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[Vince]

I never mentioned Sony, so there goes that line of argument. I was only responding to your post about IBM which was nothing but sheer ignorance; you had no idea what you're talkjing about, your comment was totally false and you made declarative statements based on nothing -- pure unadulterated trolling.

Explain exactly how stating "It is true that Cell won't really become widespread, most likely just like the EE." is true. Shit, explain to me how a single comment you made is in some way, shape, or form factual.

And that is why I responded, you lower the level of discussion when you post BS like that; and it's unfortunate that I had to take up space in a thread to do it.

 

[Tenacious-V]

That would work if you didn't compare Cell to EE in first place...

I compared CELL to EE in the sense of what KenK stated back when EE was unveiled about how it would become extremely widespread for computing purposes other than consoles. I wasn't speaking at all in a sense of its performance or quality of the chip. I think CELL's a great chip and an ingenious design. I simply believe it's use as a server chip will be short lived.

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

Geez, if we add Xbd, Shifty, and lb we'd basically have the entire B3d console forum telling Tenacious-V he's wrong.

 

[mckmas8808]

I love it watching you reply to fanboys who pretend they know it all because they spent 2 months in beyond3d. Respect.

You idiot the article that gofreak just posted....

Raytheon plans on using Cell in its entire family of sensor-based products.

"This will be a key enabler for many things that will happen in network-centric warfare," Raytheon Chief Technology Officer Peter S. Pao, says of the Pentagon's plan to use advanced digital-imaging and networking to transform the battlefield of the future.

supports what Vince is saying RIGHT NOW!!!

It's funny when even the Petagon is looking to digitize and network the battlefield of the future and that CELL will be a big part of that you guys still find ways to take shots at it. :lol


Saddam didn't use EE for missiles = everybody laughs at Ken Kutargi on GAF

Petagon uses CELL for its wars of the future = those earlier people saying only for one year and then companies will forget about CELL?

Again :lol :lol

 

[Zaptruder]

Well considering this topic is us speaking directly with each other, I figured I'd reply in this topic to your posts.

So yes.... me speaking of CELL in a PC server space, not having one mention of consoles in any way shape or form puts me as console fanboy. Wow you have such great logic. I know you love Sony, good for you. Me not worshipping CELL makes me a fanboy, nice....

I never said CELL was bad, I never said PS3 was bad, or that CELL in PS3 was bad. I was merely talking about Power6. You ASSUMED I spoke badly of Sony, ASSUMED I was trolling PS3 and CELL, ASSUMED I think CELL is shit, and so on.

You have a fucking stick so far up your ass you can't decipher normal conversation and general comments from fanboy banter. It seems your the flagrant fanboy.

I don't know man. It's one thing to assume, but it's another to imply strongly.

I guess you probably worded everything extremely badly, because it came off to not only Vince, but myself (and I'm guessing most people with comprehesion abilities) as you trying to minimize or talk down the CELL chip, alluding to the EE, and talking about how it's a chip that will be outclassed easily by a newer general purpose chip.

It also came off as you not knowing what you weren't talking about.

To be fair, I'm not sure what you're talking about either, so I asked for some clarification... and you seem to have overlooked it.

Again then, what makes you so confident about the power6 chip?

I mean... I don't have indepth technical knowledge or anything, it's just my understanding from the literature I've read, that the CELL is good at linear calculations, which makes it very potent for some computing applications, while as far as I understand, the power6 is your normal general purpose server CPU, albeit one that will be pretty good.

 

[gofreak]

I compared CELL to EE in the sense of what KenK stated back when EE was unveiled about how it would become extremely widespread for computing purposes other than consoles. I wasn't speaking at all in a sense of its performance or quality of the chip. I think CELL's a great chip and an ingenious design. I simply believe it's use as a server chip will be short lived.

Well, evidently its customers disagree. It requires a fairly significant investment in time, in order to bring software up and running well on it. This isn't something you'd do if you'd get better results next year with Power6, for example, which wouldn't require nearly as much optimisation time. They wouldn't do this if they thought it were for short term benefit only.

 

[Panajev2001a]

You idiot the article that gofreak just posted....




supports what Vince is saying RIGHT NOW!!!

It's funny when even the Petagon is looking to digitize and network the battlefield of the future and that CELL will be a big part of that you guys still find ways to take shots at it. :lol


Saddam didn't use EE for missiles = everybody laughs at Ken Kutargi on GAF

Petagon uses CELL for its wars of the future = those earlier people saying only for one year and then companies will forget about CELL?

