AppleInsider › Forums › Mac Hardware › Future Apple Hardware › New Powermacs to use Cell Processor?
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

New Powermacs to use Cell Processor? - Page 3

post #81 of 221
2/12/05 at 10:33am
Quote:
Originally posted by Krassy
IF they will use the Cell processor we won't see it before 2006. but i could imagine that IBM and apple were working on the G5-successor (which - of course - could be based on a implementation-variant of the new Cell-design-ideas). i expect IBM to be very tight-lipped on new CPUs made for apple and bet we will all be surprised when the G5s successor will be presented...


A thought hit me as I read your post. Sony will use the Cell in the PS3. IBM will produce a workstation based on the Cell. Maybe these are two different chips? IBM and Apple may use a variant of Cell for high end computers that is different from the one Sony will use in the PS3.
Reply
Reply
post #82 of 221
2/12/05 at 10:53am
Quote:
Originally posted by snoopy
A thought hit me as I read your post. Sony will use the Cell in the PS3. IBM will produce a workstation based on the Cell. Maybe these are two different chips? IBM and Apple may use a variant of Cell for high end computers that is different from the one Sony will use in the PS3.

two different chips with different SPEs or even different PPE-variants...
go AAPL, go to $70 !!! © 2004
Reply
go AAPL, go to $70 !!! © 2004
Reply
post #83 of 221
2/12/05 at 11:16am
Quote:
Originally posted by Krassy
IF they will use the Cell processor we won't see it before 2006. but i could imagine that IBM and apple were working on the G5-successor (which - of course - could be based on a implementation-variant of the new Cell-design-ideas). i expect IBM to be very tight-lipped on new CPUs made for apple and bet we will all be surprised when the G5s successor will be presented...

My guess is that the first Cell won't appear until 2006 and Apple may or may not use it right away, but will eventually. I don't really see the need for them to wait for a new version -- they aren't going to get past 3 GHz this year and the Cell will be at 4+ GHz and Tiger should enable it to be well utilized. It is possible Apple will wait for an OoOE PPE version, but that units power consumption will make it not suitable for iMac and portable units.

For this year we will see a successor to the 970FX and it will still be called a G5. The 970GX/MP is still a viable plan.
Providing grist for the rumour mill since 2001.
Reply
Providing grist for the rumour mill since 2001.
Reply
post #84 of 221
2/12/05 at 1:21pm
The next big chip for powermac will be the dual core PPC 970. This chip will give you a big speed bump and will be smaller than the cell designed for the PS3 (100 millions transistors less). Implementing this chip in a powermac, won't recquiere much code tweaking, because mac os X is already good at MP.

Now, the cell is the next chip for the ps3, it's also a brand new architecture, and if it really shine outside game box, there is no reason for not using it in a mac. But this is not a minor transition, but a big one althought smaller than the transition from 68X to the PPC.

We need more informations on this subject to be able to make good guesses. Unfortunately my christal ball is broken
Reply
Reply
post #85 of 221
2/12/05 at 3:15pm
Excuse me for a second.... Did you just say "the cell is not the next chip for the ps3," ?

When did this happen? I thought Cell was to be the processor for the PS3. I'm sure CEll Processors are going into the PS3.. Unless I missed a press release, or something.
onlooker
Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: parts unknown




http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html
Reply
onlooker
Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: parts unknown




http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html
Reply
post #86 of 221
2/12/05 at 5:56pm
Maybe he meant to say, "not only"?
Lauren Sanchez? That kinda hotness is just plain unnatural.
Reply
Lauren Sanchez? That kinda hotness is just plain unnatural.
Reply
post #87 of 221
2/13/05 at 11:21am
Quote:
Originally posted by onlooker
Excuse me for a second.... Did you just say "the cell is not the next chip for the ps3," ?

When did this happen? I thought Cell was to be the processor for the PS3. I'm sure CEll Processors are going into the PS3.. Unless I missed a press release, or something.

