Outsider
04-17-2002, 10:39 AM
I envision a foward looking computer system to be modular in the sence that when you need more processing power you add modular cards to the system. I'm not talking external modularity but internal. Presently we have a way of increasing power to our computer by giving it more RAM, or hard drive space, and some more functionality can be augumented with specialized cards (PCI/AGP slots). But CPU upgrades are lacking.
But what if we could increase the power of our systems by adding more processors as the need warrants (sort of like when you want to increase the speed of a super computer you add more nodes to the cluster)? This computer would need a motherboard that supports a highspeed bus and we have some to choose from today. RapidIO quickly comes to mind. Now take a motherboard and add a special CPU slot to it. But this isn't a normal CPU slot. It would be similar to the present socket Apple uses now. But the card that would go into it would have a corresponding slot on top. The card would also have only one CPU, and maybe 2 DIMM slots for dedicated memory. It owuld also have all the necessary controller chips on the card to make it almost a computer system in and of itself. The heatsink would need to be flat and wide because you will be able to stack another card on top. Between card you'll need about 1.5 inches of clearance or less if you can make the heatsink flat enough. maybe a creative heat pump would be the answer. The DIMM slots can be mounted flat and one on top while the other would be on the bottom of the card corresponding to the one on top. And if you start with a 2GHz G5 system, your next card does not have to be a 2GHz G5. It can be a 3GHz G5. With faster RAM. Or more L3 cache. Or 256bit Altivec II. The system would be able to make use of all it's compnents and it would grow with your needs.
Now the case would need to definately be redesigned. You would need space internally fo a tall column of processor cards. If you have a limit of 8 cards that will be 12 inches of clearance so about a total height of 14 inches would be sufficient. the opwer supply would be beside the column and there would need to be room for external drive bays toward the front. Hard drive bays can go under the power supply. All in all the tower would look like a building; like 2 cubes on top of each other.
The motherboard would have the shared peripherals on it like networking, Firewire, USB, IDE controllers. One AGP slot and maybe 3 or 4 PCI slots. By then though we might be using something else for connecting cards like 3GIO. No RAM slots since the RAM on all cards will be shared.
The beauty of a system like this would be parallelism. You can make yourself a highly parallel system. Markets that would make the most use of it would be 3D animation and modeling, 3D CAD, simulation, intense graphic manipulation, video editing and rendering, etc. A base system can start at about $1500 with modules costing $500 or so. If Apple was smart they'd let 3rd party developers make compatible cards with different features. Maybe 2 cases with the same motherboard would be necessary. One with room for less processor cards (maybe 2 or 3) only one external drive bay and limited amount of HD bays, but otherwise an equally competent system. Another would have room for 8 processor cards and more bays.
One major problem I could see with this set up is power (electricity). A power supply would either have to be sufficiently powerful enough to support all 8 possible processor cards or have one that can power 4 cards and if you need more than that you need to get the optional power supply. The latter method would cut down on initial costs.
This is my vision for future PowerMacs. Am I missing something glaring? And how possible would this be on an engineering standpoint?
But what if we could increase the power of our systems by adding more processors as the need warrants (sort of like when you want to increase the speed of a super computer you add more nodes to the cluster)? This computer would need a motherboard that supports a highspeed bus and we have some to choose from today. RapidIO quickly comes to mind. Now take a motherboard and add a special CPU slot to it. But this isn't a normal CPU slot. It would be similar to the present socket Apple uses now. But the card that would go into it would have a corresponding slot on top. The card would also have only one CPU, and maybe 2 DIMM slots for dedicated memory. It owuld also have all the necessary controller chips on the card to make it almost a computer system in and of itself. The heatsink would need to be flat and wide because you will be able to stack another card on top. Between card you'll need about 1.5 inches of clearance or less if you can make the heatsink flat enough. maybe a creative heat pump would be the answer. The DIMM slots can be mounted flat and one on top while the other would be on the bottom of the card corresponding to the one on top. And if you start with a 2GHz G5 system, your next card does not have to be a 2GHz G5. It can be a 3GHz G5. With faster RAM. Or more L3 cache. Or 256bit Altivec II. The system would be able to make use of all it's compnents and it would grow with your needs.
Now the case would need to definately be redesigned. You would need space internally fo a tall column of processor cards. If you have a limit of 8 cards that will be 12 inches of clearance so about a total height of 14 inches would be sufficient. the opwer supply would be beside the column and there would need to be room for external drive bays toward the front. Hard drive bays can go under the power supply. All in all the tower would look like a building; like 2 cubes on top of each other.
The motherboard would have the shared peripherals on it like networking, Firewire, USB, IDE controllers. One AGP slot and maybe 3 or 4 PCI slots. By then though we might be using something else for connecting cards like 3GIO. No RAM slots since the RAM on all cards will be shared.
The beauty of a system like this would be parallelism. You can make yourself a highly parallel system. Markets that would make the most use of it would be 3D animation and modeling, 3D CAD, simulation, intense graphic manipulation, video editing and rendering, etc. A base system can start at about $1500 with modules costing $500 or so. If Apple was smart they'd let 3rd party developers make compatible cards with different features. Maybe 2 cases with the same motherboard would be necessary. One with room for less processor cards (maybe 2 or 3) only one external drive bay and limited amount of HD bays, but otherwise an equally competent system. Another would have room for 8 processor cards and more bays.
One major problem I could see with this set up is power (electricity). A power supply would either have to be sufficiently powerful enough to support all 8 possible processor cards or have one that can power 4 cards and if you need more than that you need to get the optional power supply. The latter method would cut down on initial costs.
This is my vision for future PowerMacs. Am I missing something glaring? And how possible would this be on an engineering standpoint?