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HyperTransport 3.0 Ratified

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the easy-to-upgrade-processor-dreams dept.

Hack Jandy writes "The HyperTransport consortium just released the 3.0 specification of HyperTransport. The new specification allows for external HyperTransport interconnects, basically meaning you might plug your next generation Opteron into the equivalent of a USB port at the back of your computer. Among other things, the new specification also includes hot swap, on-the-fly reconfigurable HT links and also a hefty increase in bandwidth."

3 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmmm. by ultramk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can see an interesting situation where you could have a traditional CPU, to which you could plug in additional external processor modules as your needs expand. (assuming the OS could handle sharing out multithreaded apps over a variety of different multi-CPU configurations.)

    Dave has a processor intensive project this week? He gets the big stack plugged into his machine until someone else in the office needs it.

    Server getting bogged down? Add another couple modules to the system.

    I like the idea.

    m-

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  2. NOT anything like USB at all. by Visaris · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Whoever subimtted the article doesn't understand what the external HT links are for. They are _NOT_ a replacement for USB or any other similar technology. External HT is used to link multiple chassis together to form a large SMP box. This is similar to infiniband, etc. This is NOT designed to be a way to just plug in a CPU to an external port. Read the pdf:

    http://www.hypertransport.org/docs/tech/ht30pres.p df

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  3. Re:External HyperTransport? by merreborn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Hum... I can't quite afford a whole new system or even a motherboard and two new procs... I'll just add a new one to the back of an existing one" ...Except you'd need a hypertransport 3.0 motherboard to begin with, and enough appropriately clocked RAM to make use of the processor. The whole "External CPU" idea was just speculation anyway; it's not mentioned anywhere in the article.

    Point being, you'll never be able to plug a new opteron into _anything_ that's sitting in your closet right now.