Typo error.
Edited
Sorry for the confusion
Reply
Reply
post #88 of 221
2/13/05 at 1:30pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Powerdoc
Typo error.
Edited
Sorry for the confusion

Better late than never I always say.
onlooker
Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: parts unknown




http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html
Reply
onlooker
Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: parts unknown




http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html
Reply
post #89 of 221
2/13/05 at 11:55pm
Flames on the fire..
Late 2009 Unibody MacBook (modified)
2.26GHz Core 2 Duo CPU/8GB RAM/60GB SSD/500GB HDD
SuperDrive delete
Reply
Late 2009 Unibody MacBook (modified)
2.26GHz Core 2 Duo CPU/8GB RAM/60GB SSD/500GB HDD
SuperDrive delete
Reply
post #90 of 221
2/14/05 at 9:58am
Who's right? This well written article says Cell's PPE has a very short pipeline. If I have been reading correctly, other's have posted that the pipeline is long and deep, needing optimized code for best performance. I like what this new article says, but getting facts straight is more important than feeling good.
Reply
Reply
post #91 of 221
2/14/05 at 4:39pm
short pipeline needing properly scheduled code for best performance. No out-of-order execution logic makes careful coding more important.
Hiro's Hall of Shame ignore list: Tulkas -- because we know he wasn't born dumb.
Reply
Hiro's Hall of Shame ignore list: Tulkas -- because we know he wasn't born dumb.
Reply
post #92 of 221
2/14/05 at 4:58pm
Quote:
Originally posted by MacRonin
Flames on the fire..

He want's money for that??? It's like a compendium of all the unfiltered Cell fanboi stuff on the net. Nothing really wrong, but lots of unrequieted hyperbole. But hey, anyone ballsy enough to list the Reg and Blanchard as references
Hiro's Hall of Shame ignore list: Tulkas -- because we know he wasn't born dumb.
Reply
Hiro's Hall of Shame ignore list: Tulkas -- because we know he wasn't born dumb.
Reply
post #93 of 221
2/14/05 at 6:22pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Hiro
short pipeline needing properly scheduled code for best performance. No out-of-order execution logic makes careful coding more important.

Note, for the purposes of considering Cell for Apple, that the G4 is capable of absolutely minimal OOE (roughly 1/10 as many instructions in flight as the 970 can manage) and that all AltiVec implementations to date are strictly in order.

Short pipelines, if true (and I've read that Cell's PPE is short-pipelined from more credible sources than David Every) mean that code optimized for the G4 might run pretty well on the PPE, except for the PPE's horrible penalty for branch misprediction.

However, I have a hard time reconciling "short pipeline" with 4GHz, even if they have hand-tuned the whole thing, and we have another credible source (Programmer) saying they're long...
"...within intervention's distance of the embassy." - CvB

Original music:
The Mayflies - Black earth Americana. Now on iTMS!
Becca Sutlive - Iowa Fried Rock 'n Roll - now on iTMS!
Reply
"...within intervention's distance of the embassy." - CvB

Original music:
The Mayflies - Black earth Americana. Now on iTMS!
Becca Sutlive - Iowa Fried Rock 'n Roll - now on iTMS!
Reply
post #94 of 221
2/14/05 at 7:24pm
Why on earth would anyone think that IBM could make a short pipeline design run at 5.6 GHz when their previous short pipeline designs can barely crack 1 GHz and Motorola's only recently reached a paltry 1.67 GHz? This thing is a long pipeline design, end of story. The whole chip is designed for throughput and pipelining while trying to hide long latencies at every turn, what makes you think that the Power core would be any different?

I used to like David Every's writings, but for the last 6 or so years he really hasn't had much to contribute and tends to have too many errors in his articles (this one in particular has quite a few). Charging for it seems ridiculous.
Providing grist for the rumour mill since 2001.
Reply
Providing grist for the rumour mill since 2001.
Reply
post #95 of 221
2/14/05 at 7:39pm
Are we talking like "P4-long" kind of long pipelines? What's that like- 20+ stages now?

