[liolio]

Originally Posted by TimothyFarrar

Had the rumor been that Larrabee is taking the place of both the CPU and GPU for the PS4, this I could perhaps see a little sense in. Larrabee as a GPU with another arch for a CPU just doesn't make any sense to me. Why even bother? This detail alone makes me toss this rumor into the round file, or at least think that if part of this is true that the details are all wrong.

Well actually Charlie just said that Intel won the just the GPU contract supposely that what he was said without being gave much details, so he looked like he reported just that but he may agree with you (from realtechworld forum):

Originally Posted by Charlie

It _MIGHT_ be all Larrabee. One thing to keep in mind is that it is not Larrabee 1, but more likely a Larrabee 4 or 5 derivative.

[Carl B]

Whatever Charlie says from a personal analysis angle means less than nothing; if there's merit in any of his reporting, it's solely from a "here's the dirt I heard" angle. Whenever he gets into personal views of whatever he's writing about, it just goes off into la la land. Larrabee 4 or 5 derivative? Uh uh. It actually shocks me that he's on the RWT forums to begin with, I would think it constant derision for him.

[3dilettante]

He must be guesstimating with some wide error bars on that.
Since Larrabee I isn't expected until late '09/early '10, that would mean 4/5 revisions in three years.

The timeframe on that is what puzzles me.
Intel doesn't appear to want to fork x86 for host processors, which is why an Intel exec insisted Larrabee (or at least the first round) would remain a graphics product.

Using a Larrabee descendant for a console CPU+GPU would divide the x86 market, and do so in a way that would endanger standard CPUs.

Reconciling the two branches into a common design when the first one would be barely out is kind of a tight fit. It's possible, but pretty cramped on the schedule.

[Love_In_Rio]

Originally Posted by psorcerer

Pardon my ignorance, but what's exactly "Directx 11 chip"?

It is an graphics chip that understands Microsoft future directx 11 graphics api. Suppossely next Nvidia and Ati graphic chips will be directx 11 parts. So what i wanted to mean is that Larrabee having a directx 11 compiler is that it would be able to run the same code as those chips.

Originally Posted by scificube

I have to think you're messing with me to suggest Sony would have both a Larabbee and GT300 in PS4 especially if one is merely to serve as a 'scaler' of any sort. That's another blatant duplication of capabilities and even worse scaling could be handled in software or by a dedicated chip far more cost effectively.

The super companion chip didn't serve a critical role in the system and had a very short tenure at that.

I only was joking trying to say that Sony can break in some way a contract as has done before. As far as i know super companion chip was in the board for some type of contract with Toshiba.

[Rangers]

arstechnica has an article.

Probably about the best thing to come out of it is this:

I've known for a while, and even mentioned on Ars, that Intel has a team that's actively courting the Sony PlayStation 4 contract

Seems a bit odd, according to the Takahashi book Intel and MS have some kind of loyalties (theres something in there about Gates making a personal plea to his engineers to keep Intel in the 360, which of course didnt work out). So I wonder why Intel seems supposedly to concentrate more on Sony? Do they dislike MS, or did MS give them the cold shoulder for next gen already?

[scificube]

Originally Posted by Love_In_Rio

I only was joking trying to say that Sony can break in some way a contract as has done before. As far as i know super companion chip was in the board for some type of contract with Toshiba.

Sorry my sarcasm detection facilities are among the worst in existence

[3dilettante]

Originally Posted by Rangers

Seems a bit odd, according to the Takahashi book Intel and MS have some kind of loyalties (theres something in there about Gates making a personal plea to his engineers to keep Intel in the 360, which of course didnt work out). So I wonder why Intel seems supposedly to concentrate more on Sony? Do they dislike MS, or did MS give them the cold shoulder for next gen already?

Intel could just as easily have a team courting Microsoft and Nintendo as well. It's in Intel's best interest to get some kind of foothold with anybody making a console.

That statement doesn't indicate that Intel has given up on that front.

As for Bill Gates and his attempt to keep Xbox 360 on x86, that was then.

Intel in more recent times is actively undermining Microsoft in the netbook market and mobile scene, and Bill Gates isn't in charge anymore.

[Squilliam]

Originally Posted by 3dilettante

That is the premise of GPGPU, though for a console or any serious close to metal programming, the extra layer of API would be stripped away. There are still notable problems because the typical slaved GPU setup relies heavily on the CPU and there are often issues with additional software complexity and possibly limited bandwidth between the GPU and host processor.


In most cases, that would be a cache.


MCMs inject certain inefficiencies into the manufacturing process, though they potentially save on other headaches.
When packaging multiple chips, the probability that one of the chips is bad, that the packaging process for one of the chips fails, or that the package itself is bad increases.
The design and manufacture of the actual MCM is more complex and expensive, so it's not normally done unless other factors really make it necessary.

