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Toshiba Launches First Cell-based Laptop

Posted by timothy on from the my-laptop-has-been-cell-based-forever dept.

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.)

127 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Not, in fact, the first Cell laptop by Dice · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/10/the-ps3-laptop-from-ben-heck-to-engadget-with-love/

  2. Where are the apps coming from? by negRo_slim · · Score: 1

    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
    1. Re:Where are the apps coming from? by electrosoccertux · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Probably the people who buy it.

      Linux will support it of course. Offload video decompression (XVID/MPEG4/whatever) and audio decompression to the PPEs.

      I'm sure Audacity and any other audio processing tools will support it. The GIMP could make use of it as well. Matlab of course.

      Those are just off the top of my head.

    2. Re:Where are the apps coming from? by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      I don't think that will be too much of an issue. My guess it will be used as a device like a GPU or DSP on a sound card.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    3. Re:Where are the apps coming from? by negRo_slim · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When is the last time a company come along with a proprietary technology like this and received market acceptance? I seem to recall companies like Aegia and Rambus... Hell RDRAM didn't even require any change to software and provided higher performance, but it was one company and of course the price remained high.... Nah I don't expect to see this go much further than it already has, a few people will buy it and it will ship with some in house programs on it and just like every other system from a major manufacturer support and software will slowly fade into obscurity. Sure a few websites will be started in dedication of this thing and they will light up their message boards with how superior and awesome it was/is/could of been...

      --
      On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    4. Re:Where are the apps coming from? by negRo_slim · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't think that will be too much of an issue. My guess it will be used as a device like a GPU or DSP on a sound card.

      And we all know how easy it is to add hardware acceleration for products from major vendors like Creative, Nvidia, AMD... The architectures these companies have produced have far greater market penetration then Toshiba could dream to see and yet there isn't across the board support for such common devices. Not many are going to be coding for a piece of hardware only one manufacture is producing. Unless this thing is seen in rigs across the board and/or it demonstrates a highly tangible benefit it simply won't be supported by the fast majority of software.

      --
      On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    5. Re:Where are the apps coming from? by ThePhilips · · Score: 1

      Chances are big that the laptop would remain an expensive toy for rich geeks.

      Linux main driving force are people who try to make out of literally junk computers something usable (and at large they succeed). Majority of people are those who can't afford computers nor proprietary OSs - and they have natural interest in such stuff.

      I'd say that if the laptop costs below $600 mark - then it might have chance. But something tells me that at $1600 it would find few followers.

      P.S. But you might expect rabid adoption rate among scholars or even Universities buying the laptop for their stuff. The guys can code up whatever they need.

      --
      All hope abandon ye who enter here.
    6. Re:Where are the apps coming from? by bucky0 · · Score: 1

      A good example would be PhysX processors or ultra-high end soundcards, NOT rambus. Rambus was prohibitively expensive and high latency to boot. Dual channel DDR + clock scaling came across and ate its lunch.

      --

      -Bucky
    7. Re:Where are the apps coming from? by MobyDisk · · Score: 1

      Your history of Rambus is totally wrong.

      RDRAM traded latency for speed in a time where latency was the biggest problem. It was slow, and expensive. Then then stole ideas from an open committee of memory manufacturers and patented them. Then they were sued repeatedly.

    8. Re:Where are the apps coming from? by Directrix1 · · Score: 1

      Linux already has full support for Cell SPEs.

      --
      Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
    9. Re:Where are the apps coming from? by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

      What's up with Op Ivy in your sig?

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    10. Re:Where are the apps coming from? by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

      Toshiba/IBM guys should get some commit access to ffmpeg/x264/VLC and start working on enhancing the tools for Cell CPU. ffmpeg or x264 aren't "nerd things" anymore, they are used by every kind of user embedded in easily used products.

      Firefox became huge and everyone optimises for it or fix its code right? If I remember correct, the Download record was 10 million+... Look at VLC without any kind of record campaign, you will be amazed: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

      It is 92 million right now and counting.

    11. Re:Where are the apps coming from? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Linux already has full support for Cell SPEs.

      In what sense? These are small CPUs that only have access to 256K or on board memory. They have no MMU. You're not going to run Linux processes on them, they're meant run signal processing code. Even if Linux has a driver, it's still non trivial to modify exising applications so they can be broken up into SPE sized chunks.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    12. Re:Where are the apps coming from? by MikeBabcock · · Score: 1

      What's this proprietary thing you speak of? IBM has free SDKs for the CBE (Cell Broadband Engine), the PS3 itself can have Linux loaded on it (mine runs Ubuntu for the record) and the documentation on how to program it is very public.