Is it possible that the stripping away of OoE type of features has alleviated some areas of typical clockrate limits on CPU's of n number of stages? I'm just thinking out loud on this- not really suggesting the idea is based on anything concrete.
Lauren Sanchez? That kinda hotness is just plain unnatural.
Reply
Lauren Sanchez? That kinda hotness is just plain unnatural.
Reply
post #96 of 221
2/14/05 at 7:40pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Programmer
Why on earth would anyone think that IBM could make a short pipeline design run at 5.6 GHz when their previous short pipeline designs can barely crack 1 GHz and Motorola's only recently reached a paltry 1.67 GHz? This thing is a long pipeline design, end of story. The whole chip is designed for throughput and pipelining while trying to hide long latencies at every turn, what makes you think that the Power core would be any different?

I used to like David Every's writings, but for the last 6 or so years he really hasn't had much to contribute and tends to have too many errors in his articles (this one in particular has quite a few). Charging for it seems ridiculous.

Actually I was starting to wonder about that myself, and started to think of the possibility that if the main PPC core is running at 500MHz, and it has 8 individual cores running off that same frequency it may possibly read, and perform combined as 4GHz.

Just a thought.
onlooker
Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: parts unknown




http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html
Reply
onlooker
Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: parts unknown




http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html
Reply
post #97 of 221
2/14/05 at 9:18pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Programmer
I used to like David Every's writings, but for the last 6 or so years he really hasn't had much to contribute and tends to have too many errors in his articles (this one in particular has quite a few). Charging for it seems ridiculous.

What was the name of the website he used to have? I remember that it was pretty good at one time.
Reply
Reply
post #98 of 221
2/15/05 at 12:59am
just to add a question:

a Playstation is meant for very good grafic (realtime 3D) and audio (Dolby 5.1 etc) output, and we have seen the "proof of concept" of playing with optical input.

Do you expect any "new borders" with cell? (Still waiting for some useful voice-input, as an example)
Reply
Reply
post #99 of 221
2/15/05 at 5:03am
Quote:
Originally posted by Kurt
What was the name of the website he used to have? I remember that it was pretty good at one time.

was it Mackido?

"My 8th grade math teacher once said: "You can't help it if you're dumb, you are born that way. But stupid is self inflicted."" -Hiro. Sometimes it's both.

Reply

"My 8th grade math teacher once said: "You can't help it if you're dumb, you are born that way. But stupid is self inflicted."" -Hiro. Sometimes it's both.

Reply
post #100 of 221
2/15/05 at 6:20am
AAPL stock is up $2.12 in pre open as I write this. Much of that jump is a result of Merrill Lynch target update to $102 (up from $85).

Here is the quote from their upgrade:

Quote:
Merrill Lynch raised its 12-month target price on Apple Computer, Inc (AAPL: news, chart, profile) to $102 from $85 per share on the possible announcement of a partnership with Sony Corp. (SNE: news, chart, profile) . The broker told clients it thinks that Apple could introduce products based on the Cell processor made by IBM, Sony and Toshiba.

So it seems that Apple could benefit from products made by Sony, Toshiba, or even IBM using the Cell chip.
OSX + Duals, Quads & Octos = World Domination
Reply
OSX + Duals, Quads & Octos = World Domination
Reply
post #101 of 221
2/15/05 at 6:53am
Quote:
Originally posted by Aphelion
AAPL stock is up $2.12 in pre open as I write this. Much of that jump is a result of Merrill Lynch target update to $102 (up from $85).

Here is the quote from their upgrade:
------------------------------------
quote:
Merrill Lynch raised its 12-month target price on Apple Computer, Inc (AAPL: news, chart, profile) to $102 from $85 per share on the possible announcement of a partnership with Sony Corp. (SNE: news, chart, profile) . The broker told clients it thinks that Apple could introduce products based on the Cell processor made by IBM, Sony and Toshiba.
------------------------------------

So it seems that Apple could benefit from products made by Sony, Toshiba, or even IBM using the Cell chip.

