bobobologna said:
goddog said:
HappySqurriel said:
goddog said:
HappySqurriel said:
Since the PS3 was launched the Cell has gone from being manufactured using a 90nm process to a 45nm process which means that they could (theoritically speaking) fit 4 cell processors on the same die as they initially produced the cell processor on; by the time the PS4 comes out (in 2011/2012) it is possible that it will be manufactured using a 22nm process which means you would be able to fir 16 cell processors on the same die as they initially produced the PS3's cell processor on.
The processor that is used in the PS4 will probably accept the same instruction set as the Cell processor from the PS3 but I suspect that its architecture will have changed quite a bit in order to make it easier to develop for, and to increase its real world performance.
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the problem with that is the master cores, would need some sot of manager to performe tasks properly otherwise it would nto be able to function, its far easier to add more spe's. the multi cell chip would have a master core for each of the other main cores, this would limit speed, and create a net loss of processing power, this is true in any multicore set up, but much more true in the cell due to its parent child relation with processing. so no i doubt they would go that way unless its a two per chip set up and one is modified to be dedicated gpu, and the other handles all other tasks. otherwise its a terrible idea
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My personal expectations for the cell processor are (probably) quite a bit different from what it will end up being ...
In general, algorithms are either not (easily) parallizable, able to be split into a small number of parallel processes (typically because they require synchronization), or are able to be split into practically limitless parallel processes (because they're implicitly asynchronous). As time goes on and processors become designed with a greater focus on parallel processing there will be a greater focus on asynchronous algorithms and having a large number of cores will be a better approach than having more powerful cores ... currently this is not the case.
With this in mind, I wouldn't be (that) surprised to see all CPUs in the next generation to have a very small number of conventional cores (4 to 8) and a large number of much simpler processors (spes, stream processors) ...
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this would imply sub dedicated processors which is the best way to go to keep effcientcy up when multiprocessing parrelle will always have snags, one waiting on data from another processors que, which must be transfered thus incressing chance of curuption, and repition to finnish the task or crash
whats funny i think, is this is taking us back to the 80s, when we had coprocessors for all kinds of things.
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What's the difference with what Intel did? They slapped 2 Core 2 Duos on the same die and called it a day. Well, they called it a quad-core. And it managed to outperform AMD's "real" quadcore architecture. So what would stop Sony from slapping together 2 or more Cell processors together? Assuming that there's enough bandwidth for the processors to communicate with each other without creating bottlenecks, I think it would work fine. Unless there's something I'm missing here.
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it has to due with how the cell hands out directions to spes, it complcates the instruction set, and wait times for data, and on a multi cpu system, would cause huge bottleneck in wait time, and drastic incress in complexity, it could be done, but the performance hit would most likly out strip any gain, where as incressing spes, the easiest solution would keep instruction sets simple and require minimal changes.
in short instruction set complexity, and parrelle programing for cell will be drasticaly diffrent then that of mor etradtional cpu tecks like x86, and powerpc. as for amd/duo, with each core increase you lose a % of horse power from raw output and progaming becomes more complex, alot of the quad cores problems come from apps and os not being able to take advantage of it. windows depending on version is core restricted, so that could play into it. pc games for the most part are just now entering in to dual core much les quad
