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Intel Expands Core Concept for Chips 222
Aziabel writes "As most of you have probably heard, Intel plans to come out with chips containing two processing cores next year, but that's just the start. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip giant intends to exploit the concept of using multiple processor cores; chips with four cores and eight cores will eventually join dual-core chips, which will begin to appear from Intel next year. The company's research department is also looking at the feasibility of creating chips with hundreds of cores to assist servers and supercomputers with large numbers of relatively repetitive calculations, said Steve Smith, vice president of the desktop platforms group at Intel. The focus on multiple cores arises from Moore's Law, which dictates that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years. I say, the more the better. Keep 'em coming, chip-makers!"
Can you imagine... (Score:2, Funny)
Cell Processor (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cell Processor (Score:5, Interesting)
But we all know that nothing really changes until memory access changes. Memory continues to be the bottleneck, so if the only thing a processor with more cores can do fast is crunch numbers, you'd get more bang for the buck with better/more vector processing units.
Now, if/when they come out with memory that can be reorganized on-the-fly, perform large-scale simple massively-parrallel operations, and do some content-addressable tricks, that will be a signifigant development. I don't know how long it would take that to make it into higher level programming languages, though. It kinda of turns the job of writing programs on it's head.
Re:Cell Processor (Score:3, Interesting)
This coupled with about 1 GB of system RAM would (hopefully) provide superior performance.
As a side note, I guess my next b
Re:Cell Processor (Score:2)
Re:Cell Processor (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Cell Processor (Score:2)
Re:Cell Processor (Score:2)
Isn't that what NUMA is about? AFAICR all it needs is a board that can take advantage of it, along with an OS. I think some of the Opteron boards have NUMA and all that lot.
N.B I'm not an expert, if you couldn't tell
Re:Cell Processor (Score:4, Interesting)
>simple massively-parrallel operations, and do some content-addressable tricks, that will be a
>signifigant development. I don't know how long it would take that to make it into higher level
>programming languages, though. It kinda of turns the job of writing programs on it's head.
Have you ever stumbled on FPGAs ? It's already there. The problem is, as I see it, it does turn writing programs on it's head. Thus, very few people outside of the hardware design crowd know what to do with them.
Just think how many people do get exposed to digital design vs programming. How many people do go beyond a vague idea of a processor working on data sitting in memory ? How many CS graduates are utterly unhappy about digital design classes ?
Re:Cell Processor (Score:2)
This is largely horse pucky. FPGAs are a trade off of efficiency for generality. FPGA based coprocessors only provide a benefit where the algorithm can be implemented more efficiently in logic than conventional code and it's done at a high enough frequency to warrant the trouble. Few situa
Re:Cell Processor (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyone even vaguely familiar with multithreaded programming and execution should know that it is difficult (sometimes impossible) to extract parallelism from the majority of the desktop computing applications. As such, throwing more cores at the problem doesn't necessa
Re:Cell Processor (Score:2)
Blue Gene/L is nonexistent?
Opportunities for desktop parallelism (Score:2)
it is difficult (sometimes impossible) to extract parallelism from the majority of the desktop computing applications
You mean it's difficult for the compiler to extract parallelism from pure sequential code. However, a smart programmer could easily make all sorts of tasks run in a separate thread from the main UI thread:
Re:Opportunities for desktop parallelism (Score:2)
Are they making programmers yet who are better than compilers at this?
Re:Cell Processor (Score:2)
Functional programmming languages examples are Lisp and OCaml.
Oh, correction, from a previous
OTOH, it is theoretically possible to automatically multithread purely functional programs, especially if they're lazy like Haskell. So it could end up being a very impor
Rumor: another Intel catch-up move (Score:3, Informative)
Intel is, no make that was, rumored to be, [no, definitely are] in the process of buying the design group that develops Itanium from HP.