      Even the game development platform for the PS3 is highly based on open source and free software toolkits. Stop with the FUD.

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
  3. Not cell-based, cell-assisted by ALecs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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...

    1. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by crabbz · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes, it isn't a Cell, it is Toshiba's Spurs Engine with 4 SPEs and no PPE.

    2. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by negRo_slim · · Score: 2, Informative

      This appears to be some earlier info on the kit they are using in this laptop, here, with pictures!

      --
      On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    3. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by ALecs · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Wow - this could be a real win for scientific computing. Traditional GPU-based computation is hindered by the poor I/O (I guess PCI-e is fixing this but I don't know). And PS3-based cell computation is hindered by lack of RAM _and_ poor I/O. But this thing looks like it's hooked up to some nice RAM and a PCI-e bus and could really crunch some FFTs.

      We have an experimental PS3-based cell data reduction system here but it's just too slow. I can almost hear my phone ringing as one of our scientists starts asking to buy one of these guys...

    4. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by Sockatume · · Score: 5, Funny

      So combined with the comment above that Ben Heck already did a PS3-based laptop, we find that the only accurate words in the headline are "toshiba", "launches", and "laptop".

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    5. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by stephentyrone · · Score: 2, Informative

      Single precision only, non IEEE-754 arithmetic isn't a "real win for scientific computing". It's a win for getting the wrong answers really, really quickly.

      Yes, I know that there are problems for which the limitations of the SPEs don't kill the accuracy of the solution, but people (even scientists) rarely do a complete analysis of whether or not their problem is one of those before they set off to use the new faster hotness.

    6. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by MatanZ · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Most scientific calculations use integer opertation of the CPU, impelementing their own Floating/Fixed point if needed. The type of calculations for which single precision gets the wrong answer really quickly, but double precision is perfect is very rare.

    7. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by AeroIllini · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oh man I hope the combination of those three words involves a trebuchet.

      --
      For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
    8. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Wow - this could be a real win for scientific computing.

      I'd like to see what a company like Metric Halo could do with using this Cell processor as one or more DSPs as an onboard digital audio adapter.

      I've often wondered why there aren't portable audio-centric systems for DAW users like me. It would be great to have a portable box that I could use for live performance or field recording that wouldn't require some outboard Firewire audio adapter. Whenever I have to carry a Powerbook or Thinkpad with a firewire adapter into a club or festival-style venue and then hope it all hangs together while producing live audio (and sometimes video - using Resolume or other apps).

      I bet there's lots of cool applications for these Cell-based laptops or hybrid Core2Duo/Cell systems.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    9. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by stephentyrone · · Score: 1

      This was true once (before Wilkinson/Kahan/others showed that you could do meaningful error analysis for floating-point all those years ago). It's not really true anymore. The vast bulk of scientific computing is now done in floating-point, except for specialized problems that require more than double precision, or problems that are fundamentally discrete in nature and are best performed in integer.

      The performance benefit from using hardware floating-point vs. soft float is simply too huge to be left on the table. Double precision is rarely "perfect", as you say, but it is by far the most used format for scientific computing:

      Consider that EVERY computation in MATLAB is done in double, and you've already got one giant slice of the scientific market. On top of that, most of the most heavily used libraries for scientific computing (BLAS, LAPACK, FFTW, for example) provide double and single precision routines (not integer).

    10. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by anishm · · Score: 1

      Wow - this could be a real win for scientific computing. Traditional GPU-based computation is hindered by the poor I/O (I guess PCI-e is fixing this but I don't know). And PS3-based cell computation is hindered by lack of RAM _and_ poor I/O. But this thing looks like it's hooked up to some nice RAM and a PCI-e bus and could really crunch some FFTs.

      Most modern GPUs will also connect to PCI-e.

      --
      Race for Development http://princeton.aidindia.org/marathon/anish.html
    11. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by smallfries · · Score: 1

      That's not true. For quad / multi-precision it makes sense to do the work on FP words in the FP pipes rather than integer. It's faster and the free normalisation helps things out. There are well-known tricks like Dekker splits to ensure bit-accuracy across multi-precision values.

      Even for integer work (like crypto) people are moving towards using FP because it can speed up calculations. Not that FP arithmetic is intrinsically faster, it's just that manufacturers throw area at FP units and so the throughput is higher than integer units. Bernstein's work on Curve255 is worth a look as a good example.