I'd say if the stock jumped on "could" being the focus it was premature, but Sony today did announce a new Cell phone that will also have iTunes on board, that actually plays AAC, and they will be showing it at Cebit in March.

iTunes, and/or iTMS going into a Sony product when sony has their own music store appears to be the true focus of the jump. I think they (marketeers) believe that Sony may be shifting it's position on their music download service, and it's possible they are going to back Apple. If not why wouldn't they use their own instead?
I believe that to be the reason of the stock jump my self. The term "could" doesn't hold that much water in my book.
onlooker
Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: parts unknown




http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html
Reply
onlooker
Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: parts unknown




http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html
Reply
post #102 of 221
2/15/05 at 7:00am
Quote:
Originally posted by onlooker
Actually I was starting to wonder about that myself, and started to think of the possibility that if the main PPC core is running at 500MHz, and it has 8 individual cores running off that same frequency it may possibly read, and perform combined as 4GHz.


Huh? Sorry, multiple cores don't "add up" that way. This is a single 2-way SMT in-order dual issue core running at 4 GHz. The pipelines are definitely in the range same range as the Pentium4 (which had ~30 in the last version that reached 3.8 GHz). The lack of complex OoOE support definitely makes this PPE a lot smaller and simpler, and probably allows it to reach these higher clock rates but that does not obviate the need for long pipelines.



As for Merill Lynch... they've repeatedly proven themselves to be wildly speculative. There is a lot of speculation on the 'net right now about Apple and Cell, and in the past ML has mentioned that kind of hypothetical in their market predictions. $102 per share, wow. That's a lot for a company that was down around $10 only a couple of years ago. If achieved that means Apple's market cap will have gone from about 4 billion to 40 billion without a significant change in the size of the company.
Providing grist for the rumour mill since 2001.
Reply
Providing grist for the rumour mill since 2001.
Reply
post #103 of 221
2/15/05 at 7:02am
As I write Apple is now over $87/share with a high of $87.38
just waiting to be included in one of Apple's target markets.
Don't get me wrong, I like the flat panel iMac, actually own an iMac, and I like the Mac mini, but...........
Reply
just waiting to be included in one of Apple's target markets.
Don't get me wrong, I like the flat panel iMac, actually own an iMac, and I like the Mac mini, but...........
Reply
post #104 of 221
2/15/05 at 7:24am
Quote:
Originally posted by Programmer
Huh? Sorry, multiple cores don't "add up" that way. This is a single 2-way SMT in-order dual issue core running at 4 GHz. The pipelines are definitely in the range same range as the Pentium4 (which had ~30 in the last version that reached 3.8 GHz). The lack of complex OoOE support definitely makes this PPE a lot smaller and simpler, and probably allows it to reach these higher clock rates but that does not obviate the need for long pipelines.

Thanks for straightening that out. You seem to know a lot about this being that no one has ever actually seen, or tested one running outside of IBM, sony, toshiba, or asked these questions of IBM. Do you work there?
onlooker
Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: parts unknown




http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html
Reply
onlooker
Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: parts unknown




http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html
Reply
post #105 of 221
2/15/05 at 7:40am
The other thing is the cores are actually called SPE's which stands for synergistic processing elements. "Synergistic" itself led to the belief of the possibility because by definition it's meaning is essentially what I described.

Synergistic: \\ "1. Of or relating to synergy: a synergistic effect."

Synergy: \\ 1. The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects. 2. Cooperative interaction among groups, especially among the acquired subsidiaries or merged parts of a corporation, that creates an enhanced combined effect.

But again, I know nothing of these things, and I totally believe you are correct.
onlooker
Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: parts unknown




http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html
Reply
onlooker
Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: parts unknown




http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html
Reply
post #106 of 221
2/15/05 at 8:34am
Quote:
Originally posted by onlooker
I'd say if the stock jumped on "could" being the focus it was premature, but Sony today did announce a new Cell phone that will also have iTunes on board, that actually plays AAC, and they will be showing it at Cebit in March.

