Cell Chip Coming To the PC Via a PCI Express Card

arcticstoat writes with an excerpt from Custom PC: "After developing a brand new CPU architecture from the ground-up, you'd expect that Toshiba, Sony and IBM would have more uses for the Cell architecture than the PlayStation 3, and Toshiba has been quick to make use of the architecture's HD video transcoding abilities in its new Qosimo laptops. However, Leadtek is now taking Toshiba's efforts a step further by putting the chip onto a PCI-E card for desktop PCs. The WinFast PxVC1100 is based on Toshiba's SpursEngine SE1000 processor, which is a cut-down version of the Cell chip. The SpursEngine chip features four SPEs (synergistic processing elements) based on 128-bit RISC cores, along with H.264 and MPEG-2 codecs, but it doesn't contain its own CPU as the chip in the PS3 does. The chip is capable of encoding and decoding H.264, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video streams in hardware."

Comments

Re:Why bother?

[stonecypher]

CUDA is a matrix processor. This is a serial processor. CUDA isn't really applicable to general purpose tasks. This is. CUDA gets its power by running the same function over an array of inputs to generate an array of outputs.

Different beasts.

Re:mythtv apps

[batkiwi]

Most modern CPUs cannot decode 1080p blu-rays in linux. The video card has nothing to do with it, as there is no support in any linux driver for GPU assisted decoding of anything apart from mpeg2, and even that is shoddy. ffmpeg works well with two threads on dual core, but quad cores isn't buying much right now.

Low bitrate 1080p rips on the net are not the same quality nor difficulty.

Yes, a dual/quad core super-fast intel setup can do it (and the mythtv list has a big thread right now about what it takes for full blu-ray rips) but right now those machines are expensive and loud.

This card could be perfect for people making HTPCs who want a low power and QUIET computer to watch on their TV using myth/etc.

Re:yo yo yo

[neokushan]

Lets say the PS3 retails for £300 (it's less than this, but what the hell, this is slashdot, we don't need to be accurate. Or impartial for that matter...let me start again) Lets say the shitty PS3 costs £300, which is far too bloody much, but once you take away the shitty Blu-Ray drive, the shitty Hard drive, shitty controller, shitty case, etc. the price for the shitty fully-fledged CELLs (7 of them, remember) can't be more than £100 and that's a safe overestimation, with added money for the Lube Sony will use to anally violate you with their shitty cocks. This chip has only 4 shitty cores of the shitty CELL and it's not even the full CELL, it's a shitter version of it so I'd say it's a safe bet that it SHOULD cost no more than £50-70, but since the company that makes it is so shitty, they'll probably triple that price. Cunts.