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Cell Workstations in 2005
yerdaddie writes "The cell processor will be introduced in graphics workstations before release in the Playstation 3, according to press releases by IBM and Sony. As previously discussed, IBM will be releasing more details in February 2005. However, apparently prototype workstations have already been "powered-on" and will be available in 2005. Since Windows on PPC was scrapped back in 1997, this leads to speculation that perhaps Linux, AIX, or BSD will be the operating system for cell workstations."
This article provides some background.
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No. You are mistaken. Xbox will have a PowerPC derivative. Not a POWER derivative. Also, I should note that Cell, although part is derived from the POWER4, is not really anything like the POWER4 architecture.
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The stated goal is for some future playstation (maybe the fourth generation) to use the cell processor and yes, to cooperate with cell devices in televisions, dvd players, et cetera. If we end up with cell PCs they'll be candidates too. They could run linux, of course. To be honest, that's the Xbox, if it were clustering, and it could have been if there were any reason for it to be. Sony will probably use some kind of IEE1394 (i.Link in Sony's parlance) possibly including 800Mbps in order to connect Cell devices. 1394 allows significant cable lengths and near-gigabit speeds today; it is intended to support 1.6Gbps and later even 3.2Gbps (over fiber.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
All POWER-processors have been fully compliant (32 and 64 bit) PowerPCs since POWER3, and before that the RS64-procesosrs were too fully PowerPC compliant. So.. you are wrong in saying that most POWER-processors isn't PowerPCs since they have been since 1999, and they have been even more PowerPCs than "clean" PowerPCs since they until the 970 didn't have the full 64 bit ISA.
:)
The ISSCC papers state that Cell is Power based, not POWER based. There's a significant difference here since IBM in its marketing use the "Power" moniker to encompass both PowerPC and POWER processors. If you have seen different papers than I have, please provide me with an URL of PDF that proves me wrong. This is important stuff
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
Actually, CELL is based around the 970. Expect about 80-90% performance compared to an equivalently clocked 970. Where it goes nuts is that there's a number of vector units attached that are basically "VMX on steroids" to quote one of the main guys at IBM behind this. The vector units (or Data Plane Processors as they're calling them) can also communicate between each other as well as with the central core. The workstations are actually headless server blades, each of which will have 2 CELL's on them and they'll be running Linux.
This stuff isn't bullshit, it was all disclosed Thursday at the Australian Game Developers Conference. I didn't sign a NDA so it's all good. I also fondled a PSP =]
The primary goal of IBM with regards to the Cell processor was that it be scalable first as a rack mounted solution. Therefore the Cell Processor Workstation (CPW) will be available first up as individual form factor boards, containing a CPP, several DPPs and other small components for I/O etc.
It's not the same. Hyper threading divides processor units (e.g. a multiplier or an adder) in order to keep most units of the single core busy. This happens because Intel processors have very long processing pipelines (thus the very high frequency compared to AMD), so stalling them can be quite costly. In order to avoid this, Intel simply keeps track of two "virtual" processor states, essentially 2 copies of all registers, and schedules instructions from any of these two execution threads in ways that keep most units busy. By chosing from 2 threads instead of one it has greater chances of finding an instruction that can be computed by an idle (at that time) unit.
Cell architecture, on the other hand, seems to rely on multiple simple cores, each of which is complete. A central Power processor core keeps them working together. I assume (but I do not know!) that the benefit of this architecture is : (a) adding multiple cores is easy and increases cost linearly (b) software that works for a 16-core chip will also work for a 2-core chip, but slower (therefore the same processor can be adapted to different needs, just like multi-unit videocards, without expensive redesign) (c) an inherent understanding of parallelism (on the chip) allows chaining them together in an easy fashion. Maybe we will start counting cores instead of MHz in a few years, when all cpus will have peaked at some--obscenely high--MHz limit. Details on the cell chip are very vague and ridden with marketing buzz-words, but it appears it will be able to execute many more parallel threads than an Intel HT processor (2 threads maximum in parallel).
What worries me most is the fact that Sony (which also sells music/movies etc) says it'll have on-chip capability to protect copyrighted works. I don't know what this will mean for the GNU/linux crowd.
Disclaimer: All the above is wild speculation. I am not an engineer.
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