We don't know prices of future chips and GPUs yet, but does anyone care to guess how a Cell processor might compete for this role in future Apple PCs? I understand that digital HDTV is one thing the Cell is designed to do very well. It could be cheaper than a GPU for this job. It might also serve as a VMX coprocessor and be the key that stops OS X from running on a generic PC.
yeah we were talking about this a lot a few months ago, and reflecting back on it, since you raised the point, as melgross mentioned, yeah, it looks more and more unlikely that apple will bring in cell into the picture. i think they want to move to pure-intel cpu and chipsets as much as possible to get the economies of scale, volume, reliable supply, and to meet their mac sales targets. cell is an interesting possibility. a few years ago, apple would have strongly considered it. after being burned by moto and ibm though, and looking at their consumer focus, i think they're like, well, not worth the risk anymore
edit: remember that cell is relatively new, and apple has been compiling mac os x for x86 for 5 years. there's actually MORE R&D required now to incorporate cell than go pure x86. also, going up against GPUs, a ati/nvidia GPU is a almost 100% certainty in the new Macintels, possible intel integrated graphics (a few people are screaming NOOOO!!) again, for the initial macintels, apple would roll with this rather than push hard to incorporate cell. maybe once full-scale production has ramped up and its been proven in PS3 units.
Hmm. It looks like Intel is ready to pick up the ball after getting spanked by AMD for a while.
Sounds like they're ready to release something big. With Merom and Conroe (and the 'Big') it seems Apple is well placed to take advantages of cool running but powerful cpus.
The fact that they aren't made by Sony or IBM is tough luck on them.
I think Intel are the perfect partner for Apple's Growth.
They have the manufacturing ability to deliver. To back up their press releases.
If we do have dual core G5s. Nice. But it seems late to me. IBM, THE multicore manufacturer couldn't beat x86 to it.
Meanwhile, Intel is already speeding to .65 early 2006. And IBM only just on a dual core g5 on 0.9. At this rate of going, IBM will be 12 months or more (with Apple shipping product...) behind Intel.
Cell is nice. But by the time Intel ships merom and conroe it will be less impressive...coupled with an ATI 520 (shipping some time this year...) Go to quad core chips and Intel are pressing home their advantage and there will be gpus after the 520. In five years, when PS3 is approaching middle age...it will be cool but less impressive than it is now. Hi-Def acceleration will appear on gpus well before then...and software threading will improve for dual and quad chips.
Apple have clearly seen something we haven't. And Cell is unproven. Intel provide chips to most of the 95% Windows market. It's amazing Apple didn't go with Intel years ago.
As a chip in a console with a powerful nvidia gpu, the PS3 will make a stunning console. But until Sony releases a workstation with an os, supporting development software etc...we only have to take Steve Jobs word that the 'Cell' is 'disappointing' (apparently.)
nice positive reassuring outlook. i thought the world was going to end when i heard the intel announcement, and a lot of people on appleInsider chatroom at the time were totally like WTF? no dual core g5 or powerbook g5 instead we get this f***** s***** ????!!!!
but with the veil of microsoft lifted and proven several years of R&D into mac os X on Intel, things are looking promising. pentium Ms with 1mb of L2 cache, 400/533mhz FSB, hitting 2ghz without too much of a sweat, and that's *shipping* stuff, steve has taken a good hit of the pipe(line) and has seen the future. good on him.
given the mac's core target is consumer PCs then possibly into home entertainment or business client workstations, a dedicated GPU of low-to-mid-end is 'more than enough' as you mention. 1 year down the line, as powerful GPUs go mainstream in macintels for coreimage and h.264 acceleration is in place, more goodstuff to come.
personally i've never used AMD before but now that i'm no longer an AMD virgin i'm glad that it's a nice mistress for apple to cheat on Intel with should Intel start to become a naggy b*tch.
edit: remember that cell is relatively new, and apple has been compiling mac os x for x86 for 5 years. there's actually MORE R&D required now to incorporate cell than go pure x86. also, going up against GPUs, a ati/nvidia GPU is a almost 100% certainty in the new Macintels, possible intel integrated graphics (a few people are screaming NOOOO!!) again, for the initial macintels, apple would roll with this rather than push hard to incorporate cell. maybe once full-scale production has ramped up and its been proven in PS3 units.
Also, for the developers to go Cell it would probably be a nightmare compared to Intel. As I understand it Cell is a highly specialized, parallel chips and to optamize for it would probably take a lot of R & D on the developers end, especially for programs which access the hardware directly.
Also, for the developers to go Cell it would probably be a nightmare compared to Intel. As I understand it Cell is a highly specialized, parallel chips and to optamize for it would probably take a lot of R & D on the developers end, especially for programs which access the hardware directly.
