backtop

Print 42 comment(s) - last by dark matter.. on Sep 2 at 5:10 PM
New processor offers improved multi-threading and memory performance compared to previous generations

Each year at Stanford University the giants of the microprocessor industry come to the Hot Chips conference to showcase their newest and most powerful processors. During the conference the chips are run through benchmarks and one will walk away with bragging rights of the fastest processor available.

At this year's conference, IBM is tossing its new Power7 CPU into the fray and many expect it to walk away with a win against new products from Sun, Intel, and AMD. The Power7 CPU is an eight-core CPU that is built using a 45nm process. Much of the expected performance improvements in the chip are not in clock speed, but in the processors ability to work in parallel and in the amount of cache it has.

Power7 is expected to support as much or more cache than the competition and have bandwidth for threads and memory bandwidth as high as any of the competing chips.

Analyst Nathan Brookwood from Insight64 said, "I am sure Power7 will be the fastest processor around, probably faster than Intel's Nehalem in some benchmarks."

Among the advances in the Power7 CPU is the use of a mix of SRAM and embedded DRAM technology. The two types of memory are packed into one die along with the processor; previous generations of the Power processor from IBM used separate dies.

IBM's Bill Starke said, "We knew when we hit this level of multi-core design, we would have to make the shift (to one die for CPU and cache). We've been talking about this for several processor generations."

The Power7 has an eDRAM cache and a few other tricks that allow IBM to go beyond the 300Gb/second bandwidth range. The CPU runs a lower clock frequency than the Power6 CPU it replaces did, but makes up for that with better support for multithreading, which has been bumped from two threads per core to as many as four per core.

IBM is reportedly running systems in its labs with up to 32 of the Power7 CPUs inside.

Comments     Threshold


This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
Apples to Apples
By Ammohunt on 8/25/2009 2:07:18 PM , Rating: 4
quote:
Analyst Nathan Brookwood from Insight64 said, "I am sure Power7 will be the fastest processor around, probably faster than Intel's Nehalem in some benchmarks."


in some benchmarks and in other not that being said all you need to do is compare the price of a Power 7 cpu vs. Nehalem and you will quickly see the winner of the Price vs. performance debate.




RE: Apples to Apples
By chick0n on 8/26/2009 11:54:46 AM , Rating: 2
IN a server environment. money is not an issue ... well it is at some point, but space is an issue.


gstar coogi evisu true jeans $36;
By on 8/28/2009 10:16:39 PM , Rating: 2
HTTP://www.crispstyle.com

the website kicksquality :/ for many kinds of fashion shoes, like the

nike,jordan,prama,****, also including the jeans,shirts,bags,hat and the

decorations. All the products are free shipping, and the the price is competitive,

and also can accept the paypal payment.,after the payment, can ship within short

time.

free shipping
competitive price
any size available
accept the paypal

our price:
gstar coogi evisu true jeans $36;

coach chanel gucci LV handbags $32;

coogi DG edhardy gucci t-shirts $15;

CA edhardy vests.paul smith shoes $35;

jordan dunk af1 max gucci shoes $33;

EDhardy gucci ny New Era cap $15;

coach okely **** CHANEL DG Sunglass $16;

http://www.crispstyle.com/productlist.asp?id=s28 ( JORDAN SHOES )

http://www.crispstyle.com/productlist.asp?id=s1 ( Ed Hardy )

http://www.crispstyle.com/productlist.asp?id=s5 ( Bikini )

http://www.crispstyle.com/productlist.asp?id=s6 ( T-Shirt )

http://www.crispstyle.com/productlist.asp?id=s29 ( Nike_shox )

http://www.crispstyle.com/productlist.asp?id=s21 ( Air_max_man )

http://www.crispstyle.com/productlist.asp?id=s65 ( Handbag )

http://www.crispstyle.com/productlist.asp?id=s11 ( Jeans )

http://www.crispstyle.com/productlist.asp?id=s6 ( Polo tshirt )




By on 8/30/2009 9:33:23 AM , Rating: 2
http://www.crispstyle.com

bikini$25

(air jordan, air max, shox tn, rift, puma, dunk sb, adidas)

nike jordan shoes 1-24 $32

lv, coach, chane bag $35

COOGI(jeans, tshirts, hoody, jacket) $30

christian audigier(jeans, tshirts, hoody) $13

edhardy(shoes, tshirts, jeans, caps, watche, handbag) $25

Armani(jeans, tshirts,) $24

AF(jeans, coat, hoody, sweater, tshirts)Abercrombie & Fitch $31

http://www.crispstyle.com




Why?
By dark matter on 8/25/09, Rating: -1
RE: Why?
By omnicronx on 8/25/2009 11:32:27 AM , Rating: 5
Perhaps Supercomputing.. these chips definitely won't be used in the desktop environment, and probably won't be used in the conventional server market either. Last check PPC holds 3 of the top 5 positions in the 500 top supercomputer list.


