IBM Opens Cell Processor

[pawnstar]

Apple have moved graphics over to core video/graphics - and core data etc for the the other elements. In effect they are abstracting the the system from the hardware - for Apple to shift over to something else eg Cell, it would appear they would only have to write code inside the system. Apps would be able to take advantage of the power afforded by the extra chips by default.

This is also similar to AltiVec (back in the day) - PS runs without it, but slower. Similar to 'ripples' working or not in Dashboard today with different GPUs.

The Cell chips are designed to work together. Higher end Macs could have lots and lower end could have fewer. This way apps could take advantage (a la AltiVec) and for the high end run faster with the greater workloads imposed on them.

 

[pawnstar]

maybe we'll be able to run PS3 games on our macs as suggested here:

http://www.mobilegamefaqs.com/newsstory.php?id=121

 

[wdlove]

Let's just hope that Apple will adopt the Cell. Looking toward the G6 would be great. It will certainly be a post 970 chip.

 

[oskar]

Hmm, Cell chips, Intel rumors, new announced Xbox tripple core chips...
This can only mean Powerbook G5 on Tuesday!

Why do people keep doing this?

 

[Dr.Gargoyle]

I'll give you the fact that there is something to the first three, but for an entire conference to even partially revolve around a new mouse is hilarious! NOT.

Since when have Jobs just announced one thing at any of his keynotes? He will need something for the "just one more thing....".
My guess is that Apple will just present more than one thing, since none of the above could be considered as jaw dropping.

 

[oskar]

Duplicate post, sorry.

 

[oskar]

People say that this isn't happening because the cell has specific purposes like multimedia. Last time I checked iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD and iTunes were multimedia apps! How about FCP, Motion, DVDSP, Soundtrack, Logic, Shake, etc. Apple's main apps. Even Tiger has multimedia uses with Quartz, picture and movie previewing, etc. BTW, a whole computer is multimedia, so there was really no point in listing the apps. So the "multimedia-only" Cell processor isn't a possibility in a Mac?

What I find kind of tiring is that new technology processors are needed now in Apple's line-up and we're probably not gonna find out until the last minute as always. *sigh*

 

[wdlove]

What I find kind of tiring is that new technology processors are needed now in Apple's line-up and we're probably not gonna find out until the last minute as always. *sigh*

Not everything comes out at the last minute, remember the Mac mini. Sadly it seems that the lawsuit against Think Secret has put a damper on information. This information could be very critical.

 

[Peace]

Not everything comes out at the last minute, remember the Mac mini. Sadly it seems that the lawsuit against Think Secret has put a damper on information. This information could be very critical.

Post of the day candidate!


Folks are saying nuthin new coming down the pipeline because Think Secret hasn't posted anything.
They can't folks..They're under gag orders..

 

[Lord Kythe]

On the one hand you state the CELL is a gaming-console costumized chip, therefore it cannot be used in a Macintosh, on the other hand you point to the capabilities of the 'PPC' since it is being used in gaming-consoles. Not only is that a strange argument, but I would recommend to read some more on the CELL and PPC before making such statements, as the CELL is a customized PPC just like the XBOX360 processor but one with additional potential beyond the gaming console.

IBM's POWER processors are not the same as their PPC chips. The Cell is based on IBM's POWER architecture (plus Sony's and Toshiba's contributions which are not present is PPC chips), NOT PPC. The G5 is based on a POWER derivative, but it is a PPC (AltiVec-optimized). The POWER architecture allows for great multi-threading/tasking (IBM uses them in servers), thus the Cell is using as many execution units as possible to compute a lot of operations simultaneously, while the PPC is efficient with multi-tasking, but is mainly efficient at crunching one operation at a time as fast as possible; thus its application in Desktop environments (multiple G5 cores makes a PM powerful in both areas, allowing very efficient xServes as well... I have a G4 xServe as my main server, can't wait for updates on G5 xserves!).

Nowhere did I mention the Cell was unadaptable to a PC environment, in fact I stated it would add tremendous pressure on developers (which means I believe it could be done).

