Trends in Cpu Design

Trends in Cpu Design

For the past few years, in the processor field, the trend has been slowly shifting from a single high Hz CPU to multicore processors. Intel has Xeon dual core and has managed to paste two such chips to bring out what it calls quad core, AMD still has only Opteron dual-core CPUs and is likely to release native quad-core chip next year. There are other smaller players like Azul claiming to have much more cores in a CPU but the real players are only four of them, the remaining two being IBM and Sun Microsystems. IBM along with partners worked on designing Cell chip but it is a special-purpose processor, not for general computing. Sun surprised everyone last year with its eight-core Niagara processor also known as UltraSparc T1. It not only had eight cores in a single chip, but has the capability to run 4 simultaneous hardware threads in each of them giving an impression to the OS of running on a 32 CPU machine.

Sun is going to follow it with Niagara 2 which will have twice the number of threads in each core, thus a virtual 64 threads in eight cores! While Niagara has one floating point unit (FPU) shared by all 8 cores thus slowing down the floating point performance, Niagara 2 will have an FPU for each core. It’ll also run with a higher clock rate. So it will be a complete server-on-a-chip when it comes out next year. Seems to be the most interesting processor at present.

More about Niagara 1 at :

Acehardware www.aceshardware.com/read_news.jsp?id=80000603 />

about Niagara 2 :

Official Sun doc: www.opensparc.net/publications/presentations/niagara-2-a-highly-threaded-server-on-a-chip.html />

and

News.com

news.com.com/Suns+Niagara+2+doubles+down+with+twice+the+threads/210-41006_3-6108880.html />

Cell processor info at

Offician IBM link : www.research.ibm.com/cell />

article source :

Quick overview of Wind River hypervisor on Freescale’s P2020 multicore process. Great value prop for network equipment needing dataplane acceleration

More Multicore Processor Articles

Need help with a custom PC… What should I get?

Question by wabbit sniper: Need help with a custom PC… What should I get?
Okay, well, honestly I’m not a big techie but I do know some things but I just don’t have experience with them. I would like to know about the 4 major components of a PC and your opinion on each (other stuff like hard drive, disc burner, etc. are all covered.)

Presuming I am on a 00 budget… Please answer ANY of the questions as clearly and descriptively as possible!!! Thank you so much! =D

CPU:

1) Intel or AMD? I’ve heard Intel is more expensive but more efficient, cooler, uses less power, etc. while AMD is very powerful but uses a lot of wattage (will 500 watts be enough for a power supply?)

2) Dual Core or Quad Core? Not much software out there can handle or are designed to be used in quad core systems (I’ve heard) which can make them kind of redundant/useless… So 3.0 ghz dual core or 2.0 ghz quad core? (Gamers, please no “10 ghz maxed out overclocked super fast gaming CPU” lol… remember, 00 budget!!!)

RAM:

1) Does 667mhz and 800mhz really make a difference even if they’re both, say, 4 gigabytes? Also what brand would you recommend?

GRAPHICS CARD:

1) nVidia GeForce or ATI Radeon? Is there really a difference?

2) Is the Radeon HD 4850 a good video card? Let’s say I want to do casual gaming (like once or twice a week to relieve stress) but with demanding games like Command & Conquer or Call of Duty 4. Also I will use rendering programs and 3D graphics programs and Adobe Flash and programs as such.

3) How about the nVidia 9800 GTX?

4) How much video card memory is necessary and how much is overkill? IMO 512mb might be enough… (NOT RAM)

LAST ONE: NETWORK CARD

1) What is a “gigabit” network card? All the people at forums are like “Dude get a gigabit network card if you want less lag”

2) What do the numbers 10/100/1000 mean? is 10/100 better than 10/100/1000?

Best answer:

Answer by Gergy008
CPU:

Ok, You are best off with a quad core intel CPU for gaming. General use, I’d get an AMD Phenom x3.

RAM:

The higher the MHZ the faster it goes, Depending on your motherboards FSB speed.

GRAPHICS:

Radeon HD 4850 is fine. Even better if you get the AMD Processor too.

NETWORK CARD:

Gigabit, It’s a new gen speed for Ethernet connections.

10/100/1000 is how fast (in mBps) the card runs at. Get 10/100/1000 if possible, It’s faster.

Give your answer to this question below!

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Convert Multicore processor speeds?

Question by brian577: Convert Multicore processor speeds?
The specs for Left 4 Dead 2 say it needs a 3GHz Pentium 4 minimum, but recommends a 2.4 Core2Duo. How are single core speeds converted into multicore speeds?

Best answer:

Answer by Proto
They don’t translate directly- the design enhancements introduced with the original Core 2 Duos made them much more efficient at lower clock speeds than older Pentium 4 and Pentium-D chips. They also use less energy, generate less heat and overclock more readily.

Once Core 2 Duos arrived on the market, it was no longer possible to rank CPUs just based upon the Ghz rating, because other factors play significant roles in overall performance.

And of course applications are which are coded to take advantage of multiple cores (i.e. multi-threaded) see even greater benefits from dual and quad core CPUs than old single core designs.

As a VERY rough estimate, perhaps multiply by 1.75 (but that’s not really accurate). Basically, even the highest clocked single core CPUs don’t come anywhere near the performance of modern dual, triple and higher core CPUs.

For example, even the original 1.87Ghz Core 2 Duo was faster at performing single tasks than a Pentium 4 clocked at 3.6Ghz.

Here are the passmark rankings, which aren’t all that useful since apps which aren’t multi-threaded don’t run any faster on a quad than a dual core assuming they’re running at the same clock speed. But there’s a significant gap between either of those CPUs and a single-core.