But Cell could make a nice coprocessor, to support things like digital HDTV and Apple core services. Those who write code for applications would never have to deal with the Cell processor itself.
Also, for the developers to go Cell it would probably be a nightmare compared to Intel. As I understand it Cell is a highly specialized, parallel chips and to optamize for it would probably take a lot of R & D on the developers end, especially for programs which access the hardware directly.
\ yeah it took quite a bit for stevie J to get everyone to cocoa when mac os X came out, and then now moving everyone to xcode 2.1+ to do universal binaries.
at first we thought it was pure RDF that "the ppc->intel transition is going to be easier than macos9->macosX" but the effort apple has put into xcode 2+ and mac os 10.etc... along with people getting universal binaries up and running fairly quicksmart.... actually gives quite a bit of credibility to steve's wwdc'05 keynote.
and hackers getting it up and running on generic beige boxes linux distro-style looks like OMFG they may actually pull this off, albeit without all the so-bleeding-edge-it-just- really-hurts-and-is-still-not-in-production superfly dual-core G5s and Cell daughtercards and what not.
how weird. 2006. if you went back just 10 years in time to 1996 and said to people, "apple will make the most famous portable music player, will have a very decent Mac operating system based on Unix, and it will run on Intel x86's" .... heh.... truth IS stranger than *any* fiction
Also, for the developers to go Cell it would probably be a nightmare compared to Intel. As I understand it Cell is a highly specialized, parallel chips and to optamize for it would probably take a lot of R & D on the developers end, especially for programs which access the hardware directly.
Some people were stating (in one particularly nasty post to me when fortunately I had gone away for awhile) that the Cell was oh oh oh so easy. Well, it's not, and now most people realize it. Even the Game console programmers aren't able to figure out how to use more than one or two SPE's yet. And Linux is up and running on it, but without any SPE's as yet.
No, Apple made the right choice. No one even knows how long the Cell will be around.
What isn't..? I was playing on a Pentium 'M' on a Sony Vaio. The speed gave Powerbook teh 'snappy' rash. And the screen on the Sony made the Powerbook look as dull as ditch water. Plus the 17 inch Vaio cost four hundred quid less (that's about $800 dollars to you guys...) and had a 256 megs ATI card and 512 megs of ram.
And. It's available now.
That's why Apple are breaking their necks to get into Intel's bed. It's called bed hoppin'. When ya aint getting any at 'home'...
They have to stay in business. And the growth of Apple's laptops in the absence of a G5 tells it's own story.
And faced with the portable juggernaut (ironic, I know...) that Intel is now becoming Apple had little business choice. And it's plain to all to see apart from one or two Mac Zealots that would take a bullet for a G4 processor. (Which reaks of blue and green mold...)
Intel are realising the promise of what PPC should have been.
Are we missing a link? I did see an Intel web page that showed many-core & massively parallel processors coming in about 2008. Is this what you are referring to?
Are we missing a link? I did see an Intel web page that showed many-core & massively parallel processors coming in about 2008. Is this what you are referring to?
Edit: Please ignore or delete this duplicate. I must have hit the send button twice.
and platform architecture needs to move toward a virtualized, reconfigurable chip-level multiprocessing (CMP) architecture with a large number of cores, a rich set of built-in processing capabilities, large on-chip memory subsystem and sophisticated microkernel.
The Appleinsider converage seems to indicate that.
Cores on a cpu that can handle lots of different jobs.
Lemon Bon Bon
that's not quite what the Cell is about.
The Cell has one processor that is more powerful and general purpose. It controls the other processors, and can do processing on its own. The other processors are all the same and are fairly simple general purpose units that are optimized to do operations like signal processing, rendering conversion etc. The memory subsystem is also different. It's called a "ring. Each processor gets its own local memory.
This isn't precisely what it is, but is a general description. If you want something much more technical, go to "arstechinca.com".
This is very different from multi-core chips like the Zenon for the 360 which uses three of the main Cell processor cores.
In any multi-core chip, each core can do a different task. Just as in a dual cpu machine now.