      --
      Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
    12. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by hdante · · Score: 1

      My best guess it it's a 4-SPU cell processor without the PowerPC core.

      Which, BTW, makes it totally different from the cell processor. How do we bury the article as inaccurate ? :-P

    13. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by nurb432 · · Score: 1

      How about something a bit more 'personal' priced for those of us that don't have a bottomless corporate pocketbook?

      --
      ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    14. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by tchiseen · · Score: 1

      It's just as well it's not cell based, noone would want one. The functionality of the architecture just isn't there. Maybe this will help the nice lads working on the Linux distros for PS3. Good luck!

    15. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Single precision only, non IEEE-754 arithmetic isn't a "real win for scientific computing". It's a win for getting the wrong answers really, really quickly.

      First Post FP?

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    16. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by nekokoneko · · Score: 1

      To be fair, IBM recently announced a new version with significant improvements to the double precision performance. Links: Wikipedia, HPC Wire. Whether this improvement will end up in commodity hardware remains to be seen.

    17. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by stephentyrone · · Score: 1

      Is it still full 754-compliant double precision, or is it round-to-zero-only-and-god-knows-what-other-shortcuts like single?

      If it's a fully 754 implementation, this is good news.

    18. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by holywarrior21c · · Score: 1

      Wow - this could be a real win for scientific computing.

      Seriously speaking, how 'about beowolf cluster of these? Think about curing cancer and insightful comments in /.!!

    19. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by nekokoneko · · Score: 1

      Have found nothing about this in the internet except a highly speculative, non-authoritative post in the Beowulf forum. Guess we'll have to wait for more details.

  4. Re:PAE mode? by negRo_slim · · Score: 1

    You are a rube.

    --
    On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
  5. Gesture based and Face navigation.. Sweet! by ZonkerWilliam · · Score: 1

    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?

    1. Re:Gesture based and Face navigation.. Sweet! by gdog05 · · Score: 3, Funny

      I think giving it the finger will boot Windows, and rolling your eyes will start Firefox and head to YouTube. Sneezing of course, will run an anti-virus scan.

  6. Big, big let-down by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:Big, big let-down by Danny+Rathjens · · Score: 1

      That's a bit unclear. They didn't claim that you can run a phone for 2700 hours. You still have to recharge the fuel cell every few hours like a battery. They are saying that's how long the same fuel-cell can be used without severe charge deterioration. In other words, you wouldn't have to replace the fuel cell as often as you have to replace rechargeable batteries that have lost too much of their capacity for recharging. It's a an improvement, but not as large as it seems at first glance.

    2. Re:Big, big let-down by Aetuneo · · Score: 1

      But you can't take it on airplanes. In fact, if you even bring it to the airport, you're going to be taken aside for additional questioning, and then put on a flight to ... well, that destination is classified.

      --
      Everything is subjective.
    3. Re:Big, big let-down by sanosuke001 · · Score: 1

      How this fuck? That fuel cell can't hold more than a couple cubic cm of gas and it can power a cell phone for 2700 hrs? I call BS...

      --
      -SaNo
    4. Re:Big, big let-down by sanosuke001 · · Score: 1

      the* (god damnit...)

      --
      -SaNo
    5. Re:Big, big let-down by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      Well damn! The let-downs just keep coming...

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  7. Does Terra-Soft pay Slashdot? by ivan256 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:Does Terra-Soft pay Slashdot? by Jason+Earl · · Score: 1

      Maybe Malda really liked the movie "Old Yeller".

    2. Re:Does Terra-Soft pay Slashdot? by Otter · · Score: 1
      I've submitted a number of those stories, and from my side I've been surprised at how little interest there is in them compared to yet-another-video-card and vaporware stories, let alone throwing-raw-meat-to-the-mob stuff about SCO and the RIAA.

      Anyway, there's a huge difference between a distro specifically designed for a platform and some half-assed port. I don't have a PS3, but can tell you that there was no comparison between Yellow Dog and things like SuSE PPC that maybe could install a bunch of recompiled packages and then boot you into a useless environment.

      --
      What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    3. Re:Does Terra-Soft pay Slashdot? by ivan256 · · Score: 2, Informative

      As somebody who bought a PowerBook G3 when they came out specifically to play with Yellow Dog Linux on it, my experience was the opposite. Perhaps you just don't like SuSE?

      My experience was that Yellow Dog was a half-assed port of RedHat to PPC, and Debian for PPC was Debian. With Yellow Dog you felt like you almost had a working RedHat system, but things were out of date, and many of the things you were used to were unavailable. Debian had none of those problems.

