Cell article finally done and more
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 17, 2005 11:22 AM EST- Posted in
- Anand
After far too long, the Cell article is finally done. I finished it over the weekend and it's finally up, I hope you all enjoy it.
With Cell out of the way, I've got a handful of other things that I'm working on.
ASUS has announced a very interesting adapter for a couple of their Socket-478 motherboards - it allows the use of Pentium M processors on ASUS Pentium 4 motherboards. The implications are pretty huge, but I'll save discussion for the actual review. Vinney is on her spring break right now so we flew down to Raleigh for the week. We head back Sunday morning, so I'll be able to start testing the ASUS adapter then.
I finally got ATI's Theater 550, which I've been looking forward to testing ever since I first heard about it almost a year ago. I'm not sure if I'll take a look at it in the form of an individual review or if I'll turn it into a high end TV tuner roundup, but I'll keep you posted.
That's all for now, we're taking care of a lot of house related stuff while we're in Raleigh. We break ground on our house on Monday, unfortunately after we've already left.
Take care.
With Cell out of the way, I've got a handful of other things that I'm working on.
ASUS has announced a very interesting adapter for a couple of their Socket-478 motherboards - it allows the use of Pentium M processors on ASUS Pentium 4 motherboards. The implications are pretty huge, but I'll save discussion for the actual review. Vinney is on her spring break right now so we flew down to Raleigh for the week. We head back Sunday morning, so I'll be able to start testing the ASUS adapter then.
I finally got ATI's Theater 550, which I've been looking forward to testing ever since I first heard about it almost a year ago. I'm not sure if I'll take a look at it in the form of an individual review or if I'll turn it into a high end TV tuner roundup, but I'll keep you posted.
That's all for now, we're taking care of a lot of house related stuff while we're in Raleigh. We break ground on our house on Monday, unfortunately after we've already left.
Take care.
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uncertain_nitpicker - Monday, March 21, 2005 - link
"For example, Itanium has an extremely large instruction window to feed its execution units, while the Pentium 4 has a significantly smaller one in order to hit higher clock speeds." (page 7)Doesn't Itanium as an in-order core lack any kind of instruction (reorder) window?
Rike - Saturday, March 19, 2005 - link
And congrats on breaking ground! Just make sure you have your architect make site visits often. Builders tend to like to do things their own way, especially on detail work, and not follow the architect’s plan. Make the builders stick to the original vision and don't take excuses. That may be your mom's job more than yours though. Isn't she your eyes and ears down there while you're in CT? Anyway, congrats again on building your own place. Not too many things cooler than that.David Smith - Friday, March 18, 2005 - link
yknott:1) In between the SPEs is a rectangular section that's marked "EIB" on some of the pictures you can find around the web. That stands for Element Interconnect Bus, iirc, and is how the SPEs (and other elements of the chip) talk to each other. It's a multi-ring topology. realworldtech.com covers it in some detail.
2) Presumably that's the PPE's job, since if you've got a CELL as your processor all you have to work with is a PPE and 8 SPEs.
One thing I would be interested in hearing about is the possible relationships between the PPE and the Xbox Next processor. Discussion on arstechnica has lead to the conclusion that it likely uses a 3 core PPE system with no SPEs, and probably some tweaking (a shared cache, for example), but it's always interesting to get more information/guesses/opinions.
yknott - Friday, March 18, 2005 - link
Anand,Great article on the Cell. Very informative. I only have two questions. I dont know if you can answer them.
1. How do the SPE's talk to each other? Do they talk through the PPE or is there some interconnect a la Hypertransport?
2. Do you know how scheduling will be tackled? In other words, is there a "master cpu" telling each SPE what to do, or will this all be handled by OS?
Once again, thanks for the great article. I've been reading Anandtech for over 6 years now. Your site is one of the reasons I decided to persue a degree in Computer Engineering 4 years ago. It's great learning stuff in class and seeing its application explained on your site.
Keep up the great work!
-yknott
Guspaz - Thursday, March 17, 2005 - link
Indeed, the ASUS adapter is big news. It will significantly lower the cost of building a desktop Pentium M. With the recent huge pricecut in Pentium Ms, and now this adapter saving a load of cash on expensive Pentium M motherboards, the cost of entry is way lower.Nate Solberg - Thursday, March 17, 2005 - link
Anand,I personally would love to see a higher end wrap-up to HDTV/TV tuners. Personally, I'm looking to upgrade soon, and I believe that many people would like to know what's really available for those new HTPC's out there. A couple questions I'd love to see tackled:
1. Of course, inputs and outputs of each.
2. Video quality with ATI and nVidia graphics cards.
3. Sound quality.
4. Encoding performance.
5. HDTV support.
6. (should be my number one) Anything less than $750 with analog HDTV inputs? Over the air is great, but what about the future with HD-DVD players, PS3/Next Box, and the like coming out?
I'm sure no matter what it'll be a great read into the HTPC revolution.
wedge - Thursday, March 17, 2005 - link
GREAT article on the Cell, Anand. I loved reading every bit of it! Definitely gave a lot of insight into the Cell and broke through alot of the hype we've been hearing. Thanks!!!