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Toshiba Launches First Cell-based Laptop
MojoKid writes "On Tuesday, Toshiba launched the
Qosmio G55-802, the first laptop available with the Cell CPU. Yes, think PS3 technology, developed jointly by Toshiba, Sony, and IBM. However, in particular, the Cell CPU is not about gaming, but about the multimedia experience. Taking the load away from the Intel CPU, the Cell processor performs gesture control, face navigation, transcoding and upscaling to HD. Interestingly (and necessary, with 4 GB of RAM), the system comes with 64-bit Vista installed by default, but 32-bit Vista ships as an option as well." However, semi-relatedly, if you'd prefer your Cells run open-source code, 1i1' blu3 writes "IBM's put up an open source project downloads page for the Cell processor — APIs, toolkits, IDEs, libraries, algorithms, etc. Most of the stuff on it right now is from SourceForge, but they are asking for user contributions to add to it." (Terra Soft's also been providing a Cell-compatible Linux distro for a while now, and according to Wikipedia the kernel's supported it since version 2.6.16.)
http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/10/the-ps3-laptop-from-ben-heck-to-engadget-with-love/
And who is going to start writing custom built apps or patches to utilize the hardware on this one laptop?
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
According to the article (and hinted by the summary), the thing has an ordinary Intel Core2Duo CPU. I'm assuming the cell is the "Toshiba quad code HD Processor" mentioned in the article. So it's a co-processor, then. My best guess it it's a 4-SPU cell processor without the PowerPC core. Weird...
http://home.comcast.net/~SupportCD/XPMyths.html
Modern hardware except one particular Pentium M stepping (which was popular for a while) handles PAE. 64G RAM on 32-bit
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Having a laptop that does Gesture based and Face navigation...So what happens if you give it the finger? Does it shut down? or does rolling your eyes bring up email?
I thought this was going to be the first fuel-cell based laptop.
Especially after reading how a fuel-cell the size of a regular battery can operate a cell phone for 2,700 hours of talk-time.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
For almost 10-years now, Slashdot has pipmped Terra Soft and Yellow Dog. There's Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, Gentoo, and SuSE (you know, distros people actually use out there) available for the Cell processor and PS3, and Slashdot shills for Terra Soft. This was true back when PPC linux was mildly popular too... Debian, Slackware, SuSE... They all supported it, but Slashdot pimps Yellow Dog. What gives?
Please, someone! The new PowerPC's look to be combined with Cell like this in the U of Illinois supercomputer (to dwarf Roadrunner). I don't mind an asymmetric combination as long as x86 is out. The Linux version should be good, but Linus has maintained that x86 will be the most important target for awhile. I can't see it handling the helper cores very well--it's just barely getting NUMA working well.
another shameless slashvertisement. Just because someone does something stupid with the wrong type of hardware, that doesn't mean slashdot needs to feed hothardware more ad revenue.
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
It's only $1549.99 which is the average price of Sony VAIOs
Windows XP?
The RSX is still locked away and there is no decent video driver. It's like using an old Pentium machine.
I've been wondering, if Cell technology were integrated into general purpose PCs, what kind of tasks it would help with. Could it be used to accellerate. . .
* Crypto functions (like whole-disk encryption, or encrypted volumes (like TrueCrypt)?
* High resolution video decoding, so the processor doesn't have to chug so much on it? From the article, it sounds like this might be one use of the cell?
* Grid computing - things like World Community Grid, distributed.net, SETI@home etc? I imagine this probably depends, at least in part, on the specific types of computations being done for the project you participate in, but would you commonly be able to do more computation, faster, for those types of projects if you had cell processors?
Can a GPU like one from Nvidia or ATI potentially work together *with* the cell processor to increase the GPU's capabilities? (I'd guess that would probably depend on the drivers having support for the Cell, and I'm guessing that current generation drivers probably wouldn't take any advantage of the Cell?)
It's too bad it takes a Toshiba in today's world to do something Apple would have done but for the fact that the company completely sold out.
Yes, think PS3 technology, developed jointly by Toshiba, Sony, and IBM.
Saying that the Cell BEA was developed for the PlayStation 3 is like saying the wheel was developed for razor scooters. The PlayStation 3 uses the Cell, but the Cell was not made solely for the PlayStation. The Cell was developed to be a floating point and vector arithmetic monster that would be at home in a supercomputer, which it is.
I have nothing against the PlayStation 3, but I get upset when a myth like this is perpetuated. Saying that one of the most powerful processors available today was 'made to play video games' detracts from it and gives readers an incorrect impression (in my humble opinion).
Do Toshiba sell these things without an OS?
There's got to be some upper limit to be called a laptop. I looked at screen resolution first, it's 1680x945. It's an odd size, not as many pixels as some other laptops. Then I noticed the size in inches: 18.4! Base weight: 10lbs.
I don't have a problem with large computers you carry from room to room with a built-in UPS. But at some point it's a desktop all-in-one or something else.
