The Cell Processor

Caboose-1

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Will all this talk of Intel and AMD, I thought I would take the liberty to speak of a lesser-known upcoming processor from Sony. Despite me being an XBOX person, I am interested in this. It supposedly has seven cores running 3.2 GHz each, and one more of the same reserved for "redundancy." Sony announced some time ago that this processor which is also schedualed to be placed in the PS3 (meh), will also be released to various computer manufacturers (IBM included, they helped develope it). If you wish for some kind of a pole, list the "choices" and Ill post a poll. Voice your opinions here.
 

MadModMike

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Will all this talk of Intel and AMD, I thought I would take the liberty to speak of a lesser-known upcoming processor from Sony. Despite me being an XBOX person, I am interested in this. It supposedly has seven cores running 3.2 GHz each, and one more of the same reserved for "redundancy." Sony announced some time ago that this processor which is also schedualed to be placed in the PS3 (meh), will also be released to various computer manufacturers (IBM included, they helped develope it). If you wish for some kind of a pole, list the "choices" and Ill post a poll. Voice your opinions here.

The Cell processor is really junk, with the crap coherency between the SPE's and the lack of enough cache, the Cell really isn't as powerful as they chock it up to be.

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a time
 

ara

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yeah, this processor's gonna be great, but think about a) the heat b) the size
(i highly doubt they'll fit it on one of our normal chips (in fact i can almost guarantee they won't)) c) what proprietary (spelling?) socket are they going to come up with d) how much will it cost?

i think it it will generate a lot of heat, i believe easily twice the prescotts (spread about of course due to larger surphace area) and i think they are probably going to charge a lot for their own socket and design (motherboards too? and RAM? (don't forget their working with Rambus....))

Ara

then again, it could be a big flop
 

Caboose-1

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Will all this talk of Intel and AMD, I thought I would take the liberty to speak of a lesser-known upcoming processor from Sony. Despite me being an XBOX person, I am interested in this. It supposedly has seven cores running 3.2 GHz each, and one more of the same reserved for "redundancy." Sony announced some time ago that this processor which is also schedualed to be placed in the PS3 (meh), will also be released to various computer manufacturers (IBM included, they helped develope it). If you wish for some kind of a pole, list the "choices" and Ill post a poll. Voice your opinions here.

The Cell processor is really junk, with the crap coherency between the SPE's and the lack of enough cache, the Cell really isn't as powerful as they chock it up to be.

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a timeI never thought so, but who knows, it could surprise us :roll: . Not like I will get it anyway. It makes me mad to, every time I go to bestbuy or someplace, they had X360's THE DAY BEFORE I CAME. It angers me so.
 

MadModMike

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Will all this talk of Intel and AMD, I thought I would take the liberty to speak of a lesser-known upcoming processor from Sony. Despite me being an XBOX person, I am interested in this. It supposedly has seven cores running 3.2 GHz each, and one more of the same reserved for "redundancy." Sony announced some time ago that this processor which is also schedualed to be placed in the PS3 (meh), will also be released to various computer manufacturers (IBM included, they helped develope it). If you wish for some kind of a pole, list the "choices" and Ill post a poll. Voice your opinions here.

The Cell processor is really junk, with the crap coherency between the SPE's and the lack of enough cache, the Cell really isn't as powerful as they chock it up to be.

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a timeI never thought so, but who knows, it could surprise us :roll: . Not like I will get it anyway. It makes me mad to, every time I go to bestbuy or someplace, they had X360's THE DAY BEFORE I CAME. It angers me so.

Game Developers as well have stated (according to some websites) that the Cell Processor is Heavily overrated and underpowered.

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a time
 

Caboose-1

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yeah, this processor's gonna be great, but think about a) the heat b) the size
(i highly doubt they'll fit it on one of our normal chips (in fact i can almost guarantee they won't)) c) what proprietary (spelling?) socket are they going to come up with d) how much will it cost?

i think it it will generate a lot of heat, i believe easily twice the prescotts (spread about of course due to larger surphace area) and i think they are probably going to charge a lot for their own socket and design (motherboards too? and RAM? (don't forget their working with Rambus....))

Ara

then again, it could be a big flop
I think they were supposed to use a special z-ram or something. And it is actually supposed to run pretty cool compared to today's processors. Im using my laptop because my main machine is down for a stupid reason. Can you guess? My keyboard went out. Meh.
 

borandi

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What about if you modified one with Linux, then set it up to run BOINC/FAH? Doing 7/8 WU at once wouldnt be bad.
 

hergieburbur

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Game Developers as well have stated (according to some websites) that the Cell Processor is Heavily overrated and underpowered.

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a time

I don't think Cell will be that great of a game processor, though it does have potential once programmers learn how to take advantage of it.

I think it will really shine in "Big Iron" situations such as datamining, database apps, large scale data processing (weather, geologic data, etc). I saw an article recently discussing how well the Cell Blade servers work for those types of apps, but I can't find it now.

BTW, for those who don't know, Cell is not, nor is it meant to be x86 compatible, so you won't be seeing it on your desktop.
 

ecosoft

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I agree with your assessment. Cell processors can be thought of as "application specific processors" ... they "do" one thing, or group of similar things, extremely well because they are dedicated to that one "job". So, ganging a bunch of 'em together for data mining, or the government's scanning of every single electronic transmission on the whole planet is both logical, and factual reality :D
 

hergieburbur

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Will all this talk of Intel and AMD, I thought I would take the liberty to speak of a lesser-known upcoming processor from Sony. Despite me being an XBOX person, I am interested in this. It supposedly has seven cores running 3.2 GHz each, and one more of the same reserved for "redundancy." Sony announced some time ago that this processor which is also schedualed to be placed in the PS3 (meh), will also be released to various computer manufacturers (IBM included, they helped develope it). If you wish for some kind of a pole, list the "choices" and Ill post a poll. Voice your opinions here.

