I did not realize we were so close to cheap, 32 core desktop computers

SOFTengCOMPelec

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May 9, 2013
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I MUST be joking, right ?

Or am I ?

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I'm still waiting for "cheap" hex core desktop cpus, so talk about 32 FULL cores, which are vaguely comparable to fast cpu cores (Arm Cortex-A57's), with full 64 bits, is bothersome to me.

DISCLAIMER: The article seems to be talking about "network equipment" (and/or server stuff) versions. But surely that means we are ever closer to 32 core desktop cpus.

Anyone who thinks I am being ever so slightly greedy, savouring over a 32 core chip, may take solace, in the following link:

Counter argument

I have to admit that we are quite some way from having lots of software which can usefully use ALL 32 cores, most of the time.
 

bmaverick

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Feb 20, 2010
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I have my AMD dual core with AMD vision. Nice to have two CPUs and one GPU together.
 

ElFenix

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it takes a very specialized workload to utilize that many cores. so, no, we're not.
 

SOFTengCOMPelec

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May 9, 2013
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it takes a very specialized workload to utilize that many cores. so, no, we're not.

I'm feeling hypocritical, because my main computer is a quad core Intel (8 threads), because the hex core extremes are too expensive and somewhat pointless (as mostly the extra cores are NOT used most of the time).

But if I wanted to play Computer Chess at the highest possible strength, or solve very complicated mathematical problems, and some other stuff, the extra cores could be very useful.

Analogy:
If my financial status in life, ever came to the point that I could buy a 250 mph super car, I may well buy it.
But on the roads, I'm not going to go anywhere near the 250 mph, or even 200 mph (since I NEVER drive above 199 mph on public roads, joke).

I.e. I think there are psychological reasons making me want more Ghz, cores, memory, hdd space, ever faster SSDs, etc.

In theory, widespread availability of 32 core CPUs, could see software, such as video editing, complex photo editing techniques, visual recognition, speech recognition and many other things being usefully developed, so maybe one day ...
 
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ElFenix

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I'm feeling hypocritical, because my main computer is a quad core Intel (8 threads), because the hex core extremes are too expensive and somewhat pointless (as mostly the extra cores are NOT used most of the time).

But if I wanted to play Computer Chess at the highest possible strength, or solve very complicated mathematical problems, and some other stuff, the extra cores could be very useful.

Analogy:
If my financial status in life, ever came to the point that I could buy a 250 mph super car, I may well buy it.
But on the roads, I'm not going to go anywhere near the 250 mph, or even 200 mph (since I NEVER drive above 199 mph on public roads, joke).

I.e. I think there are psychological reasons making me want more Ghz, cores, memory, hdd space, ever faster SSDs, etc.

In theory, widespread availability of 32 core CPUs, could see software, such as video editing, complex photo editing techniques, visual recognition, speech recognition and many other things being usefully developed, so maybe one day ...

that's what dual (or more) hex-core hyperthreaded xeons are for.

and to the extent any of those would work better on something massively parallel like a GPU, well, we need better software support because the hardware is there or rapidly getting there already.

(and arm cores, seriously? without specialized hardware paths are they even capable of transcoding on demand?)
 

beginner99

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Jun 2, 2009
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that's what dual (or more) hex-core hyperthreaded xeons are for.

The problem with does is that you loose the iGPU and especially QuickSync for trans coding. Also some games actually to profit from 6 cores. So a 6-core mainstream Intel CPU is about time. But then not even Skylake will have it....
 

SOFTengCOMPelec

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May 9, 2013
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that's what dual (or more) hex-core hyperthreaded xeons are for.

and to the extent any of those would work better on something massively parallel like a GPU, well, we need better software support because the hardware is there or rapidly getting there already.

(and arm cores, seriously? without specialized hardware paths are they even capable of transcoding on demand?)

Yes, those are good points, you have raised.

In practice 32 cores on a single CPU, would probably only be useful for a minority, of even software which could utilise all 32 cores.
Because the "bottle neck", would in most cases, move from being the lack of cores (e.g. On a dual or quad core), to being a memory access/bandwidth/other-limitations issue.
Or even that the SoC could only handle one or two cores, and any more would NOT produce any faster results.

