[Heise.de] SC09: IBM lets Cell processor run out - Overclock.net

sodaholic134 · 11-20-09

Quote:

Internetspatzen like hpcwire whistled it already from the roofs, now IBM Vice President OF Deep Computing, David Turek, in the interview with heise on-line confirmed that it will not give the planned successor of the current PowerXCell-8i-Prozessors with two power PC processors and 32 SPEs. Thus the Cell Design is however not dead, it is said, parts of it is in other form to again emerge.

SOURCE

Unknownm · 11-20-09

oh well, not much support for powerpc

voice · 11-20-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unknownm

oh well, not much support for powerpc

http://www.top500.org/

http://www.top500.org/charts/list/34/vendors

Were you referring to a specific field or just in general? Because generally, there is a lot of support for PowerPC.

JKBenchmarks · 11-20-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by voice

http://www.top500.org/

http://www.top500.org/charts/list/34/vendors

Were you referring to a specific field or just in general? Because generally, there is a lot of support for PowerPC.

Numbers or percentages?

At least 85% of personal computers in the world are x86 based.

Shadow_UGZ · 11-20-09

Cell was kinda made as a CPU/GPU hybrid. It was designed at the same time as ATI's and nVidia's stream processors and shader cores to do a similar task. It was a good idea then but it's more efficient to use new GPU technology to do what the CELL was built for. Which is probably why IBM is ditching CELL.

Basically they aimed for a similar goal using two different products but GPUs were better suited for the task than a CPU with specialized cores. Two PowerPC cores and 32 SPE would have been nice though.

Here's an overview:

nVidia GTX-8800 (768Mb) @ 1.35 Ghz/1.8 Ghz DDR (using 128/128 cores) = 6.65 billion permutations/second

CELL version running on 6 SPU's @ 3.2 Ghz ran at about 5.25 billion permutations/second

Now with the next generation of GPUs (GT300 and 5000-series) those shaders have quadrupled and their efficiency has increased. This just shows how far behind the CELL architecture is right now.

vdek · 11-20-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by JKBenchmarks

Numbers or percentages?

At least 85% of personal computers in the world are x86 based.

Personal computers don't matter when you talk about high performance computing...

Cheetos316 · 11-21-09

So I wonder what this means for PS4...

voice · 11-21-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by vdek

Personal computers don't matter when you talk about high performance computing...

And HPC is where the money is at

Shadow_UGZ · 11-21-09

Quote:

On the other hand, IBM has to consider if it wants to reinvest in the architecture to keep up with the latest GPU performance numbers from NVIDIA and AMD, which would mean getting a single Cell processor to deliver hundreds of gigaflops of double-precision performance. IBM is certainly capable of building such a chip, but there's little motivation to do so. With no established base of customers clamoring for Cell-equipped supercomputers and with a relatively small volume of Cell chips from which to leverage high-end parts, it's hard to imagine that Big Blue will be doubling down on its Cell bet.

Source

Interesting read. This also helps explain what I was talking about in my previous post. IBM probably saw Fermi's DP performance and decided they weren't gonna be able to compete

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**Manyak** · 11-21-09

You guys gotta remember, IBM's customers are all corporate. Their needs extend far beyond personal computers.

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[Heise.de] SC09: IBM lets Cell processor run out

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