Again :lol :lol

Fortified Concept was agreeing with Vince AFAICS... tone it down.

 

[Vince]

Fortified Concept was agreeing with Vince AFAICS... tone it down.

Seriously, WTF, only I can be the asshole. I <3 you guys. Ok, anyways, back to the article at hand...

 

[fortified_concept]

You idiot the article that gofreak just posted....




supports what Vince is saying RIGHT NOW!!!

It's funny when even the Petagon is looking to digitize and network the battlefield of the future and that CELL will be a big part of that you guys still find ways to take shots at it. :lol


Saddam didn't use EE for missiles = everybody laughs at Ken Kutargi on GAF

Petagon uses CELL for its wars of the future = those earlier people saying only for one year and then companies will forget about CELL?

Again :lol :lol

Hehe. I wasn't being sarcastic. I love Vince's style, I've said that before.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Seriously, WTF, only I can be the asshole. Ok, ok, I <3 you guys.

:lol

 

[Zaptruder]

Fortified Concept was agreeing with Vince AFAICS... tone it down.

It was worded poorly.

Kinda read like FC was saying vince was a fanboy who had spent 2 months on Beyond and got arrogant because of it.

 

[mckmas8808]

Seriously, WTF, only I can be the asshole. I <3 you guys. Ok, anyways, back to the article at hand...

Oh damn my bad I'm actually agreeing with your analysis. I thought fortified_concept was being sarcastic. You know GAF and its sarcasism around here.

 

[Tenacious-V]

Well, evidently its customers disagree. It requires a fairly significant investment in time, in order to bring software up and running well on it. This isn't something you'd do if you'd get better results next year with Power6, for example, which wouldn't require nearly as much optimisation time. They wouldn't do this if they thought it were for short term benefit only.

Let me rephrase, not short lived, but not significantly penetrated into the overall market. CELL will still be used. Once power6 is out, and in all of its multi core iterations, most servers will be replaced with that. CELL will still be used into the future, but it's market penetration into IBM's overall sceme of things, will be low and only for specific tasks.

I hope that's sounding more coherent...

 

[gofreak]

Let me rephrase, not short lived, but not significantly penetrated into the overall market. CELL will still be used. Once power6 is out, and in all of its multi core iterations, most servers will be replaced with that.

And once Power6 is out there may well be quad Cell blades where there are duals now, and so on and so on...

Note that IBM is not replacing all its servers with these. They're running alongside existing ones, targetted at very particular markets. I think it's likely that will continue, with Cell processors continuing to improve in speed and size just like any other.

Of course, like any chip, Cell as we know it right now will have a limited lifespan. But I'm not sure if it should be any shorter-lived than any other processor, and it probably will be the predecessor to future generations.

 

[Vince]

And once Power6 is out there may well be quad Cell blades where there are duals now, and so on and so on...

Yes, or the DP varient, although I haven't heard much on it's timeline.

 

[xaosslug]

I compared CELL to EE in the sense of what KenK stated back when EE was unveiled about how it would become extremely widespread for computing purposes other than consoles. I wasn't speaking at all in a sense of its performance or quality of the chip. I think CELL's a great chip and an ingenious design. I simply believe it's use as a server chip will be short lived.

You should have stopped at "Ignore list +1" and saved face, dude.

 

[Nightbringer]

Cell processors will go for applications like movie rendering, virtual museums, climate simulations, terrain simulation and this type of stuff.

Power6 will go for the boring mainframe market. The problem is that the main market of IBM is the boring mainframe market and we need to see if IBM makes the things well for expanding its market.

 

[hadareud]

Before IBM adopts CELL:

XBots: CELL sucks, IBM won't use it, another EE LOLz

After IBM adopts CELL

XBots: CELL is just a stop-gap, another EE LOLz


Give it up already :lol

every opportunity you get ...

 

[Tenacious-V]

You should have stopped at "Ignore list +1" and saved face, dude.

Why? regardless of the hostilities that occurred it's still a discussion.

The comprehension of my posts wasn't quite up to snuff, so I clarified. I hold nothing against Vince, I still think he's a complete asshole with no social skills, but I don't think he's an idiot. The guy is smart, he just doesn't present himself in the best manner.

And I still stand by my statement of questioning the full penetration CELL will have into the overall market. So there's no need to "save face" as discussions never have to end with a total agreement or consensus.