Xeons (with many cores), albeit expensive, have been available for a long time. And despite this availability, there is relatively little mass core software available, in general.
Maybe the odd highly specialised task, here and there.

As you say, many things which can use many cores, would work even faster on the gpu.
 

ElFenix

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The problem with does is that you loose the iGPU and especially QuickSync for trans coding. Also some games actually to profit from 6 cores. So a 6-core mainstream Intel CPU is about time. But then not even Skylake will have it....

for the price of the switch that this networking processor is probably going into, you'd be able to get both some huge xeon and something with quicksync (why would you want that garbage when you can transcode on the fly with better fidelity?)
 

zir_blazer

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Jun 6, 2013
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What is exactly the wonderful thing about a non-x86 32 Core Processor? They're just a bunch of small, slow, minimalistic Cores to fit in a reasonable die size and power consumption, intended to scale in a parallel fashion. I can not run my current applications and games there. And even if you have Software that could scale to that amount of Threads and work in that architecture, you still have to measure final performance.
For that matter, currently available Xeons Phi have up to 61 Pentium-class Cores. If more Cores are better, you can't beat that.
 

SOFTengCOMPelec

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May 9, 2013
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What is exactly the wonderful thing about a non-x86 32 Core Processor? They're just a bunch of small, slow, minimalistic Cores to fit in a reasonable die size and power consumption, intended to scale in a parallel fashion. I can not run my current applications and games there. And even if you have Software that could scale to that amount of Threads and work in that architecture, you still have to measure final performance.
For that matter, currently available Xeons Phi have up to 61 Pentium-class Cores. If more Cores are better, you can't beat that.

Actually, you seem to be describing arm chips from a rather long time ago. They have significantly improved, by the time we are talking about the 64 bit Cortex A57's. They are much closer to the latest Intel CPUs, than you seem to be describing.
But problems with a lack of non-X86 software, is (I agree, and believe) a very real, and potentially serious challenge, especially in the short term.

The 32 core Arm chip, is probably more powerful than the 61 core phi chip.

The 61 core phi chips seem to be for highly specialised tasks, such as determining the tiny structures of tiny things which make up atoms.

The huge budgets such projects may attract, can pay for the team of highly experienced software experts, who find amazing ways of writing highly threaded/parallel software, which can calculate such things, and would take forever on a normal PC.
 

ShintaiDK

Lifer
Apr 22, 2012
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Actually, you seem to be describing arm chips from a rather long time ago. They have significantly improved, by the time we are talking about the 64 bit Cortex A57's. They are much closer to the latest Intel CPUs, than you seem to be describing.
But problems with a lack of non-X86 software, is (I agree, and believe) a very real, and potentially serious challenge, especially in the short term.

The 32 core Arm chip, is probably more powerful than the 61 core phi chip.

The 61 core phi chips seem to be for highly specialised tasks, such as determining the tiny structures of tiny things which make up atoms.

The huge budgets such projects may attract, can pay for the team of highly experienced software experts, who find amazing ways of writing highly threaded/parallel software, which can calculate such things, and would take forever on a normal PC.

A57 is still far far away performance wise. And its worse off in performance/W than Atoms that also beats it.
 

SOFTengCOMPelec

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A57 is still far far away performance wise. And its worse off in performance/W than Atoms that also beats it.

Despite being VERY interested in knowing how the Arm Cortex A-57 performs, compared to a Haswell (or similar), I have not been able to find any significantly reliable/useful information on this.
Part of the problem is that the Arm A-57 is taking time to reach the market, e.g. AMD's version 8 core A1100 server version, slated for Sept 2014 (I'm not sure if that is the release date, or ready to buy date, probably 2015 is more realistic, to buy it).
(I know Apple have already released stuff).

The other problem is that the benchmarks can be run over differing operating systems, and using potentially unreliable, especially cross platform techniques.
E.g. Measuring web browser performance, across platforms/operating-systems and even browser versions, etc.

I'm quite happy to accept the Arm A-57 is NO Haswell, performance wise.

