1,000 Core CPU Achieved: Your Future Desktop Will Be a Supercomputer

[boohbah]

Perhaps old news now but the future is looking fast!

Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Lowell laugh in the face of Intel's weedy handful of cores in its new CPU lineup: They've just squeezed over a thousand processor cores onto a single chip.

Source: 1,000 Core CPU Achieved: Your Future Desktop Will Be a Supercomputer | Fast Company

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there

With this sort of hardware availablle wouldn't it be great now if the Bank could STILL get my paycheck into my account in less than 3 days !!!!

Any Bankers on this Forum -- what actually happens to this money that's 3 days in transit -- it is immediately debited out of ACCOUNT A (say agency / your employer or whatever) and takes 3 days before being credited to your private account say ACCOUNT B unless you pay a swindingly extortionate 15 EUR for "Same day Transmission".

Fast computers can do this stuff in MICROSECONDS. !!! A 1000 Core machine would have the transmission completed even before the remote user had lifted his finger off the enter key. Fractions of a NANOSECOND would be in order.

This money must be "Somewhere" and if the Bank is using it to make money WITHOUT MY PERMISSION -- technically it's STEALING as they are "borrowing My money" without my permission then why don't I get Stock exchange Interest rates on it.

Why in the days of 1000 core computers does this stuff STILL take so long -- most Banks spend trillions on decent IT infrastructure too (I'm not saying anoything about their call centers -- that's an unspeakable horror best suited for venting my anger elsewhere).

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Zepher]

Hi there

With this sort of hardware availablle wouldn't it be great now if the Bank could STILL get my paycheck into my account in less than 3 days !!!!

Any Bankers on this Forum -- what actually happens to this money that's 3 days in transit -- it is immediately debited out of ACCOUNT A (say agency / your employer or whatever) and takes 3 days before being credited to your private account say ACCOUNT B unless you pay a swindingly extortionate 15 EUR for "Same day Transmission".

Fast computers can do this stuff in MICROSECONDS. !!! A 1000 Core machine would have the transmission completed even before the remote user had lifted his finger off the enter key. Fractions of a NANOSECOND would be in order.

This money must be "Somewhere" and if the Bank is using it to make money WITHOUT MY PERMISSION -- technically it's STEALING as they are "borrowing My money" without my permission then why don't I get Stock exchange Interest rates on it.

Why in the days of 1000 core computers does this stuff STILL take so long -- most Banks spend trillions on decent IT infrastructure too (I'm not saying anoything about their call centers -- that's an unspeakable horror best suited for venting my anger elsewhere).

Cheers
jimbo

It's actually not your money till you get it.
Maybe it's a European thing, but here in the states, when you have direct deposit, your money is available at midnight on the day you get paid (this is my personal experience).
Government employees that get paid on the 1st and 15th of the month can get their money a few days ahead if the 1st or 15th falls on a weekend or a holiday Monday, they usually get their money on Friday.

 

[Everlong]

Hi there

With this sort of hardware availablle wouldn't it be great now if the Bank could STILL get my paycheck into my account in less than 3 days !!!!

Any Bankers on this Forum -- what actually happens to this money that's 3 days in transit -- it is immediately debited out of ACCOUNT A (say agency / your employer or whatever) and takes 3 days before being credited to your private account say ACCOUNT B unless you pay a swindingly extortionate 15 EUR for "Same day Transmission".

Fast computers can do this stuff in MICROSECONDS. !!! A 1000 Core machine would have the transmission completed even before the remote user had lifted his finger off the enter key. Fractions of a NANOSECOND would be in order.

This money must be "Somewhere" and if the Bank is using it to make money WITHOUT MY PERMISSION -- technically it's STEALING as they are "borrowing My money" without my permission then why don't I get Stock exchange Interest rates on it.

Why in the days of 1000 core computers does this stuff STILL take so long -- most Banks spend trillions on decent IT infrastructure too (I'm not saying anoything about their call centers -- that's an unspeakable horror best suited for venting my anger elsewhere).

Cheers
jimbo

The bank just holds on to your money for 3 days and take any interest it accumulates over that 3 days for themselves.

 

[boohbah]

Hi there

With this sort of hardware availablle wouldn't it be great now if the Bank could STILL get my paycheck into my account in less than 3 days !!!!

Any Bankers on this Forum -- what actually happens to this money that's 3 days in transit -- it is immediately debited out of ACCOUNT A (say agency / your employer or whatever) and takes 3 days before being credited to your private account say ACCOUNT B unless you pay a swindingly extortionate 15 EUR for "Same day Transmission".

Fast computers can do this stuff in MICROSECONDS. !!! A 1000 Core machine would have the transmission completed even before the remote user had lifted his finger off the enter key. Fractions of a NANOSECOND would be in order.

This money must be "Somewhere" and if the Bank is using it to make money WITHOUT MY PERMISSION -- technically it's STEALING as they are "borrowing My money" without my permission then why don't I get Stock exchange Interest rates on it.

Why in the days of 1000 core computers does this stuff STILL take so long -- most Banks spend trillions on decent IT infrastructure too (I'm not saying anoything about their call centers -- that's an unspeakable horror best suited for venting my anger elsewhere).

Cheers
jimbo

congrats jimbo ,thats the fastest thread hijack this year.