The vnunet page has a little speculation as t
Re:Rumor: another Intel catch-up move (Score:2)
Re:Cell Processor (Score:2)
I'm somewhat playing devil's advocate here, but Sony/IBM/Toshiba were also following the idea of Piranha from the Compaq group paper [sbcglobal.net]. The old Compaq project had eight simple cores (in-order Alpha 21164, if I remember correctly) and it really shined in transaction benchmarks.
In a way, AMD64 is the same idea as when Intel extended x86 from 16-bit to 32-bit. Back in the 90's, Itanium sounded like a good idea, and they (Intel) really were looking ahead then (and they didn't want EMT64 to cannibalize Itanium s
Re:Cell Processor (Score:2)
Which market do you mean? I suppose you mean PC, but Cell's market is not only in the PS3 but in consumer electronics market such as HDTV and HD recorder, and professional use market like HD digicam and creative workstation.
Also, Intel needs a corresponding OS to utilize their many-core CPU with dozens of cores but MS is not known as a quick company, and I don't believe in desktop Linux either.
Re:Cell Processor (Score:2)
Long-term strategy of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Kind of like to what I suspect Microsoft has been trying to do against Lindows for a while now, namely complicate their API more and more. And with IE and HTML.
Of course they're well within their rights to try. We'll just build a better idiot savant. Or let Steve Jobs keep making Apples that no one can really imitate in the first place.
Re:Long-term strategy of this? (Score:2)
Re:Long-term strategy of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should this have anything to do with the instruction set? The principle is exactly the same as for existing multi-processor systems, but on the same chip.
Re:Long-term strategy of this? (Score:2)
Re:Long-term strategy of this? (Score:2)
As people complain on slashdot the only thing MS is not doing is developing for IE (yes i know they started again), and i am sure they were not doing it so that no one else can emulate.
Mozilla chooses not to for a good reason.
Read up on RISC and CISC before you post on mac emulation, a lot of it has to do iwht processor architecture and not "Apples".
Have we hit a wall for computational ability? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Have we hit a wall for computational ability? (Score:2)
Re:Quantum Computing (Score:2)
Great (Score:5, Funny)
Performance rateing (Score:5, Informative)
Read overclockers.com for some good speculation on what the good/bad/ugly features are likely to be.
Re:Performance rateing (Score:2)
Re:Performance rateing (Score:2)
Not that kind of law! (Score:5, Insightful)
The focus on multiple cores arises from Moore's Law, which dictates that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years.
I don't think non-compliance with Moore's Law is a felony. It's an observation, not a statute. Moore's Law arises from the fact that transistor counts keep doubling, not the other way around.
Also, doubling the number of transistors in any way possible doesn't necessarily translate into double the power for any given application. In this case, multiple cores are good news for multi-threaded or forking server apps, but rather less interesting for a lot of desktop apps. Intel obviously has a vested interest in pushing ever larger die sizes, because it does large dies better than anyone else. Whether this will always be in the interests of the rest of the industry, let alone the end user, is less obvious.
Re:Not that kind of law! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not that kind of law! (Score:3, Insightful)
As another reader pointed out there is a serious drool factor in a dual core AMD Opteron. Other than the gamers and overclockers one does not need dual cores or multi-GHz clock speeds for most applications. My desktop system is a dual processor 200MHz Pentium Pro system (circa '97) and my web server which was /.'ed in August is a dual processor 100 MHz Pentium
Re:Not that kind of law! (Score:2)
Opterons are aimed at the server and workstation market. Turning a 1U 2-way Opteron pizzabox into a 4-way one by replacing the CPU's and upgrading the BIOS is *extremely* attractive, and despite your little anecdote about the 100MHz slashdotted webserver, multi-GHz and multi-CPU is kinda important whe
Re:Not that kind of law! (Score:3, Informative)
Desktop Apps: Parallelizable? I think so. (Score:3, Insightful)
An MP3 player: I would think you should be able to decode one second with one processor, and the next second with the other processor.
Word processor: I would think that parts of the boot process that do not require the other parts would be able to run independently. Two processors could check alternating lines until the whole document was checked.
Spreadsheets: I would think that the first half of a giant list could be handled by one processor, t
hmm (Score:3, Interesting)
if not, how feasable is a multicore > single core emulation in linux.