Got a link on that? I found this: http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?...c3_1&prid=2827

and it mentions AAC as one of it's file formats, but no mention of iTunes. If a device can read AAC files does that automatically mean it has iTunes or that it can play AAC files purchased on iTunes?
Reply
Reply
post #107 of 221
2/15/05 at 8:53am
Sony did not announce iTunes compatibility. They announced their own phones to compete with Motorola's iTunes phone. They will use the Sony Connect store.
When they said "Think Different", I ran with it.
Reply
When they said "Think Different", I ran with it.
Reply
post #108 of 221
2/15/05 at 10:26am
Since Apple wraps their AAC files in Fairplay (DRM), I don't think others can access them even though they use AAC files themselves.



Quote:
Originally posted by WelshDog
Got a link on that? I found this: http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?...c3_1&prid=2827

and it mentions AAC as one of it's file formats, but no mention of iTunes. If a device can read AAC files does that automatically mean it has iTunes or that it can play AAC files purchased on iTunes?
Reply
Reply
post #109 of 221
2/15/05 at 10:35am
Quote:
Originally posted by WelshDog
Got a link on that? I found this: http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?...c3_1&prid=2827

and it mentions AAC as one of it's file formats, but no mention of iTunes. If a device can read AAC files does that automatically mean it has iTunes or that it can play AAC files purchased on iTunes?

True indeed. I misread the article I saw, being that I only scanned a few pieces.

Quote:
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB will counter Motorola's introduction yesterday of its first iTunes-compatible cell phone when it unveils a mobile phone-cum-digital music player early next month, company President Miles Flint announced at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes on Monday.

In scanning the article I only noticed two highlights that stood out to me, but also spotted a few other things. Like it is Mac OS X compatible which I find strange being that the walkman MP3 is not Mac friendly. Also support for AAC which is the format chose to convert all my songs to.

I'm certain we'll know more about it after Cebit.
onlooker
Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: parts unknown




http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html
Reply
onlooker
Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: parts unknown




http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html
Reply
post #110 of 221
2/15/05 at 10:35am
Quote:
Originally posted by Programmer
Why on earth would anyone think that IBM could make a short pipeline design run at 5.6 GHz when their previous short pipeline designs can barely crack 1 GHz and Motorola's only recently reached a paltry 1.67 GHz?

To play Devil's advocate: Why on Earth would anyone think that Freescale would hitch a 4GHz CPU to a 167MHz SDR bus? The relative immobility of MaxBus has stretched the CPU:bus clock ratio about as far as it can reasonably go, and so Freescale has used almost all their improvements in design and process to reduce cost, power consumption, and "hot spots." That's where their progress has been made for the last couple of years.

Until MaxBus is dead, there's no point even contemplating a design like Cell's that requires massive bandwidth.

And, of course, after MaxBus is dead, the G4 core will not magically become optimized for high Hz. But it should be able to scale up more quickly than it has done.

Quote:
This thing is a long pipeline design, end of story. The whole chip is designed for throughput and pipelining while trying to hide long latencies at every turn, what makes you think that the Power core would be any different?

I agree based on my own intuition, but I'm reading other things from people who know more about these things than I do (at Ars, mostly).

While I have your attention, for my own edification, what is "FO4," and why is IBM so happy to have reduced it?

Quote:
I used to like David Every's writings, but for the last 6 or so years he really hasn't had much to contribute and tends to have too many errors in his articles (this one in particular has quite a few). Charging for it seems ridiculous.

Agreed. RIP MacKiDo. He wasn't always right then, either, but he was right more often, and certainly more interesting, than he's been for a while now.
"...within intervention's distance of the embassy." - CvB

Original music:
The Mayflies - Black earth Americana. Now on iTMS!
Becca Sutlive - Iowa Fried Rock 'n Roll - now on iTMS!
Reply
"...within intervention's distance of the embassy." - CvB

Original music:
The Mayflies - Black earth Americana. Now on iTMS!
Becca Sutlive - Iowa Fried Rock 'n Roll - now on iTMS!
Reply
post #111 of 221
2/15/05 at 5:37pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Programmer
As for Merill Lynch... they've repeatedly proven themselves to be wildly speculative. There is a lot of speculation on the 'net right now about Apple and Cell, and in the past ML has mentioned that kind of hypothetical in their market predictions. $102 per share, wow. That's a lot for a company that was down around $10 only a couple of years ago. If achieved that means Apple's market cap will have gone from about 4 billion to 40 billion without a significant change in the size of the company.