 

[Moeed]

but but teh XBOTs and teh HYPE machine!

 

[TheOMan]

Let me rephrase, not short lived, but not significantly penetrated into the overall market. CELL will still be used. Once power6 is out, and in all of its multi core iterations, most servers will be replaced with that. CELL will still be used into the future, but it's market penetration into IBM's overall sceme of things, will be low and only for specific tasks.

I hope that's sounding more coherent...

It is sounding more coherent - but unfortunately, not entirely correct. I'm not sure who stated it earlier in the thread, but you *will* see the CELL architecture applied to many more processor lines in the future. I am amazed at how you guys track down this information so quickly though.

Cell will be around for a long time, in many incarnations and it's impact will be far reaching. The grid computing applications for defense, air traffic, etc implementations alone are amazing. Pervasive computing is already embracing this as the way of the future - it's not just for "servers" and there are many configurations in which it can be deployed and/or scaled.

 

[Eric_S]

Yes, or the DP varient, although I haven't heard much on it's timeline.

Got a link for that? I'd love to read up on it, but a quick google reveals nothing.

 

[DonasaurusRex]

...err what was the topic of this thread again?

And why is this a surprising announcement IBM invested heavily in this architecture, it has been known for a very long time that IBM had plans for CELL especially in its server/blades business, and Sony/Toshiba had plans for Cell in their consumer electronics business.

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

...err what was the topic of this thread again?

And why is this a surprising announcement IBM invested heavily in this architecture, it has been known for a very long time that IBM had plans for CELL especially in its server/blades business, and Sony/Toshiba had plans for Cell in their consumer electronics business.

I guess talking about doing it and actually doing it is the big thing here. Sony wanted it's EE to used for various purposes but that didn't exactly pan out well, already Cell is past that phase.

 

[mckmas8808]

...err what was the topic of this thread again?

And why is this a surprising announcement IBM invested heavily in this architecture, it has been known for a very long time that IBM had plans for CELL especially in its server/blades business, and Sony/Toshiba had plans for Cell in their consumer electronics business.

Because certain people on the GAF said that the CELL would end up exactly like the EE.

And they are wrong, so people like to point that out with using press releases.

 

[Vince]

Got a link for that? I'd love to read up on it, but a quick google reveals nothing.

No. Perhaps somone (Panajev, mckmas, gfreak, Faf, nAo, etc) does. I just remember hearing that during DD1 development they tried to pipeline and share resources between SP and DP, but implimentation problems concerning pipeline depth and time stoped it. Last I heard, I think it was public somewhere, they were working on fully pipelining the DP.

Pana is really the guys to talk to about this.

 

[maharg]

When I have kids, I'm going to adopt them just for shits and giggles.

 

[gofreak]

When I have kids, I'm going to adopt them just for shits and giggles.

As obvious as it might seem, a fair number of people held up the idea that IBM itself "isn't even using Cell" as an example of either its inapplicability beyond PS3 or suggestive of its actual quality. So it's reasonably significant that they've finally announced that.

On a seperate note, according to IBM in another report, over 260 partners have asked to be briefed on Cell under NDA.

 

[BlueTsunami]

That would work if you didn't compare Cell to EE in first place...

Exactly :lol

 

[ZeMMiK]

IBM is making good money folks, they making the chips for 360, Revolution and PS3.
Every Chip that is sold ..IBM gets richer.

 

[gofreak]

IBM is making good money folks, they making the chips for 360, Revolution and PS3.
Every Chip that is sold ..IBM gets richer.

I'm not quite sure how much they'll make off PS3, or if they'll make money of each one sold.

I'm guessing Sony has free rights to use Cell as it wishes (as Toshiba and IBM would have?)?

And Sony is manufacturing Cell themselves.

I guess IBM would make money off any chips they supply to Sony (Sony can tap IBM for further Cell supply if necessary, I believe).

 

[conker]

OMG PS3 IS USING A CELL PROCESSOR

OMG XBOX IS USING A PIII PROCESSOR

 

[BlueTsunami]

OMG PS3 IS USING A CELL PROCESSOR

OMG XBOX IS USING A PIII PROCESSOR

"Cannot Form Paragraphs"

HURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

 

[TheOMan]

As obvious as it might seem, a fair number of people held up the idea that IBM itself "isn't even using Cell" as an example of either its inapplicability beyond PS3 or suggestive of its actual quality. So it's reasonably significant that they've finally announced that.

