip will stay where it is, at $178.

The 533MHz FSB 3.06GHz P4 will fall from $401 to $262, a dip of 34.7 per cent. The 2.8GHz version will fall to $193 from $262 (down 26.3 per cent) and the 2.66GHz release will be priced at $163, down 15.5 per cent from $193. The 2.53GHz P4 will also fall from $193 to $163.

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News source: The Reg

TCP breaks down large files into small packets of about 1500 bytes, each carrying the address of the sender and the recipient. The sending computer transmits a packet, waits for a signal from the recipient that acknowledges its safe arrival, and then sends the next packet.

If no receipt comes back, the sender transmits the same packet at half the speed of the previous one, and repeats the process, getting slower each time, until it succeeds.

This means that even minor glitches on the line can make a connection very sluggish. Because Fast TCP uses the same packet sizes as regular TCP, the hardware that carries messages around the net will still work. The difference is in software and hardware on the sending computer, which continually measures the time it takes for sent packets to arrive, and how long acknowledgements take to come back.

This reveals the delays on the line, giving early warnings of likely packet losses. The Fast TCP software uses this to predict the highest data rate the connection can support without losing data.

Since the packets are the same size as those used in TCP, none of the equipment along the internet itself will have to be modified, and no new hardware will be needed on computers receiving the data.

The first practical test of Fast TCP took place in November at a supercomputing conference. Researchers from Caltech, Stanford and CERN near Geneva in Switzerland, sent data 10,000 kilometres from Sunnyvale, California, to CERN at an average rate of 925 megabits per second. Ordinary TCP managed just 266 megabits per second on the same routes.

By ganging 10 Fast TCP systems together, the researchers have achieved transmission speeds of over 8.6 gigabits per second, which is more than 6000 times the capacity of ordinary broadband links.