RE: Why?
By dark matter on 8/25/09, Rating: -1
RE: Why?
By omnicronx on 8/25/2009 4:55:49 PM , Rating: 5
I really don't think you understand that your point is irrelevant, this is not a consumer chip.

It seems like your 'point' has something to do with diminishing returns for desktop CPU's in terms of increasing speed. So what exactly does this have to do with an article about an IBM chip that will be used in high performance computing?

As soon as you see the words IBM and POWER in the same sentence, you know you have left the realm of consumer chips.


RE: Why?
By someguy123 on 8/26/2009 1:35:43 AM , Rating: 3
most obvious troll in history.


RE: Why?
By defter on 8/26/09, Rating: -1
RE: Why?
By randomly on 8/26/2009 8:32:48 AM , Rating: 2
yes it is. Same instruction set, same processor family.


RE: Why?
By StevoLincolnite on 8/25/2009 11:35:41 AM , Rating: 4
Well for starters the PowerPC is not an x86 based processor, so forget running Windows on it without some form of Emulation in place.

Secondly there are other markets for high-performance processors, like the Current generation of consoles, each with a PowerPC variant.

Then you have to look at the History of computers, Software will always take advantage of the lowest common denominator in the Consumer market, I remember a time when most people were using 400-500mhz based processors, and Intel and AMD were racing to the 1ghz barrier, most of us thought that performance of that level would never be required. (Now we need more).

All in all, the Faster processors get, the more we can do, and the more advanced the software becomes to take advantage of it.


RE: Why?
By dark matter on 8/25/09, Rating: -1
RE: Why?
By RjBass on 8/25/2009 5:25:38 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
by dark matter on August 25, 2009 at 2:50 PM

Really? Word processing and browsing the net require faster computers than what we have already.


I know their is supposed to be no such thing as a stupid question, but c'mon here.

As the internet matures, and as software matures, it requires more horsepower under the hood to deliver the vast amounts of information that people require.

Have you ever tried to surf todays internet on a computer built back in 96? Even with a high speed pipe coming in, it is still really slow.

As more and more flash, Java, and other enhancers are added to web pages, and as that technology increases, we will need faster systems to ensure we can view what we want properly. Thus the need for cpu's, memory, and storage devices to get faster and better.


RE: Why?
By B3an on 8/26/2009 5:33:22 PM , Rating: 2
You shouldn't even bother trying to reply to such an obvious troll. And if they're not a troll, they're one seriously thick person.


RE: Why?
By dark matter on 9/2/2009 5:10:00 PM , Rating: 2
Really. Oh well, soz genius.


RE: Why?
By defter on 8/26/2009 3:25:40 AM , Rating: 2
For starters Power is not PowerPC based processor


RE: Why?
By randomly on 8/26/2009 8:40:25 AM , Rating: 2
Except the Power architecture implements the full PowerPC instruction set and you can run PowerPC code on it. That's close enough for me.


RE: Why?
By nafhan on 8/25/2009 11:36:13 AM , Rating: 3
It looks like you answered your own question, as this chip will never be used in a desktop/home environment.


RE: Why?
By FITCamaro on 8/25/2009 11:53:48 AM , Rating: 1
Yup. The Power series lost its desktop home when Mac switched to Intel.


RE: Why?
By defter on 8/26/2009 3:26:27 AM , Rating: 2
Power series CPUs were never used in Macs


RE: Why?
By eddieroolz on 8/28/2009 6:05:35 PM , Rating: 2
PowerPC Processor, G3-G5


RE: Why?
By dark matter on 8/25/09, Rating: -1
RE: Why?
By BigT383 on 8/25/2009 3:21:36 PM , Rating: 1
Programmers can always take advantage of more hardware capabilities. Just look at the famous "640K ought to be enough for anybody" quote, usually attributed to Bill Gates.