      Admittedly, I've not gone back and tried Yellow Dog since 2001, but why would I after that initial experience, and the existence of other high-quality, mainstream options?

    4. Re:Does Terra-Soft pay Slashdot? by mhall119 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yeah, Slashdot has been giving Ubuntu nearly enough coverage!

      --
      http://www.mhall119.com
    5. Re:Does Terra-Soft pay Slashdot? by ThePhilips · · Score: 1

      [...] and Slashdot shills for Terra Soft.

      TerrSoft was one of the initial (and major) developers of Cell support on Linux. As well they were more or less official supplier of Linux for PS3.

      They as well remain one of the major PowerPC/POWER supporters and developers of Linux on PPC*/POWER*. (Largest PPC users now are in embedded market - not in desktop/workstation market where TerraSoft is working.)

      Rest of distros, in large part, merely have used the GPLed work done by TerraSoft.

      That might sound like shilling, but the guys deserve credit for their hard work.

      --
      All hope abandon ye who enter here.
    6. Re:Does Terra-Soft pay Slashdot? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      I've submitted a number of those stories, and from my side I've been surprised at how little interest there is in them compared to yet-another-video-card and vaporware stories, let alone throwing-raw-meat-to-the-mob stuff about SCO and the RIAA.

      Otter, maybe there's something about the stories you submitted besides the content or point of view that's keeping the interest-level down.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    7. Re:Does Terra-Soft pay Slashdot? by Otter · · Score: 1
      Perhaps, but I always confuse "it's" and "its", link perfectly obvious words to Wikipedia and conclude with an idiotic "question" like "Could this be the end of x86 on the desktop?" Is there anything I'm missing?

      Anyway, my point was less to complain about my submissions than to respond to the OP's conspiracy theory. TerraSoft makes genuinely interesting stuff, and I certainly don't think they're getting too much attention here!

      --
      What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    8. Re:Does Terra-Soft pay Slashdot? by sanosuke001 · · Score: 1

      Yellow Dog is the official distro for the cell processor?

      --
      -SaNo
    9. Re:Does Terra-Soft pay Slashdot? by Darkness404 · · Score: 1

      I cannot understand why Debian hasn't forked Linux.

      There are a lot of reasons. Number 1, support. Even today it is hard to find a place that will support Linux without it being a major vendor of Linux itself and Debian being a community project couldn't or wouldn't have commercial support. Number 2, bugfixes, the Debian project is big, but there is so much that goes into the Debian OS other than the kernel and the Linux development team is huge. Number 3, image, the Debian project is well known for drama over minor things (like having to fork Firefox because of logo issues) and forking the kernel would make it seem that Debian is making an incompatible OS. Number 4, popularity, Debian is a well-used OS, but Ubuntu is much more popular and uses Debian as a base, now that is all good and well, but Debian can't risk having half the development team it has switch sides to Ubuntu over a fork. So no, Debian has no reason to fork the kernel.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    10. Re:Does Terra-Soft pay Slashdot? by nurb432 · · Score: 1

      FreeBSD and NetBSD also support PowerPC remember.

      NetBSD has for a long time now.

      --
      ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    11. Re:Does Terra-Soft pay Slashdot? by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

      Do you actually have a PowerPC based machine? Except Debian and Gentoo there is a huge difference between "supported" and "designed for it".

      I actually tried YDL on my Quad G5, it was no different then installing/running OS X Leopard. It was that smooth with everything working by default.

      Ubuntu? Tell them to revert back to officially support PowerPC, the POWER family in fact and apologise us, PowerPC owners first. Someone should have reminded them IBM, Cell, POWER, Toshiba, Sony, the Power.org foundation. You don't drop architecture support because "maccies switched to Intel", that is completely against the philosophy of Linux and its entire history.

  8. Get x86 out! by Sybert42 · · Score: 1

    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.

  9. Good price too by Scotteh · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's only $1549.99 which is the average price of Sony VAIOs

  10. Re:PAE mode? by Anders · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Modern hardware except one particular Pentium M stepping (which was popular for a while) handles PAE. 64G RAM on 32-bit

    But Windows does not.

  11. Yes, but will it run ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Windows XP?

  12. PS3 + linux = shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The RSX is still locked away and there is no decent video driver. It's like using an old Pentium machine.

    1. Re:PS3 + linux = shit by Tweenk · · Score: 1

      Because somebody could figure out how to make Linux PS3 games or buy PS3s for the hardware alone while completely ignoring the games, and this could theoretically leave Sony's asshole in ruins, because they sell the consoles at a loss and make it up with high margin game sales...