I have a different point of view on this for a few reasons. While it is true that in the past it was rumored that Apple and IBM would link up, this time things are different. Apple is on a role and riding high, Sony appears lost without direction. The last time it was speculated that they would link up the roles were reversed. It is not hard to imagine that Apple can see the PC wars as over for a long time, but Apple has proven that they have vision and the ability to capitalize on that vision. Apple could make very good if not great appliances especially high tech that could fill the home from streaming MP3s to movies and high def. Apple has many jewels. We being Mac heads tend to only see the computer, but the real strength of Apple of late is the marrying of high tech trends and making it into an appliance. Airport, Airport extreme, rendezvous, integrating, weaving the software glue that holds together the hardware for doing all sorts of things that may or may not have the computer at the center. Just as Honda views itself as a world class engine manufacturer that also makes cars, and Fed-Ex sees itself as a world class logistics provider that also delivers packages, Apple, I believe, sees itself as a world class software and hardware standards integrator that also sells computers.

My 2¢
Please consider throwing extra cycles at better understanding Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (CJD), ALS, and Parkinson's disease go here <a href="http://folding.stanford.edu/" target="_blank">http://folding....
Reply
Please consider throwing extra cycles at better understanding Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (CJD), ALS, and Parkinson's disease go here <a href="http://folding.stanford.edu/" target="_blank">http://folding....
Reply
post #112 of 221
2/15/05 at 6:54pm
In the past Apple has called upon Sony to manufacture their laptops. I can see Apple having Sony OEM any number of home centered digital devices to compliment Apple's product lines.

Sony will want to use their investment in Cell to produce products containing them, regardless of what logo appears on the front of those products. As Brendon just posted, Apple has a lot to offer Sony and others.

If Apple does decide to make the jump to IPTV I could easily see Sony building the box that does it for them.
OSX + Duals, Quads & Octos = World Domination
Reply
OSX + Duals, Quads & Octos = World Domination
Reply
post #113 of 221
2/15/05 at 9:01pm
Quote:
Originally posted by onlooker
Thanks for straightening that out. You seem to know a lot about this being that no one has ever actually seen, or tested one running outside of IBM, sony, toshiba, or asked these questions of IBM. Do you work there?

Everything I've said in the forums is evident from what has been announced publicly. Having a reasonably solid understanding of hardware and software technology helps greatly in interpreting the press releases, presentations, and articles on Arts, RWT, etc.
Providing grist for the rumour mill since 2001.
Reply
Providing grist for the rumour mill since 2001.
Reply
post #114 of 221
2/15/05 at 9:09pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Amorph
To play Devil's advocate: Why on Earth would anyone think that Freescale would hitch a 4GHz CPU to a 167MHz SDR bus? The relative immobility of MaxBus has stretched the CPU:bus clock ratio about as far as it can reasonably go, and so Freescale has used almost all their improvements in design and process to reduce cost, power consumption, and "hot spots." That's where their progress has been made for the last couple of years.

Until MaxBus is dead, there's no point even contemplating a design like Cell's that requires massive bandwidth.

And, of course, after MaxBus is dead, the G4 core will not magically become optimized for high Hz. But it should be able to scale up more quickly than it has done.

Sorry, but I don't see the analogy. IBM could have chosen to mate their 4+ GHz design to an MPX bus, or even a 1 Hz binary blinking light -- that is easily technically achieveable. Building a short pipeline 4 GHz design is not technically achieveable.

It is also unlikely that Freescale has the technical wherewithal to achieve what STI has. They simply don't have the brain trust and process capabilities.

Quote:
I agree based on my own intuition, but I'm reading other things from people who know more about these things than I do (at Ars, mostly).

Lots of people write lots of things that are just completely bogus. Stick with your intuition on this one.

Quote:
While I have your attention, for my own edification, what is "FO4," and why is IBM so happy to have reduced it?

