With all this talk of multi-core...

Discussion in 'Console Technology' started by Big T_CpE, Jul 16, 2005.

  1. j^aws

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    I think with stuff like this you need the right balance for TLP, CMP and ILP and an efficient, usable programming model...
     
  2. ShootMyMonkey

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    No doubt. That's partly why Niagara made perfect sense for the server world where tons of requests will come in at any given time. There's plenty more TLP than you have cores to handle it. But yeah, they also dealt with the ILP problem by relying on 4-way SMT per core and just filling in more TLP. Bandwidth-hungry sucker it is, but that's fine for where it's going.

    I almost find it funny, though, that with all the talks that Sun gave about "throughput computing," they almost seemed to be referring to Niagara being used in a thin client + mainframe type of setting. Things coming full circle, I guess.
     
  3. Big T_CpE

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    Well.. :oops: I should have caught that - thanks for the correction..

    This is exactly what I'm thinking - reconfigurable cores to allow for different types of processing, doing away with all this ultra-specific GPU hardware. While I do believe this is the route we'll see in the future, I don't expect it to come easily, especially when you factor in economics. With a system of many cores coming from a specific semiconductor company, where would that leave the likes of ATI, Nvidia, and others, who thrive on people upgrading their graphics cards on a regular basis? Will their market get absorbed into AMD's and Intel's area of expertise, or will they have to work together to get a unified system? There would be no need for them in the sense we think of GPU's today. I believe this, NOT the technology, will hold the incorporation of this new paradigm back.

    Anyway, the speculation about many 486-class cores on one die is interesting. This is a step in the direction I was originally thinking, ultimately.
     
  4. Shifty Geezer

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    I think nVidia and Sony have opinions on this matter. nVidia's really talking up their 'synergy' with Sony...Cell was to a be a one-processor solution...next iteration or two I guess we might well see a Cell with nVidia grapihcs content alongside generic processing, and provide a fully scalable architecture that'll turn it's hand to whatever you want.
     
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