      --
      Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
  13. So, would cell help with. . . by JSBiff · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?)

    1. Re:So, would cell help with. . . by schwaang · · Score: 1

      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?)

      Not likely, since they are competing with each other for the same markets (acceleration of graphics and computation, including all the examples you gave like encryption, etc.). They are two approaches to the same end, so no sense in mixing them.

      An OS could use either or both if they exist. Individual apps would probably be written for one or the other but not both. And nobody is going to produce a graphics/compute card that mixes the two.

    2. Re:So, would cell help with. . . by mhall119 · · Score: 1

      At that point you'd probably be better off with a couple of FPGAs.

      --
      http://www.mhall119.com
    3. Re:So, would cell help with. . . by ThePhilips · · Score: 1

      My guess would be - Yes, No, Yes.

      For second - HD video decoding - to be any efficient, it has to be done very close to video output. Otherwise, HD video might take up some huge chunk of internal buses bandwidth. After all you first have to transfer data from RAM to Cell, then from Cell to video adapter. (*) That can get really messy without proper integration of Cell into computer architecture. And as long as Cell isn't main CPU, the problem would remain. PS3 doesn't have this problem because Cell is used (and wired) as main processor. That's not the fact for PC hardware, where all vendors have to be Windows compatible.

      Also I think Cell in large is competitor to nVidia/ATI solutions for CPU accelerations - not companion.

      (*) Fact: CPUs for quite some time are capable of decoding HD video in real time - it's the transfer (1) to/from RAM and (2) video hardware which takes most of the time.

      --
      All hope abandon ye who enter here.
    4. Re:So, would cell help with. . . by nxtw · · Score: 1

      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?

      It might be possible, but within a year or two, any system sold will probably be able to playback HD video.

      Most CPUs sold today can decode 1920x1080 MPEG2 and many can handle VC1 (including the 2.0 GHz Core 2 in this laptop), and just about any GPU sold today can deinterlace 1080i video (although some cards are better than others.) High-end/overclocked Core 2 chips can also decode h.264 1080p. All modern GPUs also do some sort of upscaling (once again, some are better than others.) This laptop's GeForce 9600M GPU should be able to fully decode h.264 1080p video as found on Blu-ray discs, which is the most CPU-intensive video distributed to consumers. Current ATI GPUs decode VC-1 and H.264 and upcoming Intel GPUs will decode H.264 (and possibly VC-1.)

      So:
      - the Cell is unnecessary for 1080p content, unless you're doing heavy postprocessing that can't be implemented on the GPU (or you're using a monitor > 1920x1200 and the Cell can do a better job of scaling)
      - the Cell is unnecessary for 1080i video content, unless it's been programmed to do better deinterlacing than your video card. (any modern GPU should have pulldown detection, so 1080i film content won't be deinterlaced.)
      - the Cell is unnecessary for upscaling video, unless it's been programmed to do better scaling than your video card. (this is possible - but for low resolution content, modern CPUs can produce better results than some GPUs as it is.)

      In summary, today's mid to high-end systems can already play back HD video without difficulty. The Cell might be able to do some processing tasks better, but how much better?

    5. Re:So, would cell help with. . . by sanosuke001 · · Score: 1

      * Crysis

      --
      -SaNo
    6. Re:So, would cell help with. . . by default+luser · · Score: 1

      (*) Fact: CPUs for quite some time are capable of decoding HD video in real time - it's the transfer (1) to/from RAM and (2) video hardware which takes most of the time.

      Interesting fact, and I most certainly believe it. In fact, the marginal system memory bandwidth of most PCs is the very reason we have video cards (and now even sound cards) with local cache. We make the system memory slow because we want lots of it. We can afford to make local memories faster because there is less of it.

      I have to agree that there's really no need for this kind of co-processor - dual-core CPUs can decode almost anything worthwhile in real-time these days, and even embedded GPUs can render assistance decoding video. This device has a fast local memory, but unless the results are staying local (batch processing), you're going to run into the limits of system memory bandwidth streaming the results to something that can actually use it.

      I'f like to make one further note: quad cores on the desktop are already offering more horsepower than this thing anyway, and mobile dual-cores are within spitting distance:

      Assumptions:

      Each SPU has 2 128-bit vector units. Four SPUs means eight vector units. Runs at around 1.5 GHz.