Comments
Originally posted by snoopy
We don't know prices of future chips and GPUs yet, but does anyone care to guess how a Cell processor might compete for this role in future Apple PCs? I understand that digital HDTV is one thing the Cell is designed to do very well. It could be cheaper than a GPU for this job. It might also serve as a VMX coprocessor and be the key that stops OS X from running on a generic PC.
yeah we were talking about this a lot a few months ago, and reflecting back on it, since you raised the point, as melgross mentioned, yeah, it looks more and more unlikely that apple will bring in cell into the picture. i think they want to move to pure-intel cpu and chipsets as much as possible to get the economies of scale, volume, reliable supply, and to meet their mac sales targets. cell is an interesting possibility. a few years ago, apple would have strongly considered it. after being burned by moto and ibm though, and looking at their consumer focus, i think they're like, well, not worth the risk anymore
edit: remember that cell is relatively new, and apple has been compiling mac os x for x86 for 5 years. there's actually MORE R&D required now to incorporate cell than go pure x86. also, going up against GPUs, a ati/nvidia GPU is a almost 100% certainty in the new Macintels, possible intel integrated graphics (a few people are screaming NOOOO!!) again, for the initial macintels, apple would roll with this rather than push hard to incorporate cell. maybe once full-scale production has ramped up and its been proven in PS3 units.
Sounds like they're ready to release something big. With Merom and Conroe (and the 'Big') it seems Apple is well placed to take advantages of cool running but powerful cpus.
The fact that they aren't made by Sony or IBM is tough luck on them.
I think Intel are the perfect partner for Apple's Growth.
They have the manufacturing ability to deliver. To back up their press releases.
If we do have dual core G5s. Nice. But it seems late to me. IBM, THE multicore manufacturer couldn't beat x86 to it.
Meanwhile, Intel is already speeding to .65 early 2006. And IBM only just on a dual core g5 on 0.9. At this rate of going, IBM will be 12 months or more (with Apple shipping product...) behind Intel.
Cell is nice. But by the time Intel ships merom and conroe it will be less impressive...coupled with an ATI 520 (shipping some time this year...) Go to quad core chips and Intel are pressing home their advantage and there will be gpus after the 520. In five years, when PS3 is approaching middle age...it will be cool but less impressive than it is now. Hi-Def acceleration will appear on gpus well before then...and software threading will improve for dual and quad chips.
Apple have clearly seen something we haven't. And Cell is unproven. Intel provide chips to most of the 95% Windows market. It's amazing Apple didn't go with Intel years ago.
As a chip in a console with a powerful nvidia gpu, the PS3 will make a stunning console. But until Sony releases a workstation with an os, supporting development software etc...we only have to take Steve Jobs word that the 'Cell' is 'disappointing' (apparently.)
Lemon Bon Bon
but with the veil of microsoft lifted and proven several years of R&D into mac os X on Intel, things are looking promising. pentium Ms with 1mb of L2 cache, 400/533mhz FSB, hitting 2ghz without too much of a sweat, and that's *shipping* stuff, steve has taken a good hit of the pipe(line)
given the mac's core target is consumer PCs then possibly into home entertainment or business client workstations, a dedicated GPU of low-to-mid-end is 'more than enough' as you mention. 1 year down the line, as powerful GPUs go mainstream in macintels for coreimage and h.264 acceleration is in place, more goodstuff to come.
personally i've never used AMD before but now that i'm no longer an AMD virgin i'm glad that it's a nice mistress for apple to cheat on Intel with
<total sidetrack>
cyberMonkey here's the bloody poem
how do i love my nvidia 6600GT
let me count many a way
where once i just could stand by and see
now i can enter the fray
"overclock this, and fps that!
peecees rule, your macs suck!"
and so there i cried and sat
wondering, am i sorely out of luck?
but now out of my system it's gone
i'll chomp on 3dmark, nibble on OS eX
for this debate in my mind it is done
i'll play both sides, just like when i have ...
</
Originally posted by sunilraman
edit: remember that cell is relatively new, and apple has been compiling mac os x for x86 for 5 years. there's actually MORE R&D required now to incorporate cell than go pure x86. also, going up against GPUs, a ati/nvidia GPU is a almost 100% certainty in the new Macintels, possible intel integrated graphics (a few people are screaming NOOOO!!) again, for the initial macintels, apple would roll with this rather than push hard to incorporate cell. maybe once full-scale production has ramped up and its been proven in PS3 units.
Also, for the developers to go Cell it would probably be a nightmare compared to Intel. As I understand it Cell is a highly specialized, parallel chips and to optamize for it would probably take a lot of R & D on the developers end, especially for programs which access the hardware directly.
Originally posted by JCG
Also, for the developers to go Cell it would probably be a nightmare compared to Intel. As I understand it Cell is a highly specialized, parallel chips and to optamize for it would probably take a lot of R & D on the developers end, especially for programs which access the hardware directly.
But Cell could make a nice coprocessor, to support things like digital HDTV and Apple core services. Those who write code for applications would never have to deal with the Cell processor itself.