I believe that FO stands for "fan out"... a quick Google turns up this:

http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cf...WT081502231107
Providing grist for the rumour mill since 2001.
Reply
Providing grist for the rumour mill since 2001.
Reply
post #115 of 221
2/15/05 at 10:06pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Programmer
Building a short pipeline 4 GHz design is not technically achieveable.

Doing that with all the control logic baggage would be unachievable. Eliminating that overhead not only removes the necessity to power it, but also has a stupendous effect on reducing signal synchronization complexity. When you make the overall system simple enough it's easier to make it go fast together, where an almost simple enough would only get you a disaster trying to go that fast.

Effective complexity to an instruction is much more involved than the stages in the execution units alone. And removing unneeded complexity externally makes it much easier to optimize locally within those leftover pieces. Pipeline stages were more an effect necessary for signal propagation and synchronization than necessary for their own existence. They add complexity simply by being there because getting single threads instructions through the most complex machines devised by mans will required the sacrifice of yet more complexity. See a spiral going here? I know you do. PPE & SPEs essentially are independent units which decouple their complexity from each other. The number of transistors which directly depend on the interrelated operation of other transistors is cut by over an order of magnitude from conventional RISC/CISC processors. Now look at it backwards and don't be quite so skeptical of the effects you see from reducing overall complexity by that order of magnitude. Everything is relative.
Hiro's Hall of Shame ignore list: Tulkas -- because we know he wasn't born dumb.
Reply
Hiro's Hall of Shame ignore list: Tulkas -- because we know he wasn't born dumb.
Reply
post #116 of 221
2/16/05 at 1:56am
Quote:
Originally posted by Hiro
Doing that with all the control logic baggage would be unachievable. Eliminating that overhead not only removes the necessity to power it, but also has a stupendous effect on reducing signal synchronization complexity. When you make the overall system simple enough it's easier to make it go fast together, where an almost simple enough would only get you a disaster trying to go that fast.

Effective complexity to an instruction is much more involved than the stages in the execution units alone. And removing unneeded complexity externally makes it much easier to optimize locally within those leftover pieces. Pipeline stages were more an effect necessary for signal propagation and synchronization than necessary for their own existence. They add complexity simply by being there because getting single threads instructions through the most complex machines devised by mans will required the sacrifice of yet more complexity. See a spiral going here? I know you do. PPE & SPEs essentially are independent units which decouple their complexity from each other. The number of transistors which directly depend on the interrelated operation of other transistors is cut by over an order of magnitude from conventional RISC/CISC processors. Now look at it backwards and don't be quite so skeptical of the effects you see from reducing overall complexity by that order of magnitude. Everything is relative.

Excellent post! With the increasing number of cores OoE makes less sense. (See my older postings.) I think this is the start of a paradigm shift, instead of making the cores more complex and intelligent, make more stupid simple cores. There seems to be confusion about the length of the pipeline and frequence. The problem is not that shorter pipelines can't be clocked high, the problem is the saturation of the units within the pipeline. (This is why OoE was introduced.)

End of Line
Reply
Reply
post #117 of 221
2/16/05 at 7:02am
Quote:
Originally posted by User Tron
Excellent post! With the increasing number of cores OoE makes less sense. (See my older postings.) I think this is the start of a paradigm shift, instead of making the cores more complex and intelligent, make more stupid simple cores. There seems to be confusion about the length of the pipeline and frequence. The problem is not that shorter pipelines can't be clocked high, the problem is the saturation of the units within the pipeline. (This is why OoE was introduced.)

It was an excellent post, and it clearly states why OoOE is losing its value. Longer pipelines, however, reduce the local per-stage complexity which is often the gating factor on clock rate. SMT is also complex, but is provided to improve resource utilization in long pipelines which are stalling.

This initial Cell chip is very clearly the first wave of the paradigm shift you describe. That's the whole point of it. They are relying on carefully optimized software to achieve maximum performance, and just assuming that the rest of the software is "fast enough" on current processors. By and large they are right, but for developers who have been riding the wave of fast OoOE chips there is going to be some pain as they finally run face first into the realities that they've been ignoring.
Providing grist for the rumour mill since 2001.
Reply
Providing grist for the rumour mill since 2001.
Reply
post #118 of 221
2/16/05 at 10:26am
It's just not quite that easy to go with my intuition. My intuition rejected a $500 headless Mac out of hand, and look what that got me.