On a seperate note, according to IBM in another report, over 260 partners have asked to be briefed on Cell under NDA.

Out of nothing but curiousity, and I'm not challenging the authenticity of this information, but where are you getting these reports? Do you listen to the financial reporting conference calls?

I'm not quite sure how much they'll make off PS3, or if they'll make money of each one sold.

I'm guessing Sony has free rights to use Cell as it wishes (as Toshiba and IBM would have?)?

And Sony is manufacturing Cell themselves.

I guess IBM would make money off any chips they supply to Sony (Sony can tap IBM for further Cell supply if necessary, I believe).

This is correct as far as I know - not that I'm involved with Cell in any direct way though. All of the info I have on it is second hand, sometimes I find stuff here that I haven't even heard about yet.

 

[Panajev2001a]

No. Perhaps somone (Panajev, mckmas, gfreak, Faf, nAo, etc) does. I just remember hearing that during DD1 development they tried to pipeline and share resources between SP and DP, but implimentation problems concerning pipeline depth and time stoped it. Last I heard, I think it was public somewhere, they were working on fully pipelining the DP.

Pana is really the guys to talk to about this.

Here is the last piece of official news AFAIK:

There are already some modification going on within
CELL. There is some progress in replacing the entire
FPU inside the SPU with a full-blown DP (double
precision) unit. The estimated performance should be
about 1:2 against the current SP unit, which would be
a major improvement compared to the current situation
of about 1:10 - 1:14.

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerwor...d=97123&message=13760013&cat=46&q=DP#13760013

 

[gofreak]

Out of nothing but curiousity, and I'm not challenging the authenticity of this information, but where are you getting these reports? Do you listen to the financial reporting conference calls?

I found that tidbit here:

http://news.com.com/IBM+refurbishing+blades+with+Cell,+PowerPC/2100-1010_3-6036943.html

Google News is pretty handy for finding new reports on stories..and they sometimes they each have some different bit of info from the others.

 

[mckmas8808]

OMG PS3 IS USING A CELL PROCESSOR

OMG XBOX IS USING A PIII PROCESSOR

WHAT?!?!

 

[Eric_S]

Here is the last piece of official news AFAIK: *snip*

Thanks.

 

[Raven.]

What's all this hype for the power6? 5-6Ghz on 65nm? Cell approaches 5Ghz on plain old 90nm. Not saying it will outclass it, different beasts, but such a High Ghz number is more than likely within the reach of cell at 65nm(you could also improve the ppe so as to fair quite well in general purpose code with such process too.).

 

[GaimeGuy]

What's all this hype for the power6? 5-6Ghz on 65nm? Cell approaches 5Ghz on plain old 90nm. Not saying it will outclass it, different beasts, but such a High Ghz number is more than likely within the reach of cell at 65nm(you could also improve the ppe so as to fair quite well in general purpose code with such process too.).

What hype is there, aside from Tenacious? All the hype I see is for CELL.

 

[Chittagong]

Stop the presses! IBM to use its own chip in a product!

 

[hukasmokincaterpillar]

Stop the presses! IBM to use its own chip in a product!

Which (to iterate what gofreak said), should be something of a revelation for the certain circles who enjoyed trumpeting the "EE 2.0" schtick as often as they could.

 

[maharg]

I don't know what kind of moron would actually think IBM had no intention of ever using Cell in anything. They are the *original designers* of the system.

It's not a revelation, it's a strawman.

 

[Raistlin]

Considering the fact IBM/Sony/Toshiba announced several months back that they have officially extended their CELL R&D and production agreement for 5 more years ...



... to even suggtest IBM will abandon it in a year is just ludicrous.



Seriously ... wtf? :lol

 

[RaijinFY]

Dont pay attention to Tenacious' utterly moronic statements!

 

[Rhindle]

Thread recap!

1. Tiny morsel gets tossed into pit of starving dogs.

2. Much hilarity ensues.

 

[Vince]

There are already some modification going on within CELL. There is some progress in replacing the entire FPU inside the SPU with a full-blown DP (doubleprecision) unit. The estimated performance should be about 1:2 against the current SP unit, which would be a major improvement compared to the current situation of about 1:10 - 1:14.

So, if they expect 1:2 vis-a-vis SP, basically they're just fully pipelining the 64b DP unit that's already sitting in the SPE? DP = 2-way verse 4-way SIMD?