RE: Why?
By cjc1103 on 8/28/2009 10:02:22 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Programmers can always take advantage of more hardware capabilities. Just look at the famous "640K ought to be enough for anybody" quote, usually attributed to Bill Gates.

Except that Bill Gates didn't say that, and that qote has ben widely debunked. If you would do some rudimentary checking you would know. Here's the first hit I found on Google:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates


RE: Why?
By 91TTZ on 8/25/2009 3:38:17 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Well spotted sir. I was merely bringing the point that I believe desktops are at their peak, there is no need for a faster computer in the home.


That's a really myopic statement. It seems that there are always people boldly proclaiming that chips are as fast as they need to be, and that it's unlikely that there's no use for anything faster. However, history always proves them wrong.


RE: Why?
By The0ne on 8/25/2009 4:24:13 PM , Rating: 3
It's stale for the time being with anyone having 3GHz and up. There are very few applications that can take advantage of the speed. And even so you have bottlenecks with other parts of the system. These needs improvement as well.

But as with all software related things, there will always be managers that push programmers to write nasty, bloated *vista*, inefficient, visually appealing, etc., applications to take advantage or in this case hog up the resources. So no worries, it's the same old rules :)


RE: Why?
By omnicronx on 8/25/2009 4:59:20 PM , Rating: 2
Well depending on what you do, this is not far off from the truth. If all you do is web browse, watch videos and listen to music, the processor is probably not the bottleneck.

HD's are definitely the bottleneck (all around), and in my opinion an SSD is a much better upgrade these days than a CPU with a few more ghz.


RE: Why?
By HrilL on 8/25/2009 7:22:08 PM , Rating: 2
While I agree the HDD is a big bottle neck If you're playing the latest games having an SSD will help it load faster but it won't give you better FPS unless you're constantly using the page file because of lack of RAM. Since you'll probably be playing online you won't have to wait for your computer to load you'll just have to wait for everyone else to load. Having a better CPU will give you better performance while actually playing and that to me is more important then a few seconds less of load time that doesn't matter because you got to wait for people to play with...


RE: Why?
By rudy on 8/25/2009 11:39:27 AM , Rating: 2
Are you asking why for IBM or why for making faster chips? Obviously any speed increase is good. For IBM they make super computers and specialized chips for gaming consoles and such. Also during the process they develop new technology ang get patents which gives them more sources of revenue. If IBM were able to pull ahead of x86 cpus by a very large margin they could be looking at a shift away from intel and amd. But that would take a significant lead that intel and amd could not match in the next 2 years or so.


RE: Why?
By Shadowself on 8/25/2009 12:13:32 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
If IBM were able to pull ahead of x86 cpus by a very large margin they could be looking at a shift away from intel and amd. But that would take a significant lead that intel and amd could not match in the next 2 years or so.


Actually it will take much more than just a simple technological lead for IBM to really get back into the desktops and take any share from Intel and AMD.

Think back to the PowerPC 603e days and the some PowerPC 604 variants. Many of these were significantly faster at processing data and number crunching than either Intel or AMD processors. (In fact, for a short while some PowerPC processors were barred from being sold to international customers without specific authorization from the U.S. Department of State because they were so fast. -- Then State updated their rules to get with the real world.)

Did these fast processors make a real difference on what the average consumer bought? No. (Ignoring the Apple Fanboy group's loud protest of this simple fact.) The vast majority of consumers still bought Intel or AMD processors.

If you are going to get people to support something other than the X86 instruction set you need much, much more than just a significantly faster processor.


RE: Why?
By Lightnix on 8/25/2009 11:44:14 AM , Rating: 2
There is no reason for home users to be excited. The POWER series processors are extremely high-end chips usually used for servers and super computers. The technology behind it will likely make it into IBM's PowerPC line, however, which console users might get excited about.


RE: Why?
By Lightnix on 8/25/2009 11:48:47 AM , Rating: 2
Just to clarify, this processor is the sort of thing that competes with products like Intel Itanium, Sun UltraSPARC, and to a lesser extent AMD Opterons and Intel Xeons.


RE: Why?
By amanojaku on 8/25/2009 11:56:52 AM , Rating: 5
quote:
There is no reason for home users to be excited.
Oops. The Wii. The PS3. The 360. All PowerPC derivatives. All reasons home users should be excited. Just in case.