      Conroe: two 128-bit vector units per-core. Dual-core platforms have about %85 of the horsepower running at 2.6 GHz. Four cores would blow Toshiba's SPU device out of the water, assuming you aren't bandwidth-limited.

      --

      Man is the animal that laughs.
      And occasionally whores for Karma.

  14. The cell was NOT developed for the PS3 by WilliamBaughman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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).

    1. Re:The cell was NOT developed for the PS3 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Wrong. Completely wrong.

      Cell was the brainchild of Sony's hardware genius Kutagari and IBM's Hofstee - equally a genius but in a different way.

    2. Re:The cell was NOT developed for the PS3 by eebra82 · · Score: 1

      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 think you're reading his/her words incorrectly. The way I see it, the author wrote that you get technology used in the PS3 in your computer. After all, the Cell is PS3 technology since it consists of one.

      --
      Full Tilt
    3. Re:The cell was NOT developed for the PS3 by WilliamBaughman · · Score: 2, Informative

      Cell was the brainchild of Sony's hardware genius Kutagari and IBM's Hofstee...

      Kutagari may have been thinking about consoles when he came up with the idea that would become the Cell BEA, but when development started on the Cell the design team's goal was high performance in a many different applications. Many of the Cell processors sold thus far have been in PlayStations, and it may be their most visible application, but I believe the PlayStation represents only a fraction of Cell's potential utility.

    4. Re:The cell was NOT developed for the PS3 by WilliamBaughman · · Score: 1

      I think you're reading his/her words incorrectly. The way I see it, the author wrote that you get technology used in the PS3 in your computer. After all, the Cell is PS3 technology since it consists of one.

      That is a true and valid point. I may have overreacted (I blame coffee) but I've grown uncomfortable sitting on that rant for so long. The author's statement would have been just as correct if he/she had said 'Yes, think supercomputer technology...'

    5. Re:The cell was NOT developed for the PS3 by sanosuke001 · · Score: 1

      They made the Cell for vector processing. Video gaming needs a lot of vectors processed. The PS3 can play said games. Sony/et al realized that the Cell wouldn't be popular unless it had a large user base. The PS3 needed a processor. The Cell needed a home. It was a purely financial move to use the Cell in the PS3. The PS3 was merely a stepping stone to world domination by the Cell.

      I nervously await our Cell-powered overlords.

      --
      -SaNo
    6. Re:The cell was NOT developed for the PS3 by dbIII · · Score: 1

      It looks that way because the way the cell is used. From looking around for a cell solution that compares to a dual quad core server I came to the conclusion that you need some kind of black ops military budget that you never have to justify to anybody to buy anything in the mid range with a cell in it instead of eight similar x86 machines. The PS3 is a very different story but has very little memory. Hopefully things like this Toshiba will help make it the commodity it should be instead of being considered some sort of rare artifact that requires a month or two of "establishing a relationship" with vendors before they will disclose the approximate price of anything.

    7. Re:The cell was NOT developed for the PS3 by Shadow-isoHunt · · Score: 1

      You can say that all you like, but being a hobbyist, try to get a cell for yourself. Go on, write up IBM! I'll sit here and wait while the same "sorry" letter gets mailed to you, informing you that it's not possible for you as an individual outside of sony to get the cell, and that they've got linux running now on the ps3.

      I should have scanned mine

      --
      www.isoHunt.com
    8. Re:The cell was NOT developed for the PS3 by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      [CronoCloud@mideel ~]$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
      processor : 0
      cpu : Cell Broadband Engine, altivec supported
      clock : 3192.000000MHz
      revision : 5.1 (pvr 0070 0501)
       
      processor : 1
      cpu : Cell Broadband Engine, altivec supported
      clock : 3192.000000MHz
      revision : 5.1 (pvr 0070 0501)
       
      timebase : 79800000
      platform : PS3

      Your overlord is here, minion.

    9. Re:The cell was NOT developed for the PS3 by bberens · · Score: 1

      My understanding was that the cell processor is used in medical equipment. When a cell is bad right out of the gate then it's plunked into a PS3. I have a feeling that numerically most cell processors are used in the PS3, but we all know the consoles provide little or no profit. Selling the 'perfect' ones for medical equipment or research purposes is probably fairly lucrative.

      --
      Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
    10. Re:The cell was NOT developed for the PS3 by Hythlodaeus · · Score: 1

      Do you think the Cell would have been made without the guaranteed millions of sales?

