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IBM's Cell Processor — Not Just for PS3 Anymore
TechFreep writes to tell us that IBM has released a new line of QS20 Blade Servers based on the processor they developed for the Playstation 3. From the article: "Today IBM announced a new line of high-powered QS20 Blade Servers intended for use in seismic research, encryption, digital image rendering and military surveillance applications. Each QS20 will include two nine-cored Cell Processors clocked at 3.2Ghz apiece, which were developed along with Sony and Toshiba for Sony's upcoming Playstation 3 console. As Playstation 3 isn't scheduled for release until November, the QS20 will mark the first application in which the highly-touted Cell will be available to consumers."
Aint that the truth. The damn things aren't even being built yet.
on Linux?
Beowulf cluster of these.
Oh, wait. I suppose this will be close enough.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
Gee that should help availiblity.
Do you want your nuclear test performed with the same chip that's used to play Spiderman X? There are a lot of decisions with regards to redundancies, ECC, and so on that go into a design. If it was concieved as a chip for the playstation, you could end up with problems later.
But I do hope it works. This kind of thing would be great for neural implants on the way to the singularity.
Not necessarily about this announcement of course as most of us have seen it coming for some time. However, the concept of the core processor is quite strong and I think that it will play an important role in computing in the future.
h tml
A little tid bit about all that: http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cell/Cell0_v2.
Justin - Don't be afraid of my blog, it won't bite.
It's not just that I hate this word, but what has it got to do with these blade servers? Are they edible?
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
Just junk food for thought...
What exactly is a blade server? Is that what they were talking about on that dumbed-down uncreative commercial where the two guys are like "What's a blade server?" "This is." "This is a blade?" "Uh, yeah."
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Maybe take a peek at the Wiki entry about the cell processor for a good background of what it is capable of.
Neutiquam erro
I think that stating that the Cell was "developed for PS3" is misleading. The processor, while certainly earmarked for the PS3, was designed all along to go into a full range of computing devices, PS3 was just the most visible (and likely to ship the most units initially). Saying it the other way makes it sound like the chip was developed exclusively for the PS3 and IBM is "just finding uses for it", which is not the case.
...at least I understand it. Servers aren't consumer products so I don't see how this gets consumers any closer to a Cell or any sooner.
Embedded systems could really use a processor like this. Like my toaster.
pfff, since when was Cell developed for playstation... X_x
Clearly this is bad news for Sony.
For some reason I haven't figured out yet.
IBM has oodles of fab capacity. Don't forget Apple has dropped off the queue.
Apple was one of IBM's smallest consumers of PowerPC chips, and always was. The embedded and entertainment market dominates their "queue", and is one of the main reasons the PowerPC series never pushed as hard clock-wise as Intel does; the embedded market sees higher clock speeds as greater power consumption/heat dissipation and more (electronic and thermal) design challenges. When Apple took a hike, IBM didn't shed any tears, and said as much.
I don't have any specific numbers, but I believe Apple's purchases were under 5% of total production. You may say "well, going with Intel was a REALLY stupid idea!" Wrong- before, Apple was "the little fish using embedded-market processors for consumer computers", and the goals didn't match. Now, they're using chips specifically targeted to the markets Apple wants to be in.
Please help metamoderate.
IBM already has a CMP. Both AMD and Intel will soon have CMPs. Here, CMP does not mean duo-core; CMP means at least 4 cores.
The window of opportunity for Sun has now closed.
What is ingenious about IBM is the fact that IBM is essentially using the R&D in its consumer-electronics division (that builds processors for game consoles and other toys) to advance R&D in the business-oriented high-performance-processor/high-end-server division. Building electronics for toys has actually strengthened non-toy products.
When will Mattel and Hasbro start selling their own supercomputers?
Servers aren't consumer products so I don't see how this gets consumers any closer to a Cell or any sooner.
Depends on which definition of consumers you are using. Taken more literally, even large companies are "consumers". I think the intent of the submitters statement was simply that it would be the first shipping product that would house the cpu. After all, if you were willing to pay the cost, you _could_ purchase it. No different than say a Ferrari Enzo, it's a consumer product, but one in which obviously only a small percentage of consumers could actually afford.
