6 ms·

Ventana’s Unconventional Veyron V1

kissiel 3y ago
Kind of a related question: Where can I follow news/tidbits coming from hotchips 2023? Anandtech used to be my go to place, but nowadays calling it anemic would be a compliment...
- meepmorp 3y ago
  Serve the home has had pretty good coverage this year https://www.servethehome.com/ https://www.servethehome.com/
- treesciencebot 3y ago
  An interesting one I know is ex-Anandtech CPU reviewer Ian Cutress's AI chips podcast[1]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw7YHDBSDi8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw7YHDBSDi8
  - buran77 3y ago
    I was so deeply disappointed by Ian Cutress's evolution in the space. While at AnandTech I noticed his editorial bits, his subjective interpretation of the objective numbers had an unmistakable bias towards Intel... middling numbers at the peak of Intel's complacency were suddenly "great" in his articles. At one point I think he very publicly went out of his way to excuse Intel for lying in some benchmark or demo. That was a new low for AT's editorial standard. Then he went on his way and I tried following him to see if he brings some quality independent content but it's so derivative. There's no deep insight, no originality. He's just reprocessing info from primary sources. At one point I felt like watching reaction videos and eventually decided to stick with those primary sources. I hope he finds his niche though.
- gautamcgoel 3y ago
  Used to love Anandtech, but I agree, it has lost its mojo over the past few years.
saagarjha 3y ago
This is definitely an interesting processor, design-wise. Would be interesting to see how various workloads perform on it.
extr 3y ago
Damn I literally thought this was about Hot Chips at first and I got psyched to see some potato chip discourse on HN.
snvzz 3y ago
The V1 is part of the first wave of very high performance RISC-V processors, which is imminent. RISC-V enables the best processors.
- TheMode 3y ago
  I don't really see how the ISA is relevant, maybe that it affects 3% of a chip performance, 15%, or perhaps even 30% but either way it is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Our software is order of magnitudes slower than it could be, RISC-V or x86 doesn't change anything.
  - snvzz 3y ago
    >I don't really see how the ISA is relevant There's definitely better and worse ISAs e.g. some are unjustifiably complex. Yet the key advantage of RISC-V is not at all technical, and lies in its licensing scheme. There is no need to ask for permission to implement RISC-V and thus be able to leverage the best ecosystem out there, which RISC-V is rapidly building. There is also no need to ask for permission to extend it with custom extensions, to suit your specialized needs. Using the RISC-V trademarks is only a little more complicated, as it requires proving standard compliance. Yet this aligns well with most implementations; Compliance is desirable as it enables tapping into existing software and tooling, which is much cheaper than building and maintaining bespoke solutions.
    - TheMode 3y ago
      Some ISAs are definitely more complex than they should, but RISC-V/x86 is the least of my problem if the goal is to interpret some windows/macos/linux binary. The complexity goes beyond a list of instructions. As for licensing I agree that it can be seen as a step in the right direction, but at the same time it seems like we absolutely refuse to learn. All standards inevitably deprecate, I'd prefer every hardware manufacturers to come up with their own one-off ISA and an easy way to run/interpret existing applications. Software ecosystems are more about locking you to a specific vendor/standard, they prevent the emergence of better systems.
  - 3y ago
0xDEF 3y ago
Apparently Ventana has only one US office but two offices in India. Is it some kind of Indian effort to create indigenous CPUs?
- sitkack 3y ago
  No, but verification engineers are cheaper in India.

Kind of a related question: Where can I follow news/tidbits coming from hotchips 2023? Anandtech used to be my go to place, but nowadays calling it anemic would be a compliment...

meepmorp 3y ago
Serve the home has had pretty good coverage this year https://www.servethehome.com/ https://www.servethehome.com/
treesciencebot 3y ago
An interesting one I know is ex-Anandtech CPU reviewer Ian Cutress's AI chips podcast[1]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw7YHDBSDi8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw7YHDBSDi8
- buran77 3y ago
  I was so deeply disappointed by Ian Cutress's evolution in the space. While at AnandTech I noticed his editorial bits, his subjective interpretation of the objective numbers had an unmistakable bias towards Intel... middling numbers at the peak of Intel's complacency were suddenly "great" in his articles. At one point I think he very publicly went out of his way to excuse Intel for lying in some benchmark or demo. That was a new low for AT's editorial standard. Then he went on his way and I tried following him to see if he brings some quality independent content but it's so derivative. There's no deep insight, no originality. He's just reprocessing info from primary sources. At one point I felt like watching reaction videos and eventually decided to stick with those primary sources. I hope he finds his niche though.
gautamcgoel 3y ago
Used to love Anandtech, but I agree, it has lost its mojo over the past few years.

saagarjha 3y ago

This is definitely an interesting processor, design-wise. Would be interesting to see how various workloads perform on it.

extr 3y ago

Damn I literally thought this was about Hot Chips at first and I got psyched to see some potato chip discourse on HN.

snvzz 3y ago

The V1 is part of the first wave of very high performance RISC-V processors, which is imminent. RISC-V enables the best processors.

TheMode 3y ago
I don't really see how the ISA is relevant, maybe that it affects 3% of a chip performance, 15%, or perhaps even 30% but either way it is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Our software is order of magnitudes slower than it could be, RISC-V or x86 doesn't change anything.
- snvzz 3y ago
  >I don't really see how the ISA is relevant There's definitely better and worse ISAs e.g. some are unjustifiably complex. Yet the key advantage of RISC-V is not at all technical, and lies in its licensing scheme. There is no need to ask for permission to implement RISC-V and thus be able to leverage the best ecosystem out there, which RISC-V is rapidly building. There is also no need to ask for permission to extend it with custom extensions, to suit your specialized needs. Using the RISC-V trademarks is only a little more complicated, as it requires proving standard compliance. Yet this aligns well with most implementations; Compliance is desirable as it enables tapping into existing software and tooling, which is much cheaper than building and maintaining bespoke solutions.
  - TheMode 3y ago
    Some ISAs are definitely more complex than they should, but RISC-V/x86 is the least of my problem if the goal is to interpret some windows/macos/linux binary. The complexity goes beyond a list of instructions. As for licensing I agree that it can be seen as a step in the right direction, but at the same time it seems like we absolutely refuse to learn. All standards inevitably deprecate, I'd prefer every hardware manufacturers to come up with their own one-off ISA and an easy way to run/interpret existing applications. Software ecosystems are more about locking you to a specific vendor/standard, they prevent the emergence of better systems.
- 3y ago

0xDEF 3y ago

Apparently Ventana has only one US office but two offices in India. Is it some kind of Indian effort to create indigenous CPUs?

sitkack 3y ago
No, but verification engineers are cheaper in India.