My point with MaxBus was that there was no reason for Freescale to release an architecture that even tried to be like Cell. This might disguise an inability on their part to even pull it off, but even that won't be relevant until they move the memory controller on-die. Even then, the G4 and successors won't be dealing with anything like Cell's bandwidth.

But, is it technically infeasible to have a short pipeline clocked high? Conventional processor design says yes, but Cell is not a conventional processor design. IBM have apparently taken some fairly radical steps to speed up the logic itself, and of course they also blew away all the control logic. A first proof of what would become Cell technology did get an all-integer G3 core up to 1GHz back in 2000 or so. Freescale seems casually optimistic about getting the 7-stage 7448 over 2GHz, and that design dates from the wide-issue, superscalar era (even if it's a modest example of the style). And, of course, "short pipelines" means "short for something that clocks so high," not necessarily 4 or 5 or 7 stages.

Curse this paucity of public documentation.
"...within intervention's distance of the embassy." - CvB

Original music:
The Mayflies - Black earth Americana. Now on iTMS!
Becca Sutlive - Iowa Fried Rock 'n Roll - now on iTMS!
Reply
"...within intervention's distance of the embassy." - CvB

Original music:
The Mayflies - Black earth Americana. Now on iTMS!
Becca Sutlive - Iowa Fried Rock 'n Roll - now on iTMS!
Reply
post #119 of 221
2/16/05 at 10:35am
Quote:
Originally posted by Amorph
It's just not quite that easy to go with my intuition. My intuition rejected a $500 headless Mac out of hand, and look what that got me.

My point with MaxBus was that there was no reason for Freescale to release an architecture that even tried to be like Cell. This might disguise an inability on their part to even pull it off, but even that won't be relevant until they move the memory controller on-die. Even then, the G4 and successors won't be dealing with anything like Cell's bandwidth.

But, is it technically infeasible to have a short pipeline clocked high? Conventional processor design says yes, but Cell is not a conventional processor design. IBM have apparently taken some fairly radical steps to speed up the logic itself, and of course they also blew away all the control logic. A first proof of what would become Cell technology did get an all-integer G3 core up to 1GHz back in 2000 or so. Freescale seems casually optimistic about getting the 7-stage 7448 over 2GHz, and that design dates from the wide-issue, superscalar era (even if it's a modest example of the style). And, of course, "short pipelines" means "short for something that clocks so high," not necessarily 4 or 5 or 7 stages.

Curse this paucity of public documentation.

Amorph, you brought up the on-die memory controller so I have to ask is there any word on IBM using it in future upcoming versions of the PPC?
onlooker
Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: parts unknown




http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html
Reply
onlooker
Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: parts unknown




http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html
Reply
post #120 of 221
2/16/05 at 2:37pm
Quote:
Originally posted by onlooker
Amorph, you brought up the on-die memory controller so I have to ask is there any word on IBM using it in future upcoming versions of the PPC?

Well, Cell's using one, and it contains a PPC. Presumably anything else that uses the PPE (IBM's name for the PPC core within Cell) will also use an onboard memory controller, even if it's not the same one on the current Cell processor.

Beyond that, I don't know. I actually don't expect future versions of the PPC9xx line to use one, given all the work that went into Elastic Bus. But with other lines, who knows?
"...within intervention's distance of the embassy." - CvB

Original music:
The Mayflies - Black earth Americana. Now on iTMS!
Becca Sutlive - Iowa Fried Rock 'n Roll - now on iTMS!
Reply
"...within intervention's distance of the embassy." - CvB

Original music:
The Mayflies - Black earth Americana. Now on iTMS!
Becca Sutlive - Iowa Fried Rock 'n Roll - now on iTMS!
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Future Apple Hardware
AppleInsider › Forums › Mac Hardware › Future Apple Hardware › New Powermacs to use Cell Processor?