This has always been the plan and was a guiding principal in the Cell's design. Amortize the cost of a very usefull (To federal customers) chip over the estimated 40-60M playstations that will use a very similar (But not identical) design. From the beginning the chip was dual-purpose designed with very high speed interconnects and protocols for massive parallel-ism.
$29/chip x 64k chips = more ops per buck than ever - thanks to the world's gamers...
The problem for both PS3 and the NSA, etc is IBM's 10-20% yields. PS3 for Christmas? They better get up the curve fast...
BTW - Anyone remember back to when the Soviets used to buy up Ataris and canabilize their chips for sonobouys?
"Knowing everything doesn't help..."
Now we know why the PS3 Europe release is pushed out into next Spring. With reported 10% - 20% yields for the Cell, there just aren't that many of the buggers around yet.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Anyone else expect to see a Mac OSX Xserve running these babies in 2008?
And I can't wait. While the MacOS has positioned itself capable of hoping from platform to platform in record time, windows still has a hard time running modern Intel chips...
And yes, I am happy to see Linux run on the cell processors. I think that says a lot about it's adaptability as well.
Bill Gates who?
awesome, now i can play ps3 at work !!
"uh, yeh boss, im just testing the performance capabilities of the new blade enclosures"
The Blue lasers that were to go on the sharks have been delayed. So it will be the standard red lasers until further notice. PS IBM will not be using blue lasers on their blades. The blades have been sharpened with a red laser.
Inane Comments are Generously Disregarded
just wondering, it's not mentioned in the article. (that's a guess since in keeping with policy I didn't actually read it)
(Score:5, Informative) for a simple wikipedia posting is just bullshit people. We all know that if we don't know what something is, google is your friend. If I simple type in CELL, it's the fifth fucking thing listed. ARG!
Apple may have only had 5% of the total power architecture chips sold, but I bet they had nearly all the 970s. Automotive computers (and other embedded devices) may have lots of processors, but most of them run 10-year-old cores at 300MHz or less; fuel injection and microwave ovens haven't gotten much more complicated since the days when the 6502 was king. If the embedded market is all they've got, IBM and Freescale are going to end up like the people still churning out Z80s and 6502s now, possibly profitable but certainly nowhere near the cutting edge.
As Playstation 3 isn't scheduled for release until November, the QS20 will mark the first application in which the highly-touted Cell will be available to consumers."
What consumer? The one that needs a system for "seismic research, encryption, digital image rendering and military surveillance applications" and can plunk down the estimated $18,995 price tag, I guess.
SYSOP ('sih-sop) n.: the guy laughing at your typing.
I'm confused. Does that make the damn thing 6.4GHz, 28.8GHz, or 57.6GHz?
The SCO lawsuit makes me wish my company were in Utah. We need a new building.
Servers aren't consumer products so I don't see how this gets consumers any closer to a Cell or any sooner.
The server that runs Fedora core 5 costs $18,000 or so. Like most people, I'm not going to buy a computer that costs so much but it does get me closer to a Cell processor.
Next to a part of a Los Alamos super computer, a $600 PS3 looks like a bargain. Hell, it looks like a bargain next to a "Ready for Vista Ultimate Sucker Edition" computer. I thought the PS3 was interesting as a gaming platform and nothing else. If Sony makes it so I can dual boot, so that I can run Fedora when I want to crunch numbers I'll put up with the non free nature of the Sony half that plays DVDs and games the same way other non free set top boxes do. The PS3 does not cost that much more than the average PC I build for myself but promisses much more power. I'm going to be watching PS3 very closely, it might be my next PC. If it really works like Sony wants it to, it will be a lot of people's next home computer and it will help make 2007 the year of Linux.
No, I've never said "next year will be the year of Linux" before this year. Vista's impending flop and truly new hardware from IBM is making good on IBM's promiss that the future is free. 2007 has a very good chance of seeing free software market share reach 20% of the home market, aka "mainstream".