The 'promise' of GPGPU programing I have heard is that you will be able to do "physics, particles animation, collision detection, large sorting operations, A.I, animation, water simulation, sound processing" on the GPU and leave the CPU free to perform the tasks it specialises in. If the promises of efficiency are true then couldn't the console achieve more with say ~330mm^2 combined GPU/CPU than 2*~200mm^2 individual dies considering the efficiency improvements from specialisation and latency minimisation?

[V3]

Originally Posted by Rangers

arstechnica has an article.

Probably about the best thing to come out of it is this:



Seems a bit odd, according to the Takahashi book Intel and MS have some kind of loyalties (theres something in there about Gates making a personal plea to his engineers to keep Intel in the 360, which of course didnt work out). So I wonder why Intel seems supposedly to concentrate more on Sony? Do they dislike MS, or did MS give them the cold shoulder for next gen already?

It's because AMD has 360 and Wii. Previously Intel don't care.

[psorcerer]

Originally Posted by Love_In_Rio

It is an graphics chip that understands Microsoft future directx 11 graphics api.

Oh, an why do you think these things exist? Maybe you also think that Directx 10 chips exist, do you?

Suppossely next Nvidia and Ati graphic chips will be directx 11 parts. So what i wanted to mean is that Larrabee having a directx 11 compiler is that it would be able to run the same code as those chips.

Larabee is very close to modern NV/AMD GPU internally. What does it have to do with MSFT high-level API (Direct3D)?

I only was joking trying to say that Sony can break in some way a contract as has done before. As far as i know super companion chip was in the board for some type of contract with Toshiba.

If Toshiba deal was not such a disaster, and if MSFT waited little longer with X360 we would get very different PS3. What we have today is just a workaround.

[Love_In_Rio]

One question, how would result a 8 larrabee core cpu ?.

I could imagine a tiny larrabee cpu ( 8 cores ) and a larrabee gpu ( 32 ).

[psorcerer]

Originally Posted by Love_In_Rio

One question, how would result a 8 larrabee core cpu ?.

I could imagine a tiny larrabee cpu ( 8 cores ) and a larrabee gpu ( 32 ).

1 Larabee Core = 1 Cell SPU
The differences are rather tiny.

[3dilettante]

Originally Posted by Squilliam

The 'promise' of GPGPU programing I have heard is that you will be able to do "physics, particles animation, collision detection, large sorting operations, A.I, animation, water simulation, sound processing" on the GPU and leave the CPU free to perform the tasks it specialises in.

The premise of GPGPU is that the parrallel resources of GPU hardware can be applied to non-graphics workloads. Physics and other operations used by games would be a possible subset of the overall general-purpose angle.

It's somewhat misleading to say it frees up the CPU, since GPGPU setups at present lean very hard on the CPU and software interface to actually move the needed data and commands to the GPU.
So it's more that the GPU works hard to achieve better results on a very limited and often castrated variant (see: GPGPU video encoding) of a CPU task while the CPU spends a significant amount of its time spoon-feeding the slave card (F@H).

Perhaps Larrabee or some more general GPU in 2012 could change that, though only up to a point because Intel doesn't want Larrabee to submarine its main x86 lines and GPU makers have quite some ways to go.

If the promises of efficiency are true then couldn't the console achieve more with say ~330mm^2 combined GPU/CPU than 2*~200mm^2 individual dies considering the efficiency improvements from specialisation and latency minimisation?

It might, but it seriously depends on the implementation and what level of integration you speak.

An MCM is only one step above completely separate chips, and there are varying levels of integration if on-chip.

For tasks that have evolved to tolerate latency or do not map well to a GPU, integration does not help. A huge amount of current rendering has evolved to tolerate an expansion bus and a master-slave relationship between the CPU and GPU, so a game coded like today's engines would likely see a weaker GPU and weaker CPU.

[PeterT]

I'll echo a few people in this thread and say that the only way I could see Larrabee in PS4 making sense is if there is only Larrabee. Maybe some variant that is different from the one that will be released as a PC GPU and more suited to fulfilling both CPU and GPU tasks.

If technically feasible such a setup would certainly have advantages in terms of hardware complexity/cost and software development. On the other hand, implementing BC would be a nightmare, middleware and developer experience would be thrown out of the window (again) and games targetted at more conventional systems would most likely make only very limited use of the architecture. In short, I don't believe it will happen.

[ADEX]

Originally Posted by psorcerer

1 Larabee Core = 1 Cell SPU
The differences are rather tiny.

No, similarities are only skin deep, the differences are huge.