THE CELL IS A PIECE OF **** AND YOU ARE A NEWB!! STFU!! BOW DOWN TO MADMODMIKE U !!

How many Cell processors have you used? None? Good, then shut up, that has no place here one way or the other.
 

Caboose-1

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Will all this talk of Intel and AMD, I thought I would take the liberty to speak of a lesser-known upcoming processor from Sony. Despite me being an XBOX person, I am interested in this. It supposedly has seven cores running 3.2 GHz each, and one more of the same reserved for "redundancy." Sony announced some time ago that this processor which is also schedualed to be placed in the PS3 (meh), will also be released to various computer manufacturers (IBM included, they helped develope it). If you wish for some kind of a pole, list the "choices" and Ill post a poll. Voice your opinions here.

THE CELL IS A PIECE OF **** AND YOU ARE A NEWB!! STFU!! BOW DOWN TO MADMODMIKE U !!

How many Cell processors have you used? None? Good, then shut up, that has no place here one way or the other. I never saw that post, must have got deleted. Oh and by the way "noob" is the correct term in your matter of speaking. I never said I liked the Cell, just said I was interested and could find sparce information because Sony is tight-lipped. I bow to no person, I respect anyone who doesn't completely make a fool of themselves, **cough, you, cough, piddy(joke)** but that is as far as it goes. Look now I'm getting all worked up over a senseless statement.
 

Caboose-1

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Actually... I remember it originally being "newb".
Weird shi7 gets invented in online gaming. Newb started as a short term for being newbie, I don't know whats so hard about typing that extra two letters that make you seem all that much smarter.
 

CCanadian_Bacon

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I think the main reason people consider the cell processor to be a pile of crap is it can only carry out floating point calculations really well but nothing else. In other words, it could simulate fragments of a building bouncing around and tons of shit like that, but would struggle to encode a video. so it fits perfectly into the role of a gaming system due to the extreme visual effects and crazy ass graphics of upcoming games.

The main reason developers hate the idea of this processor is the unique and difficult way they will have to program games for this processor due to the multiple threads they will have to produce. for instance. They would have to have one thread or execution to be performed by one core of the cell processor and another thread to execute be executed by another. usually this can all be done by one processor and each execution is done every second clock etc. Why am i explaining this, you guys probably already know this crap lol.

point being, the Cell is only good for games from what i've read.
 

Action_Man

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The main problems with cell are:

1. No OOOe.
2. Limited local storage for the SPEs and they're not cache.
3. Asymetric design.
4. Long pipeline.
5. Weak branch predicton.

Its pretty solid, just not for the PC.
 

xgas

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Game Developers as well have stated (according to some websites) that the Cell Processor is Heavily overrated and underpowered.

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a time

I don't think Cell will be that great of a game processor, though it does have potential once programmers learn how to take advantage of it.

I think it will really shine in "Big Iron" situations such as datamining, database apps, large scale data processing (weather, geologic data, etc). I saw an article recently discussing how well the Cell Blade servers work for those types of apps, but I can't find it now.

BTW, for those who don't know, Cell is not, nor is it meant to be x86 compatible, so you won't be seeing it on your desktop.

Its not that programmer "KNOW" how to take advantage of it, LOL.
Its the Physics systems thats hard to REprogram, yes you would have to reprogram the physic engines base to take advantage of multicore processer, thats why it took physic engine companies so long to actually able to release a stable one out, the Second most intensive task for the CPU in a game is the Physics, AI split to second core?, thats stupid, for most games today, as most AI in games now(like F.E.A.R.) are not very good at thinking, they just react to what you did to them, now thats stupid.
 

theaxemaster

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The wikipedia entry is a decent read. The thing definately isn't a desktop processor, but it might be a decent server chip. It basically sounds like a GPU to me, with the but I don't know much, so I could be wrong. The XDR sounds nice though...
 

Schmide

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I think SUN’s T1 (Niagara) showed that a ton of simple cores can produce tremendous results. They made their processor to excel at integer buts that’s their niche.

Although the cell is much different, it follows the same recipe. I think it may be even more balanced since each “cell” can push FP as well as INT.
 

ak47is1337

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Game Developers as well have stated (according to some websites) that the Cell Processor is Heavily overrated and underpowered.

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a time

I don't think Cell will be that great of a game processor, though it does have potential once programmers learn how to take advantage of it.

I think it will really shine in "Big Iron" situations such as datamining, database apps, large scale data processing (weather, geologic data, etc). I saw an article recently discussing how well the Cell Blade servers work for those types of apps, but I can't find it now.

BTW, for those who don't know, Cell is not, nor is it meant to be x86 compatible, so you won't be seeing it on your desktop.
I actually have faith in that little chip.
8 Cores? Jesus H Christ...can anybody say long programming hours?
For supercomputing/business needs/servers, Cell could be extremely successful. For gaming...Meh.
We really could see Cell's appear in supercomputing applications though...bloody shame it isn't x86 compatible so we can't compare it head-to-head with Pentium D's and X2's. However, there is good news: supposedly PS3 will be shipping with Linux ready to be used =D
 
Will all this talk of Intel and AMD, I thought I would take the liberty to speak of a lesser-known upcoming processor from Sony. Despite me being an XBOX person, I am interested in this. It supposedly has seven cores running 3.2 GHz each, and one more of the same reserved for "redundancy." Sony announced some time ago that this processor which is also schedualed to be placed in the PS3 (meh), will also be released to various computer manufacturers (IBM included, they helped develope it). If you wish for some kind of a pole, list the "choices" and Ill post a poll. Voice your opinions here.

If its like IBMs last great adventure, they will make the concept, and Intel and AMD will take over like x86.