      --
      For great justice.
  15. Re:PAE mode? by QuantumRiff · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because of the way that windows "pages" memory (and I'm assuming your running a server version of the OS, cause XP and vista don't work with PAE) you still can't have a single process with much more than 3GB of ram on a 32bit system. You can have multiple processes running with 3GB of ram, but then you get some slowdowns from paging in and out the memory.

    If Memory serves, this is part of the reason that Exchange 2007 requires 64-bit OS's and processors. (except for the demo and SMB versions)

    --

    What are we going to do tonight Brain?
  16. Fail for Windows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Do Toshiba sell these things without an OS?

  17. Re:PAE mode? by Microlith · · Score: 1, Insightful

    PAE is a hack.

    Better to ditch it and move to 64-bit.

  18. 18.4" Screen: Laptop? by MDMurphy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  19. Crap summary of feeble article. Pass. by deprecated · · Score: 1

    Worse than usual. I know less than before I read it.

  20. Buh? by Tarlus · · Score: 1

    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

    --
    /* No Comment */
  21. me by everphilski · · Score: 1

    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 :)

  22. huh? by thatskinnyguy · · Score: 1

    Did anyone else parse Qosmio as Quasimodo?

    --
    The game.
  23. Not Cell-based by rbanffy · · Score: 1

    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
  24. Re:18.4" Screen: Laptop? by doconnor · · Score: 1

    The technical term is "Luggable".

  25. Battery life? by pwnies · · Score: 1

    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.

  26. Qosmio? by Squiffy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Qosmio? by toriver · · Score: 1

      And you can drive it around in your Nissan Qashqai since it is so big and heavy.

  27. Re:shameless by ThePhilips · · Score: 1

    Actually to me it looked moke like Toshi, while the giants - nVidia/ATI/Intel - are wrestling on GPU-CPU split, tries to stab them in a back.

    If they had ever tried to deliver on promise of cheap Cell, they might have already won the ongoing CPU acceleration war.

    --
    All hope abandon ye who enter here.
  28. ps3 emulation! by PC+and+Sony+Fanboy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What about ps3 emulation?

    1. Re:ps3 emulation! by ThePhilips · · Score: 1

      +10.

      Why I didn't think of the option!!

      But if that would happen, then Sony would politely ask Toshi (in deal, for undisclosed amount of money) to cease production of the laptops. You can bet.

      --
      All hope abandon ye who enter here.
    2. Re:ps3 emulation! by AndGodSed · · Score: 1

      Forget that - this thing runs linux!!!

      hold on! PS3 emulation... running yellow dog!

      --

      Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity

    3. Re:ps3 emulation! by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      +10.

      Why I didn't think of the option!!

      But if that would happen, then Sony would politely ask Toshi (in deal, for undisclosed amount of money) to cease production of the laptops. You can bet.

      Why would they be bothered though. This laptop is much more expensive than a PS3 I suspect. PS3s are sold at a loss, and this laptop probably costs far more to build and is sold at a profit.

      Of course Sony being Sony they almost certainly would stomp a PS3 emulation project, even one that only runs on one expensive laptop, but they shouldn't care.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    4. Re:ps3 emulation! by ScreamingCactus · · Score: 1

      The PS3 uses 8 cell processors. A lot of the games for PS3 are specifically coded for this system, ie the program tells each processor which threads to run. So unless you can find a motherboard that will support 8 of these processors, you're out of luck. Although I do think adding a cell processor to a laptop is a good idea. They excel at certain types of processing which could eat up valuable clock cycles on the main processor, and are considerably cheap.

      --
      The path to enlightenment is truly through homemade drugs!
    5. Re:ps3 emulation! by LordVader717 · · Score: 3, Informative

      The PS3 uses one cell processor, which has 8 SPEs, one of which has been dctivated so it only uses 7.

    6. Re:ps3 emulation! by ScreamingCactus · · Score: 1

      I stand corrected. However, TFA says it comes with a quad-core Cell processor. My thoughts are that it would be incompatible with games specifically designed to have 6 (or 7) cores at their command.

      --
      The path to enlightenment is truly through homemade drugs!
    7. Re:ps3 emulation! by MikeBabcock · · Score: 1

      Its actually a stripped-down Cell processor with 4 SPEs, instead of 8 (or the 7 the PS3 uses) and no PPE because of the Intel primary CPU.

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
  29. But Does It Run Ubuntu? by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1, Informative

    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.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  30. Not a Cell CPU by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  31. Why the negativity? by smackenzie · · Score: 1

    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?

  32. Hmm. . . Cell *instead* of GPU? by JSBiff · · Score: 1

    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.

