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The technically interesting bit about the Ultra's GPU is that it makes multiple GPU dies look like one physical GPU to software: >if you could somehow link up

The technically interesting bit about the Ultra's GPU is that it makes multiple GPU dies look like one physical GPU to software: >if you could somehow link up multiple GPUs with a ridiculous amount die-to-die bandwidth – enough to replicate their internal bandwidth – then you might just be able to use them together in a single task. This has made combining multiple GPUs in a transparent fashion something of a holy grail of multi-GPU design. It’s a problem that multiple companies have been working on for over a decade, and it would seem that Apple is charting new ground by being the first company to pull it off. https://www.anandtech.com/show/17306/apple-announces-m1-ultra-combining-two-m1-maxes-for-even-more-performance https://www.anandtech.com/show/17306/apple-announces-m1-ultr...

smoldesu 5y ago
You've posted this maybe 3 times in the past week, all on articles that have nothing to do with the multi-die nature of the M1 Ultra. What is the salient information here that we couldn't ascertain from watching Apple's keynote or scrolling through their landing page?
- GeekyBear 5y ago
  This is literally a point made in this article too. How is it not relevant in this thread?
  - tedunangst 5y ago
    So why not quote this article instead of linking and quoting a different article?
    - GeekyBear 5y ago
      Isn't this a terrible choice of websites if you are upset by discussion that calls out a genuinely new technological feat in the computer industry?
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        It's not new, AMD has been doing this for a while with their Infinity Fabric technology (and before that, technologies like SLI and Crossfire achieved the same thing on a software level), and you've posted about it several times already. It's also not much of a "feat", since it was done by a company with 200 billion dollars in liquid cash that could probably cure cancer if they wanted to. Not only is it completely uninteresting from a technical standpoint, it's also something you've repeatedly posted on threads that outline the downsides of doing this (like yesterday's benchmark results, showing how strapping 2 M1 Max GPUs together doesn't yield twice as much compute power). Frankly, it's annoying, and pretty far from intellectually stimulating. What is there to discuss anyways? Do we all need to pat the world's largest tech conglomerate on the back for doing the same thing as other companies did 6+ years ago, with worse performance results and misleading marketing material to boot?
        GeekyBear 5y ago
        >It's not new, AMD has been doing this for a while with their Infinity Fabric technology (and before that, technologies like SLI and Crossfire achieved the same thing on a software level) None of those technologies make multiple GPU dies look like a single physical GPU to software. As covered by the Anandtech quote you dislike so much: > This has made combining multiple GPUs in a transparent fashion something of a holy grail of multi-GPU design. It’s a problem that multiple companies have been working on for over a decade, and it would seem that Apple is charting new ground by being the first company to pull it off. However, that article does go into additional detail. >Unlike multi-die/multi-chip CPU configurations, which have been commonplace in workstations for decades, multi-die GPU configurations are a far different beast. The amount of internal bandwidth GPUs consume, which for high-end parts is well over 1TB/second, has always made linking them up technologically prohibitive. As a result, in a traditional multi-GPU system (such as the Mac Pro), each GPU is presented as a separate device to the system, and it’s up to software vendors to find innovative ways to use them together. In practice, this has meant having multiple GPUs work on different tasks, as the lack of bandwidth meant they can’t effectively work together on a single graphics task. https://www.anandtech.com/show/17306/apple-announces-m1-ultra-combining-two-m1-maxes-for-even-more-performance https://www.anandtech.com/show/17306/apple-announces-m1-ultr...
- rat9988 5y ago
  He is just enthusiastic about some specific point, and wants to discuss it with HN readers. No harm in it.
kyriakos 5y ago
Isn't this an OS feature?
- wmf 5y ago
  No, I think the OS sees it as a single GPU.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

smoldesu 5y ago

You've posted this maybe 3 times in the past week, all on articles that have nothing to do with the multi-die nature of the M1 Ultra. What is the salient information here that we couldn't ascertain from watching Apple's keynote or scrolling through their landing page?

GeekyBear 5y ago
This is literally a point made in this article too. How is it not relevant in this thread?
- tedunangst 5y ago
  So why not quote this article instead of linking and quoting a different article?
  - GeekyBear 5y ago
    Isn't this a terrible choice of websites if you are upset by discussion that calls out a genuinely new technological feat in the computer industry?
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      It's not new, AMD has been doing this for a while with their Infinity Fabric technology (and before that, technologies like SLI and Crossfire achieved the same thing on a software level), and you've posted about it several times already. It's also not much of a "feat", since it was done by a company with 200 billion dollars in liquid cash that could probably cure cancer if they wanted to. Not only is it completely uninteresting from a technical standpoint, it's also something you've repeatedly posted on threads that outline the downsides of doing this (like yesterday's benchmark results, showing how strapping 2 M1 Max GPUs together doesn't yield twice as much compute power). Frankly, it's annoying, and pretty far from intellectually stimulating. What is there to discuss anyways? Do we all need to pat the world's largest tech conglomerate on the back for doing the same thing as other companies did 6+ years ago, with worse performance results and misleading marketing material to boot?
      - GeekyBear 5y ago
        >It's not new, AMD has been doing this for a while with their Infinity Fabric technology (and before that, technologies like SLI and Crossfire achieved the same thing on a software level) None of those technologies make multiple GPU dies look like a single physical GPU to software. As covered by the Anandtech quote you dislike so much: > This has made combining multiple GPUs in a transparent fashion something of a holy grail of multi-GPU design. It’s a problem that multiple companies have been working on for over a decade, and it would seem that Apple is charting new ground by being the first company to pull it off. However, that article does go into additional detail. >Unlike multi-die/multi-chip CPU configurations, which have been commonplace in workstations for decades, multi-die GPU configurations are a far different beast. The amount of internal bandwidth GPUs consume, which for high-end parts is well over 1TB/second, has always made linking them up technologically prohibitive. As a result, in a traditional multi-GPU system (such as the Mac Pro), each GPU is presented as a separate device to the system, and it’s up to software vendors to find innovative ways to use them together. In practice, this has meant having multiple GPUs work on different tasks, as the lack of bandwidth meant they can’t effectively work together on a single graphics task. https://www.anandtech.com/show/17306/apple-announces-m1-ultra-combining-two-m1-maxes-for-even-more-performance https://www.anandtech.com/show/17306/apple-announces-m1-ultr...
rat9988 5y ago
He is just enthusiastic about some specific point, and wants to discuss it with HN readers. No harm in it.

kyriakos 5y ago

Isn't this an OS feature?

wmf 5y ago
No, I think the OS sees it as a single GPU.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]