I didn't point the capabilities, I pointed the popularity. Since there will be more orders for PPC chips, IBM won't have any choice but increase PPC production, which directly impacts us as Mac users. I don't know what good would come from IBM producing a highly specialized/customized POWER derivative chip for PPCs. That's all I meant by that.

Of course, any money injected into IBM can have positive impacts for the G5/successor, but, depending on the $'s source, it could bite use back in the @$$.

I'm not a computer engineer, like most of people who post here I read articles and use a bit of reasoning, I'm just trying to illustrate the unlikelyness of a Cell/derivative processor/co-processor in a Power Mac any time soon, IMHO. If Apple could find a way to easily add native support for a processor like the Cell, more power to them, but how likely is that compared to the 970MP or POWER5 version of a new PPC chip? I wonder...

 

[tdewey]

Bah Humbug.

I read that the CELL is severely limited in that you can only link up two of them for multi-processing. Doesn't sound very promising to me.

Even if you discount the lack of 4-way multiprocessing (which isn't on the desktop right now) I'm sure that PPC and GPU improvements will outpace the CELL and its GPU within a year.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

I read that the CELL is severely limited in that you can only link up two of them for multi-processing. Doesn't sound very promising to me.

Even if you discount the lack of 4-way multiprocessing (which isn't on the desktop right now) I'm sure that PPC and GPU improvements will outpace the CELL and its GPU within a year.

Where do you get that from...???

From the above mentioned press release:

Cell is a multicore chip comprising a 64-bit Power processor core and multiple synergistic processor cores capable of massive floating point processing, optimized for compute-intensive workloads and broadband rich media applications, including computer entertainment, movies and other forms of digital content.

 

[isgoed]

Apple have moved graphics over to core video/graphics - and core data etc for the the other elements. In effect they are abstracting the the system from the hardware - for Apple to shift over to something else eg Cell, it would appear they would only have to write code inside the system. Apps would be able to take advantage of the power afforded by the extra chips by default.

This is also similar to AltiVec (back in the day) - PS runs without it, but slower. Similar to 'ripples' working or not in Dashboard today with different GPUs.

The Cell chips are designed to work together. Higher end Macs could have lots and lower end could have fewer. This way apps could take advantage (a la AltiVec) and for the high end run faster with the greater workloads imposed on them.

This system would indeed be feasable for a solution for getting a cell in a mac. The cell in this way acts like a kind of PCI or videocard with a coprocessor. However this is not how the cell works. In the cell the applications run directly on the cell. We will NOT see this in macs, for the following reasons:

• Only one application will be able to use the cell (efficiently) Since running multiple apps would require subsequent clearance of the cell's cache and litterly bringing performance to an halt. (So solution is to have two cells if you want to run photshop and H.264 export at the same time)
• It requires a rewrite of the OS to allow threads to run on a co-processor. I think this is not the idea behind cell so it will not even be possible.
• Recompile the apps for the cell. This means that for one application you need fat binaries in order to make them compatible with older G4 and G5 systems. Taking in mind that it took apple a year to make fat binaries for the G5-64bit (which still are inferior to the 32 bit binaries, since they can't link to the 32 bit Carbon/Cacao/GUI/Aqua-Libraries/Frameworks) This will not happen within a year.
• Developers not only need to compile for the cell but they probably also need to program with the cell's architecture in mind. Since no developer has done that, you will not see any benefits from a compiled cell application since it most likely only runs on the General Purpose CPU leaving all the other units running idle since the code never ever states it wants to utilize some unit for a secondary process.

So the future I see it, will be in the form of massive multithreaded CPU's in combination with killer altivec. That's what the Mach-O kernel is best at, so that is what will happen.

Even if there will be some way to fit a cell in a mac this will not constitute for a cell computer since the definition of a cell computer is something quite different than just offloading instructions. Similary that having a CPU and GPU does not constitute for a cell.