Worse than usual. I know less than before I read it.
Cell CPU is not about gaming, but about the multimedia experience.
Not sure about anyone else, but by my definition, gaming is a multimedia experience
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I've been thinking about porting a CFD code to PS3, but this would be interesting. There's been at least one company making Cell add-in cards but they have been prohibitively expensive.
:)
It's kind of like using your GPU for fast math. No wait, the exact same thing
Did anyone else parse Qosmio as Quasimodo?
The game.
and its inherent need for a 64bit OS. Shows you that M$ is already worried about how to sell their 32bit vista trash when hardware has surpassed its limitations. Of course you can buy vista64 but why would you pay for the same OS twice?
This is not a Cell based laptop. It's a PC laptop with a Cell processor inside.
The Cell is a cool add-on but it does not make this a very interesting laptop by itself.
I would love to see a pure Cell-based laptop, mostly because it would be a decent performer and an outstanding number-cruncher. The fact that it would be completely Windows-proof would be a nice bonus.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
The technical term is "Luggable".
Anyone else curious about what kind of battery life this thing gets? I know that the ps3 sucks enough power to black out a small country, so I'm interested (read: worried) in how long this thing will last on battery power.
Qosmio? What a stupid name. It totally drips with unnecessary marketing affectation. It's like they were trying to cram as much cheesy bullshit into one name as they possibly could.
Cosmo? Not quite.
Cosmio? Hm, needs a little more bullshit.
Qosmio! Yes, good job. That 'q' really ratchets up the puke factor. Well done.
What about ps3 emulation?
I hope the appearance of the Cell in actual PCs, not just the RAM-hardwired and GPU-lockedout (and no PCI) PS3 will reignite official support of Cell Ubuntu. Until last year, Ubuntu was officially supporting the PPC-based Cell version of their distro. Now it's just a community effort that needs your help. Ubuntu is working, with some bugs (right now mainly the installer, and beta bugs in the Cell SPE video driver). If there were more diverse Cell PC HW, and a larger, more diverse developer community coming with it, there might be better Ubuntu. Since both the PS3 and this notebook are primarily useful as workstations and media stations, Ubuntu really is the best flavor out there that also keeps up with the other Linux desktop productivity apps.
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make install -not war
On closer examination of the specs, this laptop isn't a Cell CPU at all. It's Toshiba's "Spurs" coprocessor, which is like a Cell but with the central PPC core stripped out and only half the Cell's 4 SPE DSPs, hooked up to a Pentium Core 2 Duo instead. That might be an interesting platform for experimenting with Linux and DSP, but it's not a Cell, and has practically no relation to any Cell/Linux project, nor Ubuntu in particular.
Both the Slashdot story and the actual article lie about the CPU being a "Cell". How stupid.
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make install -not war
I'm just surprised that I haven't seen anyone mention that this machine is actually quite capable and very reasonably priced.
You get a decent Intel Core2 Duo processor, a fantastic graphics card and, oh, by the way, a 4 SPE unit Cell processor. You also get two 250 GB drives that you could probably run in RAID to increase speed, an 18.4 (!!) inch LCD screen. All for around $1550.
Seems like an ideal machine for someone who might want to start developing for the Cell or for entire research, business or educational departments that could benefit from SPEs/ And, unlike typical niche products, this machine seems reasonably priced.
Why the negativity?
My laptop has nine cells.
What's the price of a Cell vs a GPU? Nowadays, I think you can get a pretty decent GPU for less than $100? Still, I wonder if, for low-end systems, would it make sense, financially, to use a low-end CPU (like an Atom or Intel's 'economy' Pentium mobile CPUs), which wouldn't maybe be able to handle high-def video, and add on a Cell? Although, at that point, it's probably cheaper to get a Core2 CPU, and not worry about GPU or Cell.
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Vista 32 with 4 GB installed will reserve about 1 GB of RAM for the OS, GPU. etc.
I would expect Vista 64 to do the same.
I would also expect an NVIDIA 9600M to be reasonably competent as a media player. What am I missing here?
1680/945 = 16:9 aspect ratio
If creativity is the field, copyright is the fence.
The ratio might be standard, but pixel count isn't.
1080p is defined as 1920x1080. While Toshiba may have kept the ratio, they shaved the edges off of the full 1080p spec.
They have the cell-based co-processor, HDMI out, dual drives, and a huge screen. All the bits for watching or even editing HD video. After all that they dropped 500K pixels from an 18.4" display when you can get higher resolution screens in 15.4"
To me, that's odd.
I agree. I wasn't saying it was a standard pixel count. I just opened op calc on a hunch and figured those numbers up. I, too, think it's odd that they'd have it like that when they can fit 1920x1200 on a 15" screen.
If creativity is the field, copyright is the fence.
That guy thinks otherwise.
