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Sold. So what are the chances that we get PC architecture like this someday? Do you think it may sneak in the backdoor through graphics card manufacturers? Game

by TrevorJ 11y ago

Sold. So what are the chances that we get PC architecture like this someday? Do you think it may sneak in the backdoor through graphics card manufacturers? Games seem like a huge application.

nickpsecurity 11y ago
Previously, they went through the PCI bus (FPGA cards), custom memory bus (SGI's Altix), or PC memory bus (Pico Mini). The statements I've been reading on Intel's acquisition of Altera indicate they might integrate them at the SOC level. That knocks out most of what latency exists over the memory buses. The resulting performance for apps split between the CPU and FPGA should be much higher if they do this. " through graphics card manufacturers? " They actually compete with graphics card manufacturers with different tradeoffs. Most likely, your system will have a graphics card and FPGA logic. "So what are the chances that we get PC architecture like this someday?" http://picocomputing.com/products/picocube/picomini/ http://picocomputing.com/products/picocube/picomini/ I have no idea how much it costs. You could probably buy a powerful server cheaper given it has four, good FPGA's (unit prices always high). Yet, that's a Core i7, up to 32GB of RAM, and 6 FPGA's worth of custom logic connected to both. Mainly aimed at FPGA developers and the niche that use them for acceleration. I'm sure hobbyists with cash might enjoy it, too. :) I'll end with an illustration. A company once made a dedicated physics chip (Physx) to dramatically improve game physics while CPU did other things. NVIDIA acquired it & added it to GPU. Latest demo (below) on ever-difficult water rendering shows what a custom chip can do for an element of gaming. Now, just list off in your head all the other things that make a game work and imagine what it might be like if they had custom circuits too. And each game had its own custom circuits. Probably like PS3 vs PSX in difference. Not sure if it will happen, but we can keep dreaming, right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcgkAMr9r5o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcgkAMr9r5o

by TrevorJ 11y ago

Sold. So what are the chances that we get PC architecture like this someday? Do you think it may sneak in the backdoor through graphics card manufacturers? Games seem like a huge application.

nickpsecurity 11y ago

Previously, they went through the PCI bus (FPGA cards), custom memory bus (SGI's Altix), or PC memory bus (Pico Mini). The statements I've been reading on Intel's acquisition of Altera indicate they might integrate them at the SOC level. That knocks out most of what latency exists over the memory buses. The resulting performance for apps split between the CPU and FPGA should be much higher if they do this. " through graphics card manufacturers? " They actually compete with graphics card manufacturers with different tradeoffs. Most likely, your system will have a graphics card and FPGA logic. "So what are the chances that we get PC architecture like this someday?" http://picocomputing.com/products/picocube/picomini/ http://picocomputing.com/products/picocube/picomini/ I have no idea how much it costs. You could probably buy a powerful server cheaper given it has four, good FPGA's (unit prices always high). Yet, that's a Core i7, up to 32GB of RAM, and 6 FPGA's worth of custom logic connected to both. Mainly aimed at FPGA developers and the niche that use them for acceleration. I'm sure hobbyists with cash might enjoy it, too. :) I'll end with an illustration. A company once made a dedicated physics chip (Physx) to dramatically improve game physics while CPU did other things. NVIDIA acquired it & added it to GPU. Latest demo (below) on ever-difficult water rendering shows what a custom chip can do for an element of gaming. Now, just list off in your head all the other things that make a game work and imagine what it might be like if they had custom circuits too. And each game had its own custom circuits. Probably like PS3 vs PSX in difference. Not sure if it will happen, but we can keep dreaming, right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcgkAMr9r5o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcgkAMr9r5o