 

[thedoc1111]

So why can't the "primitive" PPE unit found in the current CELL processor of PS3 be replaced with a 970fx or power5 derivative?

Because then we would be back where we started - a high cost high transistor part with what is basically multiple supercharged Altivec units which do pretty much nothing to unoptimised code.

And also why can't a CELL act as a coprocessor for multimedia intensive apps?

And this is what I said all along.

I wish Apple would ship computers with an accessory Cell processor to handle CPU intensive repetitive tasks such as H.264 decoding/encoding. We'll have to wait and see, though.

 

[Neuro]

I find it 'funny' that Apple buys into IBMs new chips when the rest of the world is still screaming Intel! Intel! But, now everyone wants to go PowerPC and Apple is suddenly last in line for the same IBM goodies...

I can't help but think Apple would have kicked IBM into touch if they'd left Apple with the dregs of their R&D (or at least have some kind of priority supplier contract). It's almost inevitable that Apple will have a new next-gen chip from IBM very soon.

 

[oskar]

Not everything comes out at the last minute, remember the Mac mini. Sadly it seems that the lawsuit against Think Secret has put a damper on information. This information could be very critical.

Yeah, I was exaggerating
What I meant is that Apple never let's us know or at least never wants to let us know about anything until the day when the product will be officially announced.
Microsoft is telling us what processors the xbox will have months before it is released. The same goes for Sony with the PS3, which is supposed to include the Cell processor. Game consoles are a little off-topic but I mean that they give a hint about what processing the systems (still many months away) will have. It gives you something to look forward to.
Just what I was thinking... before people lecture me on Apple's secrecy. I know... I know...

 

[thedoc1111]

I can't help but think Apple would have kicked IBM into touch if they'd left Apple with the dregs of their R&D (or at least have some kind of priority supplier contract). It's almost inevitable that Apple will have a new next-gen chip from IBM very soon.

I think Apple's issue at the moment is that they are designing a major new motherboard design in conjunction with IBM and they are being more careful this time. The last 3 'generations' of G5 Mobos have been almost exactly the same (with the exception of the Single 1.8GHz model probably based on the iMac) even down to the same I/O problems with the FireWire 800 chip.

This new motherboard will have to be cheaper than the current design so Apple can stay competitive, be highly scalable as Apple cannot afford to go through the same design process in a year, and cannot afford to have the same problems as the previous board. It will also need to include many more forward-reaching technologies such as PCI Express (probably replacing PCI-X totally), DDR2, SATA-2 and hopefully wireless USB or Firewire if we are lucky. Support for a coprocessor would be a bonus...

 

[thedoc1111]

• Only one application will be able to use the cell (efficiently) Since running multiple apps would require subsequent clearance of the cell's cache and litterly bringing performance to an halt. (So solution is to have two cells if you want to run photshop and H.264 export at the same time)
• It requires a rewrite of the OS to allow threads to run on a co-processor. I think this is not the idea behind cell so it will not even be possible.
• Recompile the apps for the cell. This means that for one application you need fat binaries in order to make them compatible with older G4 and G5 systems. Taking in mind that it took apple a year to make fat binaries for the G5-64bit (which still are inferior to the 32 bit binaries, since they can't link to the 32 bit Carbon/Cacao/GUI/Aqua-Libraries/Frameworks) This will not happen within a year.
• Developers not only need to compile for the cell but they probably also need to program with the cell's architecture in mind. Since no developer has done that, you will not see any benefits from a compiled cell application since it most likely only runs on the General Purpose CPU leaving all the other units running idle since the code never ever states it wants to utilize some unit for a secondary process.

Fortunately, none of these reasons remove the possibility of the Cell being used as a coprocessor for Digital Video Encoding/Decoding, especially for the G5. Generally, a computer will only be running one render/movie compositing/compressing job at one time, and multiple Cells can be easily linked together to allow multiple simultaneous thread execution. Final Cut Pro gets 2.5x faster for $500 - Given what you pay for the software, I'd be happy!

