heruamon said:
joeorc said:
Ascended_Saiyan3 said:
heruamon said:
joeorc said:
Fishie said:
klarklar said:
so ya the chips are fairly equal, I completely agree, but 3 cores versus 7(or 6,they say one is turned off). Ps3 defiantly more powerful. problem is coding. |
Again, the CELL processor in the PS3 only has a single core.
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Dr. H. Peter Hofstee, Cell Chief Scientist and Cell Synergistic Processor Chief Architect ...
SAY'S the Cell Processor's SPE's are Cores
unless you are saying he's wrong
so that's now: 2 people from VGchartz that are saying the "Cell Chief Scientist" is wrong
Fishie
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The good Dr. is also making a sales pitch...but I do think it is multi-core, just not in a manner we are accustome to seeing it...ie...independent.
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Dr. Hofstee was making a sales pitch by telling the people what his creation is? BTW, the SPEs are "independent". Maybe you mean it's not in the manner you are accustom to seeing independent cores (i.e. not traditional identical CPU cores).
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yup they are:
From IBM's :
"The most distinguishing feature of the Cell Broadband Engine is that although all processors share main storage (the effective-address space that includes main memory), their function is specialized into two types -- the Power Processor Element (PPE) and the Synergistic Processor Element (SPE). The Cell Broadband Engine has one PPE and eight SPEs.
- The first type of processor, the PPE, is a 64-bit Power Architecture core. It is fully compliant with the 64-bit Power Architecture specification and can run 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems and applications.
- The second type of processor, the SPE, is optimized for running compute-intensive applications, and it is not optimized for running an operating system.
The SPEs are independent processors, each running its own individual application programs. Each SPE has full access to coherent shared memory, including the memory-mapped I/O space. The designation synergistic for this processor was chosen carefully -- there is a mutual dependence between the PPE and the SPEs. The combination of the two working in harmony produces a greater effect than each working alone. The SPEs depend on the PPE to run the operating system and, in many cases, the top-level control thread of an application. The PPE depends on the SPEs to provide the bulk of the application performance. "
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I'm not a programmer, but I do have a LITLLE bit of programming knowledge, but how would you differentiate between an independent, vice dependent processor? I guess, I look at the OS as having a bigger role than the Cell model...there is no slight meant by this comments, but this seems analogous to a terrorist organization, where the cells are independent, but are all tied to a central organization for core doctrine. Efficient and effective, but it has some downsides as well, and command and control can prove to be quite a challenge. A symbiotic relationship....and it's the developer that turns it into either the Borg or the Trill. It then is hard to say which one is better or worse, as it's a case by case basis.
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the processor's are geared toward working together to atain a goal.
from the stand point of what are the SPE cores good for? compared to the PPE
it depend's on what you want that SPE core to do , and what limitation's it may have and what thing's you can do to overcome the problem's
in codeing in the SPE..for example:
this was a great example of thing's they have tryed out on just the SPE by itself:
Network Processing on an SPE Core in Cell Broadband EngineTM
However, it is necessary to split execution codes and data
for the 256-KB LS, and codes and data must be swapped
as required via explicit DMA requests. This necessitates a
different programming technique from that used in conven-
tional processors, and increases the level of technical diffi-
culty in particular when porting existing large-scale appli-
cations.
now this pertain's just to the SPE's because they use Local store instead of Cache
look at page 5.
3.6 and how branch prediction was done on a SPE
www.hoti.org/archive/2008papers/2008_S4_3.pdf