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The Potential of Science With the Cell Processor
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/
It reference a second article:
Researchers Analyze HPC Potential of Cell Processor
http://www.hpcwire.com/hpc/671376.html/
This discusses research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on using the STI Cell processor for scientific computing. From the article quoting the LBL paper:
"Overall results demonstrate the tremendous potential of the Cell architecture for scientific computations in terms of both raw performance and power efficiency,"
and
"We also conclude that Cell's heterogeneous multi-core implementation is inherently better suited to the HPC environment than homogeneous commodity multi-core processors."
The paper went on to say that while the Cell processor was designed for single-precision 32-bit floating performance but with some simple changes to the design it could be optimized for double precision 64-bit floating performance.
This makes a lot of sense if this is the same Cell processor that IBM is using in their blade servers.
Really cheap, really fast 9 core processors!
An interesting read.
RLH
Cell would be great for HPC with a couple of small changes.
HPC is not horseshoes or hand grenades.
Benchmark Doom on it!!!
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
I think the real message here is, if you don't buy the PS3, the terrorists win.
For sale: Parachute. Used once. Never opened. Small stain.
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
The "cell processor in supercomputing" is a bandaid
for the failure of BlueGene/L to reach petaflop.
The chip was designed specifically for the PSP, not
as a supercomputer CPU.
The people at IBM who did not have a clue as
to where things were going (and as result they buried the
real alternative), are trying to rewrite history and
come on the top.
Their strategy won't work long term.
The cell petaflop will cost too much and do too litle,
too late.
But who really cares? They will get their govt money
and their awards and then they can start all over again.
Who knows, aybe in 10 years they will get it right.
The IBM didn't have a Defender flashback and put in a smart-bomb button on these puppies.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
QS20 will mark the first application in which the highly-touted Cell will be available to consumers
Consumers?! Do you know how much a QS20 will cost you? These are business systems. You'd have to buy both a blade center and a blade.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
On the processor? AFAIK yes, the few existing Cell Workstations run Linux. And there are no reports of that linux version being bastardized.
On the PS3? I believe that when it is reported by independent reviewers. Because it would be a radical break from the current business model for console:
1) The console is sold at a loss
2) The console maker recoups the losses from licens fees the game makers have to pay
3) The console is heavily protected against the starting of unlicensed software.
Having an unrestricted Linux on the PS3 would eliminate 3) and thus make it very difficult to enforce 2). So unless the expected price of $600 per PS3 actually pays for the hardware, Sony cannot afford to allow unrestricted Linux on the PS3.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Unrestricted Linux allowable. Just resticted mode for games. Ie boot Linux or boot Secuirty safe game mode.
Lot of game developers don't like cheats. Can never be sure that Linux users are not cheating they just have to many options. Note this also goes for Windows users.
Also most Linux developers will not crack that. Why it already runs linux. Also most Open Source developers also hate cheats.
Let's not forget the Transputer! it was there 20 years before the Cell CPU, and there was parallel programming languages like Occam or Concurrent C.
More info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transputer
Boot Linux. Insert Linux based game DVD from company X which is not so concerned about cheats, especially in single player mode (players can only ruin the game for themselves). Company X does not pay any license fees to Sony, and I doubt there is a law Sony could use to force them.
Result: Less income for Sony.
And that is what all console manufacturers have tried to avoid so far. Now it is possible that Sony has a different business model this time, or that they are simply not getting it and will have a rude awakening. But I'm still sceptical about that Linux on PS3 thing.
C - the footgun of programming languages
All the following links are from www.mc.com (Mercury Computer Systems)y pe=systemsy pe=systemsy pe=boards mercury computing has been offering/releasing Cell based products for a couple months. Their boxes are just as affordable for "consumers" as an IBM blade system. I don't work for them, but mercury computing has some pretty awesome stuff.
either their cell evaluation system, which is designed in the IBM bladecenter form factor:
http://www.mc.com/products/view/index.cfm?id=27&t
the turismo gangable computers: http://www.mc.com/products/view/index.cfm?id=34&t
http://www.mc.com/products/view/index.cfm?id=96&t
-Scott
Hell, I'd love those little number crunchers for digitizing my old analog VHS tapes. A two-pass encoding of somewhat over an hour of analog video takes approx. 6 hours here...
A Blu-ray drive built-in?