I have also heard that the Arm A-57 is NOT especially power efficient, and is part of the reason for the big.little approach, which I know you said you dislike that way of doing things (if I remember correctly).

------------------------------------------------------------

It's a bit of a crazy situation, as I see it.

Intel are desperately trying to move into the small hand held devices market (and similar), cpu wise. i.e. Arms stronghold.

And Arm are trying to move into the upmarket higher performance cpu server/desktop market. i.e. Intels stronghold.

My opinion is that I can't see Intel having much success with the low end of the cpu market.

But I have split feelings, as regards Arm.
I think the lower end of the desktop market (all-in-ones, web browsing only computers, non-gaming PCs) and Microservers/low-end-servers and stuff like that, are right up Arms street.

But I don't think Arm are geared up correctly for the high end server chips (Xeons), powerful desktop market, gaming PCs etc.
Low price and/or low power consumption of the cpu are NOT the main deciding factors when you are talking about a $10,000 Server or $2,000 gaming PC.

Then there is the huge history and software base, in various incarnations of X86 (32, 64 bit, SSE2, etc etc), which is VERY significant.

E.g. How many modern/latest PC games, run on Linux-X86 ? (Let alone a non-X86 processor).

So interesting times ahead.
 
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NTMBK

Lifer
Nov 14, 2011
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A57 is still far far away performance wise. And its worse off in performance/W than Atoms that also beats it.

Oh, you've seen some independent measurements have you? Care to share them with us?
 

ShintaiDK

Lifer
Apr 22, 2012
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Oh, you've seen some independent measurements have you? Care to share them with us?

Unless you believe in some sort of performance miracle for the A57. Then AMD gives us a clue in direct compare what we deal with.

4-8 A57 cores, 15-30W. Clocks expected around 2Ghz.

Avoton gives you 4 to 8 cores in the 9-20W range. With max clocks hitting 2.4Ghz base, 2.6Ghz turbo.

By the time A57 finally comes, 14nm Avoton successor is not far away.
 
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NTMBK

Lifer
Nov 14, 2011
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Unless you believe in some sort of performance miracle for the A57. Then AMD gives us a clue in direct compare what we deal with.

4-8 A57 cores, 15-30W. Clocks expected around 2Ghz.

Avoton gives you 4 to 8 cores in the 9-20W range. With max clocks hitting 2.4Ghz base, 2.6Ghz turbo.

Seattle has an estimated 25W TDP with 8 cores >2GHz, while Avoton has a 20W TDP with 8 cores at 2.4GHz. And Silvermont has lower IPC than an A57.

But either way, we're still guessing off marketing slides. I'm going to wait until we have some benchmarks and power measurements before I start declaring winners.
 

Denithor

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Apr 11, 2004
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Well, currently more cores are used in server applications where the workload takes advantage of the additional cores properly.

But, if you think about it, 10-15 years ago we didn't have all these cores available, even in server space (sure, there were multi-cpu setups, but even those didn't have the huge numbers of cores we do today). As more cores have become available, the workload has shifted to take advantage of the hardware.

Hopefully we will see the same shift in games and other applications. But this won't likely happen to any great degree until the "moar cores" are present in widespread availability. Specifically for games, this means we need to see quads/octos as the norm in the consoles before we will truly see progress in the PC gaming market.
 

Rakehellion

Lifer
Jan 15, 2013
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I MUST be joking, right ?

Or am I ?

More info

I'm still waiting for "cheap" hex core desktop cpus, so talk about 32 FULL cores, which are vaguely comparable to fast cpu cores (Arm Cortex-A57's), with full 64 bits, is bothersome to me.

DISCLAIMER: The article seems to be talking about "network equipment" (and/or server stuff) versions. But surely that means we are ever closer to 32 core desktop cpus.

Anyone who thinks I am being ever so slightly greedy, savouring over a 32 core chip, may take solace, in the following link:

Counter argument

I have to admit that we are quite some way from having lots of software which can usefully use ALL 32 cores, most of the time.

In a desktop, you want fewer fast cores, not more slower cores. A 32-core desktop is a step backwards.
 

