Cell CPU as the next thing?

[Hammer]

How did this old thread get dug up again?
 
To heck with the Cell (or its PS4 replacement).
 
How do we get WiiU processors?

Rumored PS4 uses "AMD Liverpool APU" i.e. AMD Steamroller based CPUs + AMD Radeon HD 7850 (16 Compute Units) level GCN.

AMD Kaveri APU has quad-core AMD Steamroller based CPUs + AMD Radeon HD 7750 (8 Compute Units) level GCN.

Note that the APU is AMD's "CELL" solution.

[Hammer]

I stand a lot can be achieved with what is percieved today as old (0,2 or 0,5GB RAM)

More detailed specs reveal: 256K SRAM per SPE + 256MB sys RAM and 256MB VRAM. I do agree this is the serious flaw in SPS3 design, but again just see what is achieved with such low specs (e.g. Civ V just as example of more demanding app on PC)

CPU: Cell Processor

PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS
GPU: RSX @550MHz

1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance
Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels
Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines
Sound: Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell-base processing)

Memory:

256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz
256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz

"1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance" includes fix function GPU functions in the NVIDIA RSX(Geforce 7(G70) based GPU) e.g. hardware texture filtering, hardware z-cull and 'etc'.

Most of  "1.8 TFLOPs" can not be use for SGEMM type benchmarks and can't be compared to FLOPs used for programmable shaders/stream processors.

Note that 3D Labs WildCat VP760 has programmable 200 GFLOPs and it was destroyed by NVIDIA Geforce 6800. My point, designing GPU is not just gluing math processors processors together.

[Hammer]

True, as long as the CPU isnt supported by AmigaOs.
Cell computing is mainstream with PS3, a lot of games were made for it.
Strangely for CPU that used to drive supercomputers.

Sadly, like with PA Semi, it seems we will never see advanced designs.

And I assume Cell is way better then PA Semi in many aspects (I am no hardware guru, simply as more modern design)

Is this what you were looking for?
http://www.bsc.es/computer-sciences/programming-models/linux-cell/cell-be-sdks/sdk-31/cell-be-components/gnu-toolchain

Most HPCs(supercomputers) are powered by X86-64 CPUs.

[Hammer]

Rumored...but not necessarily true.

IBM wouldn't beat AMD when the CPU is nearly thrown in for free e.g. buy AMD GPU and get the CPU for free i.e. that's AMD APU economics.

[Hammer]

Yes, and I rather expect IBMs fab to produce whatever goes in the PS4.
AMD is supplying the GPU for the XBOX720 as well.
But we're not going to have a complete picture of what else will be used for awhile.

I have revised my post i.e. "IBM wouldn't beat AMD when the CPU is nearly thrown in for free "

Xbox 720 Yukon has both AMD APUs and IBM PPE X3 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2405922,00.asp

[Hammer]

How's that 89 Octane doin' for ya?

PowerPC emulator runs fine.

[Hammer]

Dont expect ARM CPU`s or even AMD CPUs to come near Intel performance, but that is easy once you have gross market share to invest in R&D.
.

On multi-threaded wintel apps, 8 core AMD Bulldozer is around i5 to i7 Sandybridge.

For single thread apps, AMD doubled X86 decoder resources for AMD Steamroller CPU core.

To me, CPU that can run HTML5 broswer, 720 dpi video and other daily productivity apps and good OS is enough for 90% of people.

And Cell offers MORE PROGRAMMIBILITY then those high performant CPUs that can just share thread overload with bloated software (Win) that doesnt even use it properly.

To bad PS3's SPE's IEEE 754 support is gimped.

For GPU command generation, DX11 can use multi-core CPUs.

With 128GB SSD drive and Windows 8 Pro RTM, my Acer Iconia W500 tablet (AMD C-50 APU) operates smooth and quick e.g. MS Word 2010 loads about 1 second.

[Hammer]

Interesting.
IBM scheduled to make a 3 core Power7 derived PPC for the Nintendo WiiU.
And according to the document you reference, IBM will be fabbibg the chipset for the Xbox 720 which will contain PPC and X86 cores.
 
So, why not a Cell based PS4 (or something similar to the Xbox720)?
 
After all, IBM will no doubt be fabbing Sony's chips as well.

AMD was talking about adding 3rd party IP on future AMD APUs e.g. PPE X3 IP for Xbox 720's case. http://www.anandtech.com/show/5494/amd-is-open-to-integrating-3rd-party-ip-in-future-socs
It's AMD Torrenza initiative on-a-chip.

For AMD Streamroller, AMD made improvements on fab portability. AMD also includes ARM based "off-load" security processors in thier future AMD APUs. ATI's business model has effectively taken over AMD.

Xbox 720 "Yukon" looks to have AMD Liverpool type APU(user land apps) + AMD Jaguar type APU(system) + IBM PPE X3 (legacy, user land apps). MS's WindowsRunTime(WinRT for C++) could abstract the CPU ISA differences e.g. ARM and X86 atm.

IBM CELL+AMD Liverpool APU combo for PS4 would mirror IBM Roadrunner supercomputer partnership e.g. AMD Opteron + IBM CELL combo.