RE: Why?
By Camikazi on 8/26/2009 6:22:39 PM , Rating: 2
That's why he said console users might be excited :) read entire post before commenting.


RE: Why?
By Shadowself on 8/25/2009 12:04:24 PM , Rating: 3
Finally, someone who understands the difference between POWER (Performance Optimized With Enhanced RISC) processors and PowerPC processors!

When POWER was first introduced 20 years ago it was a CPU that in and of itself was a combination of either 7 or 5 chips depending upon the variant you used. (Yes, the CPU was multiple chips.) PowerPC did not come along until the AIM alliance (Apple, IBM and Motorola). The original PowerPC was based upon the single chip variant of the POWER CPU that came along at IBM (coming quite a while after the initial multiple chip variant), the Motorola 88000 (NOT the 68000 as some would have you believe) and tweaking for optimizations for Apple's OS. That fell apart and only IBM is directly involved with PowerPC anymore.

The POWER chips have always been very power hungry with huge thermal envelopes. They have always been developed for servers (either data or compute servers including supers) and for very, very high end workstations and visualization systems. PowerPC was to be the commodity chip.

The technologies developed for POWER CPUs do often filter down into the PowerPC line and even the CELL line of processors.


RE: Why?
By amanojaku on 8/25/2009 1:40:21 PM , Rating: 2
There are a few inaccuracies here. First, the PowerPC is being developed by Power.org, an open standards body. There are three major companies involved with PowerPC: original members IBM and Freescale (formerly a division of Motorola,) and new member AMCC.

Second, the POWER architecture originally was one CPU (1990.) The "variants" were really differences in the number of cores. 10 cores on a chip for servers and one for workstations. The first true variant was the PowerPC (1992,) although it blurred the line between variant and derivative. All POWER CPUs can execute PowerPC code natively, with little or no modification. Which means an IBM POWER server with the right hardware can be a game console capable of playing Wii, PS3 and 360 games. Simultaneously.

Third, the PowerPC is the source of embedded CPUs (1995,) which are always (meant to be) low power. The POWER architecture is VERY power efficient, but generally worked harder than other systems considering it's much more capable than any x86 platform.

Developments in the POWER architecture absolutely make their way into PowerPC and CELL processors and ASICs, and vice versa. The POWER4 was used to design CELL, while the RS64 was a hybrid of PowerPC and POWER. PowerPC is largely dead, having been reduced to ASIC status while being replaced by CELL.


RE: Why?
By Shadowself on 8/25/2009 7:19:36 PM , Rating: 2
Actually, you need to check history before you post.

The PowerPC is currently being developed under the auspices of Power.org under the watchful eye of IBM. Freescale has all but abandoned any real PowerPC effort. (In fact virtually all PowerPC development stopped after the G5 debacle! And that was a old "Book E" variant.) It was first developed in the early 90s by the AIM consortium as I mentioned. The PowerPC was NEVER a variant of the POWER chip or chip set. It was, as I said, a merge of the technologies from IBM and Motorola with kibitzing on the side by Apple.

The POWER chip set was initially a 5 or 7 chip system of chips to create one CPU. I know. I was working with them. I was there at the roll out! The initial chip set was focussed on a single "core" design. It was not multiple cores across multiple chips. The single chip variant did NOT come out until later. Maybe you're thinking of some of the workstations that came out a bit later.

While, with proper exception handling, virtually all POWER CPU variants can execute PowerPC code (and probably vice versa), it is inappropriate to state that they do so "natively". Implementing appropriate exception handling is not the same as "natively". While the instruction sets over the years have varied from variation to variation of each of the POWER CPUs and the PowerPC CPUs the instruction sets at no time have been 100% the same across POWER and PowerPC. (I got into this with IBM in the 90s over the RAD6000 [the first rad hard variant of the single chip POWER CPU] when we were using PowerPC based UNIX systems to generate and test software for the RAD6000 based space processor.

The POWER systems were rarely designed around power efficiency. In some cases the early multi-core systems were frighteningly power hungry.

To state that
quote:
Developments in the POWER architecture absolutely make their way into PowerPC and CELL processors and ASICs, and vice versa.
is naive at best. For example, server specific aspects of POWER 5 will never make it into a CELL processor. They just don't make sense in that market.