The SPEs have 4 wide vector unit and operates a single thread out of a dedicated local memory.

A Larrabee core has a 16 wide vector unit and operates multiple threads out of a coherent cache.

16 wide vector units are efficient on graphics but not much else. That's why most systems (including x86 chips) are 4 wide.
The coherent cache may be more programmer friendly but it's not hardware friendly, it'll require more power and will severely restrict scalability.

I can see Larrabee being used as a GPU but I can't see it beating Nvidia or ATI. It might beat Cell, but only on highly parallel tasks.

As for Intel's uber silicon tech, they weren't the first to 45nm logic and they were only 6 months ahead of IBM at 45nm. It's looking that that gap may narrow or not exist at all at 32nm.

[psorcerer]

Originally Posted by ADEX

16 wide vector units are efficient on graphics but not much else. That's why most systems (including x86 chips) are 4 wide.

It doesn't matter that much. In the end you need to use both for graphics. It doesn't matter if you use 1 vector or 4 vectors, in most cases you'll want 4 - because of latency for ALU commands.

I can see Larrabee being used as a GPU but I can't see it beating Nvidia or ATI. It might beat Cell, but only on highly parallel tasks.

Larabee is quite similar to modern GPU designs (read NV/AMD). Couple of round-robins with data passed on circular bus, throughput increased by alternating load/store with ALU operations.

[V3]

Why can't Sony customised the SPE with wider vector units and other things to make it suitable for GPU ? So PS4 can just use a single chip with PPE + SPEs + SPEs modified + cache + texture units. Like how Toshiba modified Cell BE to Spurs Engine by adding extra components or Intel with Larrabee.

I think they need to adopt the strategy from GPU makers with X2 sort of product for their hardcore market while not alienating the mass market.

[one]

The INQ guy is running the same PS4 rumor for almost a year
http://www.realworldtech.com/forums/...90000&roomid=2
If it makes sense in monetary terms (especially in this time of recession) Intel GPU for PS4 is as a good deal as the NVIDIA deal for PS3, or even better. Intel showed its flexibility by selling Atom which is undermining the highly profitable high-end CPU market of their own. After all I believe the next generation consoles are not defined by who can push how many shader ops, but by what kind of app they are optimized for as the continuation of "Wii shock". If Intel GPU can do the work, why not.

[grandmaster]

If PS4 runs Larrabee, could you install Windows on it?! If so, the implications are staggering.

[SedentaryJourney]

If this is so, what are engineers at Sony and Toshiba gonna do now?

[Crossbar]

Originally Posted by grandmaster

If PS4 runs Larrabee, could you install Windows on it?! If so, the implications are staggering.

Indeed, indeed....

[Shifty Geezer]

MS+Sony joint venture... That'd be the only way you'd get DX11 on a PlayStation! There is the small possibility of Larrabee cores being included in a Cell chip alongside SPUs, working as the Visualizer component of the original patent. If the software is there to drive them as a GPU system, devs wouldn't have to think about writing code for them any more than they do for targeting RSX. Of course the option would be there to use Larrabee cores for something else, but these also the option for devs to use the GPU for GPGPU work. If they really want to wrestle two programming models, good for them!

[Brad Grenz]

I just can't imagine such a mixed system being produced. If Intel is really in, I'm sure they're producing the whole shebang.

[Shifty Geezer]

I highly doubt it too, but it is still a possibility. nVidia was talking in the early days as if their GPU tech could be combined into a Cell. So if you're going to have a 3rd party (or fourth, in the case of STI + GPU people!) contributing a graphics processing model, it makes no odds whether it's nVidia, ATi or Intel, nor what programming model it uses if the GPU people are providing the tools and software interface.

So if we're going to have a one-chip combined CPU + GPU, or rather more flexibile mass-processing unit, it looks like Intel contributing and Cell benefiting perhaps from their fabrication technologies is on the cards. However, I expect if Intel were involved, they'd be pushing an Intel-only solution.

[Love_In_Rio]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

I highly doubt it too, but it is still a possibility. nVidia was talking in the early days as if their GPU tech could be combined into a Cell. So if you're going to have a 3rd party (or fourth, in the case of STI + GPU people!) contributing a graphics processing model, it makes no odds whether it's nVidia, ATi or Intel, nor what programming model it uses if the GPU people are providing the tools and software interface.

So if we're going to have a one-chip combined CPU + GPU, or rather more flexibile mass-processing unit, it looks like Intel contributing and Cell benefiting perhaps from their fabrication technologies is on the cards. However, I expect if Intel were involved, they'd be pushing an Intel-only solution.

One chip envelope leaves them out of the performance career. How many tranies against a Xenon 2 + Ati gpu ?. In that case they would be going the Wii route.