Re:hmm (Score:2, Interesting)
Just watch, it'll go fairly smoothly.
Re:hmm (Score:4, Informative)
You see an OS runs multiple threads in the first place it just switches between them as each need run time.
But for given program to be written to use 2 or more threads (looks to the OS as 2 or more programs) takes work.
So take a program that is already written and place in a multi-core/processor/thread enviroment with all else being equal - it will run as fast as it did before.
What will run faster is all of it. Take two of these old programs and run them in the multi-core/processor/thread enviroment and they each take same processing time unto themself, but the obversied time is shorter because they are both actually running at SAME time.
Re:hmm (Score:2)
Actually both virtual CPUs in an HT system are running instructions at the same time on the same core. The intent of HT (and related implementation but differing names) is to help fill the several execution units that exist on todays CPU cores by allowing an intermixing of instructions from two (or more) execution streams (threads). Having more instructions and often nondependent instruction to ch
Multiple cores (Score:2)
Something like Linux SMP will see each core as a separate CPU and treat them as such, much as it does with hyperthreading today. The catch is, your applications have to be multithreaded. Then they will take advantage of the multiple cores.
Yeah, yeah. (Score:3, Insightful)
>will begin to appear from Intel next year.
Very likely this is marketing sp33k for "will be paper-launched at the last day of next year"
HARD-core.. eh? (Score:2)
Re:HARD-core.. eh? (Score:2)
You put them at the end of your statements?
Do you think such usage is correct.
Re:HARD-core.. eh? (Score:2)
Re:HARD-core.. eh? (Score:2)
I hope so! (Score:2)
Given that I can't get good working 3d drivers for FreeBSD (by which I mean I can upgrade my kernel from time to time without worry), or Linux; on any fast 3d video card, I'm looking for anything that will give me good 3d graphics without hasstle.
Yet again Intel pretends to invent a technology (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/26/ibm_power
It reminds me of the way that Intel pretended that they invented integrated wireless technology with its Centrino chip only after Apple had been shipping laptops for nearly two years with internal wireless cards.
Normally, asking if they had no shame would be appropriate but it is unfortunately clear (without the need to ask) that they don't.
Where precisely is Intel (Score:2)
Re:Yet again Intel pretends to invent a technology (Score:2)
Re:Yet again Intel pretends to invent a technology (Score:2)
Dual cores for Intel next year? (Score:4, Interesting)
AMD has said that dual cores will be clocked anywhere from 600Mhz to 1Ghz slower than the single core counterpart, namely because of heat issues. There are many more issues that arise with dual cores here are a few
Cache correnance
Bus contention
software implementation
plus more
It will be interesting none the less on how each manufactorer overcomes the issues with multi-core chips and the benefits to the user of of multi-core.
Re:Dual cores for Intel next year? (Score:2)
Cache coherence. Already solved. Both AMD and Intel handle this just fine.
Bus contention
AMD have largely solved this with their HyperTransport links between the processors, though obviously a dual-core Opteron will have less memory bandwidth than two single-core chips.
Still quite a problem for Intel.
software implementation
Not a problem. Existing SMP code will work perfectly on multi-core chips.
Re:Dual cores for Intel next year? (Score:4, Informative)
In AMD SMP systems, each CPU has its own separate link to RAM and peripherals. Each CPU also has a link to each other CPU. If CPU A needs something in CPU B's cache, it just asks CPU A to send it that data across the inter-CPU link.
As you add CPUs in an Opteron server, you actually increase the RAM/system bandwidth. Compare that to a Xeon system where adding CPUs reduces the bandwidth available to each CPU (system/RAM bandwidth is constant).
There's a beautiful set of articles over at Ars Technica describing the SMP abilities of the Athoon, the Opteron, and the Xeon. It's amazing Intel has been able to sell any 8-way systems.
Re:Dual cores for Intel next year? (Score:2)
I'm sorry, that word just cracked me up. I think I need to get out of the house for a while.
