[2005] Graphics Card Clocks & Temperature

[Jenner]

Oh heck no! Somehow, I've kinda turned into a Microsoft fan-boy over the years; only because I've used Macs and Linux. I admit they're all powerful systems, and all have nitch areas that can do some things better than anything Microsoft has, but I can't see myself using anything but a Windows PC for anything general purpose.

I truly believe that if there's anybody out there who can come up with some PC standard that allows for a common API to read and control things like temperature sensors, fans, etc, it's Microsoft. They've pushed hardware vendors to do greater things.

EDIT: The processor ID I believe is only a serial number like the VIN number of a car. It's used to describe the general make-model of the part it's attached to, and also have a unique section to differentiate it from any other part. There's a separate set of custom registers that describe it's capabilities and BIOS's are programmed to look for them. When you look at the upgrade notes for a BIOS revision, you'll see "added support for Blah Blah CPU", basically, all that means is they're programming into the BIOS methods to identify the CPU type and where the custom registers are that describe it's capabilities.

Since they're custom registers, as I mentioned, they're typically not used for anything else but BIOS identification of features and also can't be accessed by anything but a direct ASM call. Hyperthreading support is an example of this.