  33. Interesting and necessary? by westlake · · Score: 1
    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.
    .

    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?

    1. Re:Interesting and necessary? by jmorris42 · · Score: 1

      > 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.

      You might expect it, but you would be wrong. 32bit Microsoft OSes (desktop, not server) are strictly 32bit flat memory model, thus can only address 4GB, from which the area reserved for the PCI bus and other I/O must be deducted. Depending on chipset this can vary a little, but is normally at least 512MB.

      Much the same way DOS could address 1024KB but because the top of the address space was claimed by BIOS, expansion ROMs, and video memory the typical DOS memory limit was 640KB. Didn't matter if you had MBs in the machine, DOS was a 16bit + 4bit segment program and the only use one could make of the additional memory was as XMS memory (or with emm386 loaded you could use XMS memory to emulate the older EMS memory). XMS memory was totally outside the control of DOS, it couldn't see it. BIOS still can't, which is why you need some care to bootstrap a modern OS.

      If you have 4GB, you typically get a non-uniform memory map, thus:

      0-3.5GB RAM
      3.5GB-4GB PCI
      4.0-4.5GB RAM

      That last block of RAM is only visible to a 32bit OS through the use of the PAE CPU extensions. It works almost exactly like the old segment registers allowed a 16bit CPU like the 8086 to address more than 64KB. Linux (compile time option) can do it and the server NT kernel can do it, basic Windows can't.

      --
      Democrat delenda est
  34. Re:18.4" Screen: Laptop? by Doddman · · Score: 1, Informative

    1680/945 = 16:9 aspect ratio

    --
    If creativity is the field, copyright is the fence.
  35. Re:18.4" Screen: Laptop? by MDMurphy · · Score: 1

    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.

  36. Re:18.4" Screen: Laptop? by noidentity · · Score: 1

    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.

    That guy thinks otherwise.

  37. Re:ha ha by dedazo · · Score: 1

    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
  38. Re:PAE mode? by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

    PAE is a properly implemented memory controller extension, wtf?

    x86-64 is a hack. It's a processor mode that activates a different MMU mode.

    --
    Support my political activism on Patreon.
  39. Re:PAE mode? by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

    No, that's because of how protected mode works. Also, you have 78 processes running, and you want one with more than 3GB of RAM? Browser uses 100M, outlook uses 250M, music player uses 80M....

    --
    Support my political activism on Patreon.
  40. Re:18.4" Screen: Laptop? by pimpimpim · · Score: 1
    I don't have a problem with large computers you carry from room to room with a built-in UPS.

    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.

    --
    molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
  41. Re:18.4" Screen: Laptop? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    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.)

  42. Availability by DrYak · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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 ]
  43. Quosmio by bugs2squash · · Score: 3, Funny

    Esmirelda; the cells, the cells...

    --
    Nullius in verba
  44. Why would anyone want this by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

    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.
    1. Re:Why would anyone want this by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      While it was an interesting link,did you read it? They only do TWO codecs,and one of those is Mpeg 2! Why does everyone put in Mpeg 2 when any machine made in the past 8 years can do Mpeg 2 just fine? And when is someone going to put out a REAL video encoder/decoder card? I want one that'll offload MP4,Divx and Xvid avi,WMV,Mov,as well as H.264. And has anyone tried to find a codec that'll work with the cell add-on? I tried finding a codec that'll offload MP4,which my 7600 AGP card supposedly supports,only to give up after playing "guess which codec MIGHT work".

      IMHO someone could make a ton of money if they sold us a simple,easy to use,with codecs included card that would let us offload the popular formats for encoding/decoding. Hell,even though I'm quite happy with my AGP box I'd be willing to build a separate PciE box just to house that card! But as always this is my 02c,YMMV

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  45. Am I the only one... by vegiVamp · · Score: 1, Funny

    ... who tought this was about fuel cell based laptops ?

    --
    What a depressingly stupid machine.
  46. Yes but... by T3Tech · · Score: 1

    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.
  47. reminds me of something by tatermonkey · · Score: 1

    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.

  48. Windows on PPC? by nikanth · · Score: 1

    I thought Windows Vista runs only on x86 & x86_64. Wikipedia also says so

  49. Cell is a couple of years old, GPUs = way to go? by Lazy+Jones · · Score: 1

    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)
  50. Would almost buy it... by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

    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
  51. Apple is already planning for similiar designs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    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

  52. Re:18.4" Screen: Laptop? by Fred_A · · Score: 1

    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.
    Made from the freshest electrons.