Originally posted by JCG
Also, for the developers to go Cell it would probably be a nightmare compared to Intel. As I understand it Cell is a highly specialized, parallel chips and to optamize for it would probably take a lot of R & D on the developers end, especially for programs which access the hardware directly.
at first we thought it was pure RDF that "the ppc->intel transition is going to be easier than macos9->macosX" but the effort apple has put into xcode 2+ and mac os 10.etc... along with people getting universal binaries up and running fairly quicksmart.... actually gives quite a bit of credibility to steve's wwdc'05 keynote.
and hackers getting it up and running on generic beige boxes linux distro-style
how weird. 2006. if you went back just 10 years in time to 1996 and said to people, "apple will make the most famous portable music player, will have a very decent Mac operating system based on Unix, and it will run on Intel x86's" .... heh....
peace and goodnight y'all.
Originally posted by JCG
Also, for the developers to go Cell it would probably be a nightmare compared to Intel. As I understand it Cell is a highly specialized, parallel chips and to optamize for it would probably take a lot of R & D on the developers end, especially for programs which access the hardware directly.
Some people were stating (in one particularly nasty post to me
No, Apple made the right choice. No one even knows how long the Cell will be around.
But Cell could make a nice coprocessor,
Couldashouldawoulda.
It's not going to happen. It's hypothetical.
What isn't..? I was playing on a Pentium 'M' on a Sony Vaio. The speed gave Powerbook teh 'snappy' rash. And the screen on the Sony made the Powerbook look as dull as ditch water. Plus the 17 inch Vaio cost four hundred quid less (that's about $800 dollars to you guys...) and had a 256 megs ATI card and 512 megs of ram.
And. It's available now.
That's why Apple are breaking their necks to get into Intel's bed. It's called bed hoppin'. When ya aint getting any at 'home'...
Lemon Bon Bon
No, Apple made the right choice.
They have to stay in business. And the growth of Apple's laptops in the absence of a G5 tells it's own story.
And faced with the portable juggernaut (ironic, I know...) that Intel is now becoming Apple had little business choice. And it's plain to all to see apart from one or two Mac Zealots that would take a bullet for a G4 processor. (Which reaks of blue and green mold...)
Intel are realising the promise of what PPC should have been.
PPC. For Apple? It's over.
Lemon Bon Bon
Originally posted by melgross
No, Apple made the right choice. No one even knows how long the Cell will be around.
Welcome to the future: Cell or Cell-like.
Originally posted by Programmer
Welcome to the future: Cell or Cell-like.
Perhaps, or perhaps not. The 360's Xenon is just as likely a model.
Originally posted by Programmer
Welcome to the future: Cell or Cell-like.
Are we missing a link? I did see an Intel web page that showed many-core & massively parallel processors coming in about 2008. Is this what you are referring to?
Originally posted by Programmer
Welcome to the future: Cell or Cell-like.
Are we missing a link? I did see an Intel web page that showed many-core & massively parallel processors coming in about 2008. Is this what you are referring to?
Edit: Please ignore or delete this duplicate. I must have hit the send button twice.
Originally posted by Programmer
Welcome to the future: Cell or Cell-like.
From Intel's website:
and platform architecture needs to move toward a virtualized, reconfigurable chip-level multiprocessing (CMP) architecture with a large number of cores, a rich set of built-in processing capabilities, large on-chip memory subsystem and sophisticated microkernel.
And the address for the above quote:
Platform 2015
Is this what you were thinking of Programmer...?
Because it looks pretty Cell-like to me...
The Appleinsider converage seems to indicate that.
Cores on a cpu that can handle lots of different jobs.
Lemon Bon Bon
Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon
Intel are going 'Cell' like.
The Appleinsider converage seems to indicate that.
Cores on a cpu that can handle lots of different jobs.
Lemon Bon Bon
that's not quite what the Cell is about.
The Cell has one processor that is more powerful and general purpose. It controls the other processors, and can do processing on its own. The other processors are all the same and are fairly simple general purpose units that are optimized to do operations like signal processing, rendering conversion etc. The memory subsystem is also different. It's called a "ring. Each processor gets its own local memory.
This isn't precisely what it is, but is a general description. If you want something much more technical, go to "arstechinca.com".
This is very different from multi-core chips like the Zenon for the 360 which uses three of the main Cell processor cores.
In any multi-core chip, each core can do a different task. Just as in a dual cpu machine now.
Sir Mac
Originally posted by melgross
The Cell has one processor that is more powerful and general purpose.
You might be surprised at the relative power of the PU vs. an SPU.
Originally posted by Programmer
You might be surprised at the relative power of the PU vs. an SPU.
Well, we know that the PU is based on the G4, and the SPU on the 601.
You might be surprised at the relative power of the PU vs. an SPU.
Care to elaborate? Don't be shy...
Lemon Bon Bon