OOH object oriented hardware (Score:2, Interesting)
The basic idea is that a computer could comprise many, many tiny CPUs, each with its own tiny local memory.
A given (CPU+RAM) could be designated to operate as RAM for another CPU, so the MMU/OS could balance the number of processes needing memory with those needing processors.
A (CPU+RAM) could also be labeled as a slave to others, so a multithreaded application could have the number of processors it needed
Wafer computing at last? (Score:2)
When manufactufing chips, they're done so in wafers. Then the wafer is cut up into its component parts, and each part is sealed in its own case. It would seem to be more efficient to just stick the whole damn wafer in a single case.
It would give a whole new meaning to "pizza box server", as the wafer and case would closely match the size of a pizza and box, respe
Re:Wafer computing at last? (Score:2)
It turns out that unless you have very high yield across the entire wafer its impossible to get everything you need for a "real" computer (CPUs, cache, memory, bus controllers, etc.) wired together and operating properly. Because each wafer is g
Re:Wafer computing at last? (Score:2)
You say that it's a nightmare getting CPUs, memory, etc on the same wafer and wired up, but what I was suggesting is a wafer of, say, processors only.
So the wafer could be tested after manufacturing, and then sold as an X core processor, depending on how many working processor cores were found.
Essentially, I'm just taking the topic of this thread to its logical conclusion - processors that have s
Re:Wafer computing at last? (Score:2)
Re:Wafer computing at last? (Score:2)
IIRC, the main problem that was encountered is that it is extremely unusual to produce an entire wafer of defect free components. While some work was done on producing wafers that were able to route around damaged sections, I don't think it ever got very far.
I'm sure we'll see it return at some point, though.
Sun has 8 Way Already (Score:2)
Yes they do (Score:4, Informative)
If you want to know a bit more about it, I wrote it up a few weeks ago here:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19423
-Charlie
Sun already ships this (Score:2, Informative)
Intel is not doing all that well in the core races (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20270
h
Needless to say, their long term strategies are a tad up in the air right now.
As for their desktop (IE P4 based) dual core plans, there are 2 generations planned. The first is a simple pairing of 2 current cores with a minimum of tweaks, basically a scared response to AMD. The second one is really the first one they planned, and it is a lot more sophisticated.
AMD was there from long before Day One, and have the most coherent philosophy on dual cores for the desktop/server.
Rather than re-write all my own articles here, here is a link where I break down all of Intel's dual core plans as well as some of AMDs.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=17906
Sorry for all the self links, but I don't really want to keep re-writing that stuff, links are the reason behind the web, right?
-Charlie
Re:Intel is not doing all that well in the core ra (Score:2)
As forthe processes, read the Inq for more, AMD/IBM have come a long long way recently.
-Charlie
More and more cores.. less and less bandwidth (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember that each of these processing cores will have to share their memory bandwidth and possibly level 2 cache as well. As it is Intel's EM64T Xeon processors really feel the bandwidth bottleneck in their memory interface and can easily saturate it.
I can see a dual core Xeon being able to saturate its memory bus on its own. Similarly, the dual core Opteron, unlike a dual processor Opteron, will have to share a single memory bus and hence be slower than a dual processor machine.
Adding extra cores merely moves the computing bottleneck elsewhere, it's not a panacea.
Not a problem (Score:4, Interesting)
Niagara (see my post above) is bandwidth rich, the AMD solutions are also. The only ones with a looming problem are Intel until CSI comes on in a few years, but that is manageable.
Moral, Sun OK, AMD OK, Intel solid plan.
-Charlie
Also, cache performance will be less predictable (Score:2, Insightful)
What you're saying is, for applications with poor cache performance, multi-core processors will be no better than single-core. Personally, I can live with that. Most of the processor developments of the last 10 years have favored applications with good c
Yer Laws (Score:4, Interesting)
Engineers especially must understand that "laws" of nature, including human innovation, are governed by an "invisible hand". Not some imaginary deity, or some government, or some mythic genius. Rather, there is a deeper order to events, like the way every triangle has 180 degrees, the Sun "comes up" every morning, controversial Slashdot posts will get mod'ded "Troll", without any false statements or duplicity. We're engineers: our job is to engage the deeper order, understand it, model it, and exploit it, without further mystifying it.