I love how your AC comment was modded down because it's more visible than all your 12 accounts. Ha ha indeed.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
With a laptop of that weight you need indeed someone from the United Parcel Service to carry it around for you :)
Disclaimer: proud EEE owner. Actually that was what I was hoping for, couldn't they make a netbook with a cell cpu. I'd buy it! Housewifes would, too! As a PS3 can already play movies, games, and do internet stuff, it is actually commodity hard and software.
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So what if I like my laptops like my women.
Big, burly, and a pain in the ass to go places with.
(Posted as AC so my wife doesn't know it was me.)
I seem to recall companies like Aegia
The big difference is the availability.
Although both the Cell and the PhysX share some architecture design, it's about the only thing they have in common.
PhysX was only available on 1 single type of board. No tools available at all to develop code for the chip, only a physics library which only provided 1 single API.
The only thing you could do as a user is buy it, stick it into the computer and hope that game developper will release patches supporting it.
The only thing you could do as a developer is write some physics simulation into the game you're developing.
Cell has lot of tools to develop code to run of it. Including open source compilers (gcc for example), and including frameworks dedicated at doing stream computing (RapidMind can produce SPE code). Thanks to the fact that its main CPU part is a plain simple PowerPC, there is even a lot of prior knowledge that can be recycled.
And the Cell is available on lots of devide ranging on small device on which the would-be developer can test some code like PS3 (compatible with Linux out-of-the-box) and this laptop (x86-based with Vista, but offers a cell as a coprocessor) all the way up to big servers with several cell boardlet inside, ready to do some crazy super computing for scientist.
Anyone can develop for Cell and run pretty much everything they want on it, and even have access to a significative range of platform to test the code.
The cell is much more likely to experience some success that the PhysX did.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Esmirelda; the cells, the cells...
Nullius in verba
Bragging about your mod points and the way you abuse them again?
Must be a twitter shell.
If what the GP says about this not being IEEE-754 compliant is true, it will be difficult to run test cases and verify your compile. Standards make life easier if not as efficient as possible, but efficiency can also be measured in implementation time and accuracy.
What routines use the kind of integer operations you describe? All the FEM, FD and MC software I've ever seen used standard C and Fortran double precision math.
A desktop PC I could understand,but a laptop? From what I've read the cell is simply not built with power conservation in mind. I can only imagine that in a laptop it will kill the battery in no time flat. And how much heat does a cell chip generate,anyway? IMHO while the cell might be great built into a desktop machine,it just sucks too much juice for a laptop to be practical. And I wonder why they aren't selling an add-on card for desktops? I can imagine there are a lot of folks that would happily buy a chip that would allow them to offload encoding/decoding of high def to the cell. As long as it wasn't a bunch of blackbox voodoo like trying to offload MP4 on an Nvidia card I bet it would be a hit. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
... who tought this was about fuel cell based laptops ?
What a depressingly stupid machine.
this is not the first time i've heard of this facial expression thing being used to control programs
i dont remember the last time i sat there and watched a tv show or a movie completely motionless without speaking to anyone or looking away (or different position of the screen) which i presume is what needs to be done with this type of software in order to prevent your next comedy movie from jumping back and forth like a cracked out jack-rabbit.
awesome technology!............. for physically disabled people maybe..
Does it run AmigaOS? How about running Video Toaster on a beowulf cluster of those things...
Of course I didn't RTFA... why would I do that? You really are new here aren't you? Don't let my UID fool you.
It kinda reminds me of an Amiga with a video toaster. Those older slashdotters might recall that the Amiga came with multiple CPU's each having a function.
I thought Windows Vista runs only on x86 & x86_64. Wikipedia also says so
Since the Cell processors are a couple of years old now and GPUs are being used more and more for offloading some computation, wouldn't the latter be the way to go? Or is the Cell architecture so fundamentally different that it is much better suited for some tasks than GPUs?
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
I was looking for a new computer (could be a laptop or a desktop), and I'd be sold on this one, BUT:
- I don't know if the hard drives can be used in a RAID0 setup (all indications are that they can't). Nothing pisses me off more than a slow storage device. It doesn't help that this model isn't available with 7200RPM drives, while the X305 is. SSDs aren't an option either, which isn't a plus.
- IT'S NOT AVAILABLE WITHOUT SOFTWARE. I don't want to pay the Microsoft tax, and I sure as hell don't want Vista!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
with Apple's grand central, using hardware like this will soon be automatic on mac's. Grand Central was designed to split up processing into 'streams' much like a packet switched network. Then delegate those streams/packets to whichever piece of hardware is available to process them. The practical side of this is that all code will be able to use any specialized hardware such as cell SPE's that may be onboard, without having the developers to actually code for it. nice
Then I noticed the size in inches: 18.4! Base weight: 10lbs.
I don't have a problem with large computers you carry from room to room with a built-in UPS. But at some point it's a desktop all-in-one or something else.
Actually it can hover on the exhaust of its built-in fan when you need to move it.
(requires large battery sold separately, may reduce computer run time, depending on applications used)
May contain traces of nut.
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