RE: Why?
By flgt on 8/25/2009 10:21:56 PM , Rating: 2
I think you need to look at the individual markets. IBM has chosen to hand over their low-power embedded PowerPC products to AMCC and Freescale. They still have the high-end desktop and performance computing products inhouse.

It seems like IBM's business model is now focused on providing fab services and R&D, at least in semiconductors.


RE: Why?
By amanojaku on 8/26/2009 3:51:12 AM , Rating: 2
For someone who claims to have been there when it all started you sure weren't paying much attention. Then again, you aren't paying attention now.

1) I already mentioned the stalled development of PowerPC.
quote:
PowerPC is largely dead, having been reduced to ASIC status while being replaced by CELL.
And Freescale still develops and sells embedded chips based on PowerPC: http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/taxonomy.... That being said, PowerPC development is based on POWER specs, so updating PowerPC is no issue.

2) About that:
quote:
The RSC implementation of the POWER1 microprocessor was used as the central processor for the Mars Pathfinder mission and is the chip from which the PowerPC line is descended.
quote:
The first 64-bit symmetric multiprocessor (SMP), POWER3 is completely compatible with the original POWER instruction set—and compatible with the PowerPC instruction set as well.
quote:
the POWER4 is the single most powerful chip on the market today. It inherited all of the characteristics of the POWER3—including compatibility with the PowerPC instruction set
quote:
Like the POWER3 and POWER4, the POWER5 unifies the POWER and PowerPC architectures.
quote:
Born of an alliance between Apple, IBM, and Motorola (also known as the AIM alliance), the PowerPC was based on POWER, but with a number of differences.

3) The POWER Architecture started with ONE chip, the IBM 801.
quote:
IBM's four families of processors—the POWER architecture, the PowerPC family of processors, the Star chips, and even the line of chips that power IBM mainframes—all have a common ancestor: the IBM 801.
quote:
POWER™ and PowerPC microprocessors have a long and storied past, starting with the IBM 801 and progressing in a none-too-linear fashion with the POWER, RS64, and PowerPC chip lines.
It first branched with the PowerPC architecture, then RS4, which died, then CELL. Of them all, the PowerPC is the most diverse having been designed for the lowest power envelope. It can be found anywhere (not so much, because of competitors like Broadcom) like routers, switches, watches, etc... POWER itself was fairly limited in design choices. You got fast, faster, and fastest. You wanted diversity you went PowerPC.

4) Considering all POWER CPUs are designed with *ahem* PowerPC compatibility I will go out on a limb and say POWER has native support for PowerPC.

5) POWER CPUs were the first to use SOI (the very first was the RS64) and low-k dielectrics. Both lower power consumption, while improving performance.

6) Oh, and AMD licensed SOI. And it showed up in the PowerPC. And in the CPUs in the Wii, PS3, and Xbox.

7) As for Cell getting features... The Cell design team chooses which POWER features they want. When Cell was created POWER4 was current, so they took the POWER4 design spec and redesigned it for Cell. In other words, if a performance enhancement in POWER makes sense for Cell then it will end up in Cell 2.0 or whatever.

http://www.devx.com/ibm/Article/20944
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-...


RE: Why?
By tim851 on 8/25/2009 8:02:28 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
But for the desktop market, I don't see how further progression in the speed of chips is going to help.


What an incredibly unreflected thing to say. Just because you and your mom don't do anything besides surfing and mailing and word processing doesn't mean nobody else does.

There's a large number of digital natives dabbling in Photoshopping, Video-Editing, 3D-Modelling, Animation, Programming, Level Editing and whatnot. They are all looking forward to ever faster and cheaper processors.

Now you can say they are a "niche" and not the mainstream, but 20 years ago that niche began surfing and mailing when people like you were still using typewriters and the U.S. Postal Service and 10 years ago that niche started listing to MP3s and watching crappy digitalized videos on their PCs when people like you were shaking their heads using CD-Players and Video recorders.

At any given point in the past 20 years an off the shelf Compaq PC was more than overkill for the limited use of limited users. That never meant there wasn't a need for ever evolving hardware and it still doesn't mean that.


"It looks like the iPhone 4 might be their Vista, and I'm okay with that." -- Microsoft COO Kevin Turner











botimage
Copyright 2012 DailyTech LLC. - RSS Feed | Advertise | About Us | Ethics | FAQ | Terms, Conditions & Privacy Information | Kristopher Kubicki