PC General Discussion Thread

[Spindel]

Originally Posted by Power666

This the same principle behind IBM's MRAM research?

Yes it is.

EDIT//: It actually is a colaboration between KTH and IBM. And yes I know that MRAM is memory modules but if they get that to work in a stable manner it really could be used for CPUs also

Originally Posted by E6600

I've never heard of such a thing, got any sources, I want to read more about it.

I'm trying to find a source in english on this so far I only come up with stuff in swedish (and I'm not going to sit and translate )

[Power666]

Originally Posted by chedabob

Heh, I remember one time in the IRC, Power666 started talking about something to do with multiplying two 5x5 matrices in 3 instructions, or something. I was like "woosh"

Actually one instruction using three operands...

It was a mental exercise to see how many FLOPs I could squeeze into one instruction. Using another technique, I'm up to 127 FLOPs encoded into one instruction. I should figure out what the 5x5 matrix would result in...

[E6600]

Originally Posted by Darth Alec

That's pretty insane.

How do you guys know all this?

Kinda of like related to my major and kinda of like I enjoy reading about these things.
OK I admit it, I have no friends

There are several reasons why IBM is going with an Opteron + Cell

I recall, you said something about the Cell design and not being good at branch instructions, and in generally performs worse than typical general purpose CPUs in some situations, but why didn't they go for a POWER5 or POWER6 instead of an AMD Opteron?


I'm kind of switching to another topic now, when you think about how IBM made what Microsoft is now, and what Intel is now, after all they got their big break on the IBM PC and compatible PCs, only for IBM to lose it's PC market, go into an alliance with its originally rival Apple and eventually even lose the laptop and desktop CPU market! What did they do wrong?

I believe there's still hope for them, Ubuntu and some other Linux distros run on the PS3, so all that IBM has to do is launch a CELL based PC that is shipped with some Linux distro, I'll gladly buy such a desktop, I've been using Linux in school since 2004, and I have Ubuntu on my machine, they are quite quirky but not that bad being free and open source.

[E6600]

Originally Posted by Power666

Actually one instruction using three operands...

It was a mental exercise to see how many FLOPs I could squeeze into one instruction. Using another technique, I'm up to 127 FLOPs encoded into one instruction. I should figure out what the 5x5 matrix would result in...

If you don't mind me asking, what do you do for a living? Do you work for IBM's R&D by any chance?
My major is CS (I did take a like 4 required and elective COE courses) we don't deal with cool stuff like this.
I'm thinking of majoring in COE after finishing undergrad, much better than CS where we have to deal with very abstract topics like automata and algorithms or it could be even worse Software Engineering! I hate software engineering, I hate it, hate it, hate it!

[Power666]

Originally Posted by E6600

I recall, you said something about the Cell design and not being good at branch instructions, and in generally performs worse than typical general purpose CPUs in some situations, but why didn't they go for a POWER5 or POWER6 instead of an AMD Opteron?

Cell is in there for its bulk performance. It is set up as a coprocessor for an AMD Opteron. Note that this version of Cell is not the same that is used in the PS3. Double precision performance is greatly improved. The XDR memory controller has been replaced with a DDR2 one. There are a few other tweaks that haven't been disclosed yet.

The AMD Opteron doesn't need to do much. It handles IO like hard drive and network traffic. Price, space, cooling also factor in for its role.

If IBM wanted to use POWER6 for RoadRunner, I'd replace Cell. POWER5 and POWER6 chips support a virtual vector mode that'd be ideal here.

Originally Posted by E6600

I'm kind of switching to another topic now, when you think about how IBM made what Microsoft is now, and what Intel is now, after all they got their big break on the IBM PC and compatible PCs, only for IBM to lose it's PC market, go into an alliance with its originally rival Apple and eventually even lose the laptop and desktop CPU market! What did they do wrong?

Assume that CEO's of software companies are nice loyal people.

Originally Posted by E6600

I believe there's still hope for them, Ubuntu and some other Linux distros run on the PS3, so all that IBM has to do is launch a CELL based PC that is shipped with some Linux distro, I'll gladly buy such a desktop, I've been using Linux in school since 2004, and I have Ubuntu on my machine, they are quite quirky but not that bad being free and open source.

I think IBM does have Cell based workstations. I know for certain that they have Cell based blade servers.

Cell + Linux won't take off for two reasons: 1) Cell, 2) Linux. Cell is an architectural dead end. Code optimized for SPE's will only work on SPE's. The life span of Cell is relatively short as traditional CPU designs continue to gain in the multicore era. Software compatibility and portability is something Cell just doesn't offer. Linux, as great of an OS as it is for data centers and nerds, isn't going to be adopted by the average Joe. While Winodws is not simple, Linux has its own complexities in comparison. Commercial grade software for Linux is lacking. Open source alternatives exist but are often lacking in one way or another.

[Power666]

Originally Posted by E6600

If you don't mind me asking, what do you do for a living? Do you work for IBM's R&D by any chance?

Nope, my job is pretty mundane. Though I do get to play around on IBM mainframes and AS/400 systems.

Originally Posted by E6600

I'm thinking of majoring in COE after finishing undergrad, much better than CS where we have to deal with very abstract topics like automata and algorithms or it could be even worse Software Engineering! I hate software engineering, I hate it, hate it, hate it!

What's COE?

I don't really see automata or algorithms as that bad.

[Darth Alec]

Everytime I see Power post, I get the feeling he has no friends.

But from what I understand here, is that there are several different methods being testedg to get the power of the future. ANd that we are nearing the end of the line for the traditional method?

[Gnu]

Originally Posted by Darth Alec

Everytime I see Power post, I get the feeling he has no friends.

Please tell; how does technical knowledge affect social function?

[Darth Alec]

Stereotyping much?

I assume he has friends other places then here (real life maybe), but because of his technical knowledge, I can't help to feel like he has no friends.

No offense intended Power, I love your techno-skills.

[Gnu]

Originally Posted by Darth Alec

Stereotyping much?

I assume he has friends other places then here (real life maybe), but because of his technical knowledge, I can't help to feel like he has no friends.

No offense intended Power, I love your techno-skills.

Oh, according to your profile, you're 15, I get it..