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Intel Reveals the Future of the CPU-GPU War

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the state-of-the-chip dept.

Arun Demeure writes "Beyond3D has once again obtained new information on Intel's plans to compete against NVIDIA and AMD's graphics processors, in what the Chief Architect of the project presents as a 'battle for control of the computing platform.' He describes a new computing architecture based on the many-core paradigm with super-wide execution units, and the reasoning behind some of the design choices. Looks like computer scientists and software programmers everywhere will have to adapt to these new concepts, as there will be no silver bullet to achieve high efficiency on new and exotic architectures."

9 of 231 comments (clear)

  1. Sure there is by Watson+Ladd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Abandon C and Fortran. Functional programing makes multithreading easy and programs can be written for parallel execution with ease. And as an added benefit, goodbye buffer overflows and double frees!

    --
    Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
    1. Re:Sure there is by ewhac · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Cool! Show me an example of how to write a spinning OpenGL sphere with procedurally-generated textures and reacts interactively to keyboard/mouse input in Haskell, and I'll take a serious whack at making a go of it.

      Extra credit if you can do transaction-level device control over USB.

      Schwab

      --
      Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
    2. Re:Sure there is by AstrumPreliator · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I couldn't find anything related to procedurally-generated textures, not that I really looked. I could find a few games written in Haskell though. I mean they're not as advanced as a spinning sphere or anything like that...

      Frag which was done for an undergrad dissertation using yampa and haskell to make an FPS.
      Haskell Doom which is pretty obvious.
      A few more examples.

      I dunno if that satisfies your requirements or not. Though I don't quite get how this is relevant to the GP's post. This seems like more of a gripe with Haskell than anything. But if I've missed something, please elaborate.

  2. Astroturf by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Arun Demeure writes "Beyond3D has once again obtained new information...

    If you are going to submit your own articles to Slashdot, at least have the decency to admit this instead of talking about yourself in the third-person.

  3. We need a new architecture by jhfry · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't know what it is, or how it will be different from x86, but progress can't keep continuing if we don't look for better methods of doing things.

    It cannot be argued that x86 is best architecture ever made, we all know it's not... but it is the one with the most research. We need the top companies in the industry, Intel, AMD, MS, etc. to sit down and design an entirely new specification going forward.

    New processor architecture, a new form factor, a new power supply, etc...

    Google has demonstrated that a single voltage PSU is more efficient, and completely do able. There is little reason that we still use internal cards to add functionality to our systems, couldn't these be more like cartridges so you don't need to open the case?

    Why not do away with most of the legacy technology in one swoop and update the entire industry to a new standard.

    PS, I know why, money, too much investment in the old to be worth creating the new. But I can dream can't I?

    --
    Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
    1. Re:We need a new architecture by Pharmboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Itanium?

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
  4. Re:yay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Funny, I wouldn't consider a mobo without because Intel are working towards an open source driver. I'm sick of binary drivers and unfathomable nvidia error messages. At least Nvidia expend some effort, ATI are a complete joke. Even on windows ATI palm you off with some sub-standard media player and some ridiculous .NET application that runs in the taskbar (What fucking planet are those morons on?)

    So you can bash intel graphics all you like but for F/OSS users they could end up as the only game in town. We're not usually playing the latest first person shooters, performance only need be "good enough".

  5. Intel against NVIDIA/ATI/AMD? OSS? by WhiteWolf666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If intel keeps supporting its equipment with excellent OSS support, I'll happily switch to an all-intel platform, even at a significant premium.

    NVIDIA's Linux drivers are pretty good, but ATI/AMD's are god awful, and both NVIDIA's & AMD/ATI's are much more difficult to use than Intels.

    I'd love to see an Intel GPU/CPU platform that was performance competitive with ATI/AMD or NVIDIA's offerings.

    --
    WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
  6. Re:Great! by strstrep · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's a good design, it just doesn't seem like a good design for a video game system. It's a general purpose CPU attached to several CPUs that essentially are DSPs. DSP programming is very weird, and you need to at least understand how the device works on the instruction level for optimal performance. A lot of DSP code is still written in assembly (or at the very least hand-optimized after compilation).

    It's very expensive to have DSP code written, when compared to normal CPU code, and video game manufacturers have been complaining that the cost of making a game is too high. Also, most of the complexity in a video game nowadays is handled by the GPU, not the CPU. Now the cell would be great for lots of parallel signal processing, or some other similar task, and I bet it could be used to create a great video game, it would just be prohibitively expensive.

    The cell is a great solution to a problem. However, that problem isn't video games. A fast traditional CPU, possibly with multiple cores, attached to a massively pipelined GPU would probably work better for video games.