 

[isgoed]

Fortunately, none of these reasons remove the possibility of the Cell being used as a coprocessor for Digital Video Encoding/Decoding, especially for the G5. Generally, a computer will only be running one render/movie compositing/compressing job at one time, and multiple Cells can be easily linked together to allow multiple simultaneous thread execution. Final Cut Pro gets 2.5x faster for $500 - Given what you pay for the software, I'd be happy!

Yeah,

and fortunately this is already possible. Cinema 4D can use the graphics card for hardware rendering. You can buy MPEG encoding and decoding video cards, Sound cards do this. nVidia even wrote a library (for windows) that applications can leverage as to use the videocard as a co-processor, resulting in the equivalent of a 10GHZ Pentium 4!

So what's new?

 

[Xtremehkr]

I am sure that all of this development will help in some common areas. I see why it is hard to compete with PS3 and Xbox 360 though. Those platforms are going to move 10s of millions of units per year.

 

[thedoc1111]

So what's new?

Well, for a start, Apple is good at taking advantage of increases in hardware performance.

Does Avid use nVidia's extra movie processing power? No. Then the circuitry's existence is little more than proof of concept (especially in that it failed to work at all on MPEG-4 in the 6800 due to a mistake in the silicon)

Also, ATI doesn't do this, and the video card market is such that if they did, they would probably make the systems incompatible. Finally, the Video Processing Unit is much more specialised to the cell - burned in to accelerate specific codecs. The CELL is at least general purpose enough to accelerate any codec that optimised code is written for.

 

[GFLPraxis]

That would be interesting. I wonder how feasable that would be. Dual Processor G5 PowerMac with an additional cell processor for use with FCP and Logic.. Perhaps an add in PCI card with two cells for offloading. Would that even be possible? I suppose you'd have to rewrite your applications to utilize this applicaiton, but that would pretty slick.

Very feasible. The Cell core in the PS3 is capable of decoding 12 HD streams at ONCE. They demoed this on stage at E3.

It would suck for OS X, but can you imagine say a Cell processor with a FULL 2.5 GHz G5 in it? So for normal tasks it runs just as fast as a G5, but for multimedia you get the Cell speed boost. Of course it would cost a few hundred extra, but it would be cool. Say, add a $3500 PowerMac model with dual 2.7 GHz Cell G5's instead of just dual 2.7 GHz G5's.

 

[GFLPraxis]

Or not... considering sony saw it fit to include a GPU as well in their PS3 outside of the Cell processor. Cell is capable of general purpose computing, and IBM even goes and brags that they have used multiple operating systems on Cell. Heck, both sony and IBM do. At the Game Developers Conference, it was something they kind of highlighted on with 2 of their lectures that I had attended. The Cell processor is a capable processor. It is also a very powerful processor, and nowhere near what I would consider comparing to a GPU. I would compare it more to a dual core Opteron running at 3.2GHz... only this Opteron seems to have 8 additional AthlonXP processors around it(The SPEs) running at the same clock speed, all with their own cache and DMA channels, while at the same time, be able to punch the ammount of memory through per second that only 4 to 5 Opterons operating in NUMA would be able to do... in one chip.

Different purposes. He wasn't saying that the Cell WAS a GPU, of course Sony had to include a GPU in it. Thing is, Cell is extremely good at floating point calculations. So its very good for physics and HD decoding, which is precisely what Sony wants to use it for.

While it would cost a lot, the Cell is scalable, meaning that you could put a normal G5 processor in the Cell instead of the custom PowerPC core Sony is using and it WOULD be suitable for general computing. However, this would probably raise the cost of the processor by a couple hundred dollars so only in Apple's high end machines would it be used.

 

[rickvanr]

I don't know if this has been mentioned in the thread, because I only quickly skimmed through it, but with the cell being a new processor, with new architecture make it just as likely for apple to adopt this technology as it would be for them to throw an x86 processor (Intel, AMD). Unless the cell uses PPC, I don't think it will go into a mac.

 

[fBaran]

G6

First to say it.

G6 Powerbook!