SOFTengCOMPelec

Platinum Member
May 9, 2013
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In a desktop, you want fewer fast cores, not more slower cores. A 32-core desktop is a step backwards.

Yes and no.

At the moment, as you just said, the fastest possible cores, with a reasonable number available (i.e. Quad or hex, rather than dual or single core), is the optimal (available) at the moment.

But in the future (hopefully not too far off), there may be some kind of optimal middle ground.
Which consists of something like 4 or 6, of the fastest possible cores available, usually generating much heat and energy consumption, combined with a slow, but very high number of cores, general purpose use cores (i.e. NOT anything to do with graphics processing or compute units/openCL etc).

BUT at the moment, what I described would NOT be of much use, as software by and large does NOT utilize such processing abilities, as described in the following post ...


Well, currently more cores are used in server applications where the workload takes advantage of the additional cores properly.

But, if you think about it, 10-15 years ago we didn't have all these cores available, even in server space (sure, there were multi-cpu setups, but even those didn't have the huge numbers of cores we do today). As more cores have become available, the workload has shifted to take advantage of the hardware.

Hopefully we will see the same shift in games and other applications. But this won't likely happen to any great degree until the "moar cores" are present in widespread availability. Specifically for games, this means we need to see quads/octos as the norm in the consoles before we will truly see progress in the PC gaming market.

So maybe in the future, MOAR CORES will win through, or maybe not.
 

piasabird

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
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32 cores all require registers to load data and operate on data and some place to store and manipulate it as it comes out of that process. So that is quite a complex operation requiring more high-speed Cache Memory. The Cache size would increase the price of 32 cores. It might require a different way processing data. It is like running 8 each of Intel 4 core processors at one time.

I could see a scenario where you run this for Bit-coin Mining.

If you split up all the cores you can run like 64 threads at one time.
 
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SOFTengCOMPelec

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May 9, 2013
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PROTEIN FOLDING!! C'mon... all those cores will help cure cancer! :D

Exactly!

(Someone else above mentioned bitcoin mining as well).

If they can make these chips and sell these chips for a nice low price, put them into the standard Arm "PC" format, that would be great.

In theory a rather cheap game console could be made with these, and instead of writing the code for 6/8 cores, they could go for 32 cores.

So if Amazon, google or Steam (I know that is NOT the company name) decides to muscle in on the games console market then that could be a cheap way of getting a very powerful games console. (Assuming it's possible for games to be written to use 32 cores).

Upcoming futuristic products, such as self driving cars, could probably use 32 core Arm chips.

As soon as someone (e.g. Arm), opens up the market with low cost 32 core chips, the sales may sky-rocket!

I'm hoping it can be cheap for four reasons:

(1)...I am led to understand that Arm chips tend to be made on slightly older, and slightly less well performing processes. But this means that a lot of the yield problems have been well sorted out, and this enables large number of cores to be produced with excellent yields, and hence potentially low costs.

(2)...The Arm Cortex A57 is something they have already designed, and is (will be) selling in lots of other markets, and core counts, so they don't need to plough back that much money from the 32 core variant of the Arm Cortex A57.

(3)...Unlike other companies, which I will not mention here to avoid causing a forum dispute (Intel), there has been a tendency for Arm to go for the sell it very cheap, sell it in huge volumes, type of business strategy.

(4)...Many things could really do with 32 cores (at a low cost), so sooner or later, it should appear on the market. I just hope that it is sooner, rather than later.
 
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ShintaiDK

Lifer
Apr 22, 2012
20,378
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Folding, bitcoin etc you just do on the GPU instead.

32 cores for a game console? They already struggle badly to use the 6 that are on the new consoles. And they already struggle with being way too slow CPU wise. Especially on the IPC and clock front.

Not to mention the ever classic:
648px-AmdahlsLaw.svg.png


Not even a competition to the Core series.

A 32 core ARM A57 CPU would use something like 125W at 2Ghz or so. And it would be for a niche of a niche segment.

The S5 ARM CPU in retail is also something that would cost in the area of Pentium chips. ARM is only really cheap in wholesale numbers for OEMs. Or when you buy the cheapest low performing vanilla cores there is.
 
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