Re:Yer Laws (Score:2)
Mine only has 179! And some Gauss-Bonet person told me I could get one for the same price with 270 degrees! Where the hell is Euclid when you need a refund?
Re:Yer Laws (Score:2)
PLEASE MOD UP (Score:2)
Moore's law (Score:2)
laws that consitently and correctly dictate how the world around us works
Physical laws such as Newton's and Ohms are also "educated (and heretofore correct), g'uess[es] at" the behavior of matter and energy, observations which are made by fallible man. Newton's laws fail at submicroscopic distances and additionally at high velocities. Ohm's law fails on non-ohmic materials. Likewise, Moore's law may fail at specific points on the timeline of production.
Re:Moore's law (Score:2)
But that is completely irrelevant
Tera's MTA did this years ago (Score:2)
The MTA was a commercial failure. Tera's inability to execute as a company was a major reason.
It is fun to watch Intel chase AMD.
Re:Tera's MTA did this years ago (Score:3, Interesting)
Excuse me but IIRC Tera is more a multi-threaded processor, not a multi-core. It was intended to run 128 threads simultaneously, and solve the memory latency problem by running each thread in succession. The idea was that if a thread was stalled by a need to access main memory, by the time it got back around to that thread again the data would have arrived. Overall throughput was supposed to put it into the supercompuer class.
You're right that the processor didn
Re:Tera's MTA did this years ago (Score:2)
On an unrelated topic, I disagree with your sig: I live in France where we are very strict about separating private matters such as religion with public matters such as school or governement (the idea of having a president swearing on the bible seems stupid for us), and AFAIK except for the veil problem, there is not too much problem for religious people to live their re
Shouldn't that be... (Score:2)
Shouldn't that be, the Moore, the better?
Re:Shouldn't that be... (Score:2)
Hitting the wall (Score:2)
Core Limit (Score:2)
All I want to know is ... (Score:2)
Misquoting Moore's law (Score:2)
Multi-core/processor programming automatically (Score:4, Insightful)
Functional programmming languages examples are Lisp and OCaml.
Oh, correction, from a previous
OTOH, it is theoretically possible to automatically multithread purely functional programs, especially if they're lazy like Haskell. So it could end up being a very important language on multi-processor and distributed systems.
The only way I see multi-core processors or cluster-like processors (Cell) succeed is if programmers switch to languages like that. Any other way would introduce too many bugs in programs. Computers should make life easier, not harder. Even for programmers.
Eventually, multi-core/processor is the only way forward, long before single-processors have to heat up to supernova temperatures to increase speed.
We're just at the beginning of computing. Looking back, programmers of the future will pity us poor folk who had to make do with only 1 CPU. However, we need the right tools to move forward. Anyone know if there's an automatically multithreading (functional) programming language in existance or being invented?
Tying the cores together? (Score:2)
-d
Re:Cool stuff, but... (Score:2)
Re:Cool stuff, but... (Score:2)
I've been told that all CPUs have something like a hundred of internal "hidden" registers but only a few were materialized for the user. The CPU is doing everything on its own, so I thought cores were the same kind of private optimization.
And a stupid question: is there a difference between the multiple cores and the fact
Re:Cool stuff, but... (Score:2)
~phil
Re:I like (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I like (Score:2)
Re:8 cores, next year? i think not! (Score:2)
Re:I wanna see - at that point (Score:2)
I think at that point it would be the mainboard.
Re:I wanna see (Score:2)
Re:Will this affect software licensing costs? How? (Score:2)
But what exactly IS a CPU from a software-licensing perspective?
Why the hell would a software license [gnu.org] care about the number of active CPUs on a board?
Re:Will it help me download porn? (Score:2)
Re:Bottleneck. (Score:2)
Re:Once again, cowboy neal... (Score:2)