 

[KazeNoKoe23]

Personally I doubt this. I think computing is moving more in the direction of portable devices i.e. tablets. They're obviously not viable desktop replacements for many people yet, but I would imagine that some time down the road, desktops in general may become obsolete.

 

[Solarstarshines]

Personally I doubt this. I think computing is moving more in the direction of portable devices i.e. tablets. They're obviously not viable desktop replacements for many people yet, but I would imagine that some time down the road, desktops in general may become obsolete.

I personally think Desktops are being more used by Gamers then general use

Most people in Todays times are Homebody there is more people sitting on there butt daily Tv movies no excersis what so ever and now even more people watch Tv then before

My point is people will continue Desktop use especially when they can watch movies chat and do multiple task a smart phone can only do so much and typing on a lil keypad is stressfull so i doubt people will just leap for a handheld device mostly it is the younger generation but when they slow down ole faithfull <Desktop > will be there ,Let's face it people want the latest even though they have to no use for it ,I sure the fad will die down like all fads

 

[Layback Bear]

Once I get a computer with all that technology all that would be left to do is turn off some of Microsoft services, configure the ram myself and a couple of registry booster programs. Now this baby will fly. If one can live with those slow 1/4 second boots these things won't have to be done.

 

[Zepher]

Hi there

With this sort of hardware availablle wouldn't it be great now if the Bank could STILL get my paycheck into my account in less than 3 days !!!!

Any Bankers on this Forum -- what actually happens to this money that's 3 days in transit -- it is immediately debited out of ACCOUNT A (say agency / your employer or whatever) and takes 3 days before being credited to your private account say ACCOUNT B unless you pay a swindingly extortionate 15 EUR for "Same day Transmission".



Cheers
jimbo

Well, we just had a little over 700,000 krónur wired to us from Iceland today, so we'll see how fast it arrives to the USA.

 

[seekermeister]

I somehow get the feeling that Intel will not be very fast about adopting the FPGA concept into their processors...at least not all 1000 cores at once (not as profitable as adding 1 or 2 at a time). Maybe this could be an avenue to help AMD recover their market share.

 

[fseal]

Wel as they said, specialized FPGA hardware (including hardware to do MPEG encoding/decoding) has been around forever.

I can't really see an advantage to any desktop to have to program it's cpu cores for every single task you might want to run on it at any one time. And really only specilized and wel contained tasks LIKE video encoding can really take advantage of this. Though you could maybe have photoshop program every single one of it's installed filters into a seperate core on launch. Just in case you might want to use one?

Some of this is actually being done right now in CS5 and much more so in CS6 using your GPU which already has dozens or hundreds of graphics oriented cores on it right now.

I would think that you would still need a healthy set of general purpose cores with a satellite of speciality cores that could be programmed on launch of a process for those very few well contained in/out transform processes at best.

 

[seekermeister]

I don't pretend to understand the implications and requirements of this type of processing, but in my imagination, I would think that those 1000 cores could be divided into blocks of cores...for instance, 100 cores each, in which one block would be for one purpose, and other blocks for other uses. Even a block for general purpose use, so that it would be compatible with software not designed with this in mind.

 

[Solarstarshines]

I don't pretend to understand the implications and requirements of this type of processing, but in my imagination, I would think that those 1000 cores could be divided into blocks of cores...for instance, 100 cores each, in which one block would be for one purpose, and other blocks for other uses. Even a block for general purpose use, so that it would be compatible with software not designed with this in mind.

Well said......... Something like multi block CenCores =100 core blocks into 10 SuperCores...... That would run Massive Apps for multi processes at the blink of a eye

 

[fseal]

The problem is, the cores need to be programmed to perform a function, and that function has got to be well contained and static for it to be much use or efficient, such as a codec. The test they did did just that, but then try running word at the same time and performance may drop to 1/100th that of a I7. They are not any good for the other 99% of computing which is on the fly utterly unpredictably random requirements.

That is why the current trend for hybrid operation of generic processors combined with on the fly specialized CPU/GPU usage for "filter" functions is really the way to go. And the way things are actually already going as a decent GPU on sale today already has 512 cores, and more and more software is starting to actually use them (other than games of course).

 

[seekermeister]

Maybe I'm missing your point, but that is exactly the reason why I spoke of dividing the cores into blocks. Each block could be programmed for specific types of functions. Of course, that would mean that some blocks wouldn't be used during functions that don't call on them, so it would not perform at the top end of the scale that the article mentioned, but I would think that some blocks could be used in tandem with another, during some operations. Even if a particular operation could only utilize one block, that would still be 100 cores, which is much more than most processors have available now.

I know nothing about using a GPU as you have described, but doesn't it also have some design limitations on how the cores can be used?

 

[fseal]

I know nothing about using a GPU as you have described, but doesn't it also have some design limitations on how the cores can be used?

Yes and no, they are programmed in C or other standard languages but have parallel computing extensions which, if you want to really make use of the architecture one would have to master. But that's the same with using any massive set of processors. Even today's 4, 6 or 8 core systems are RARELY used properly due to the increased complexity in writing code to do so and the fact that opportunities to really take advantage of multiple cores are not as widespread as you might think.

In fact past 4 cores, the very idea of just slapping more cores on instead of getting the clock speed or efficiency up is for the most part a disappointing cop-out since 90% of all computing can't take advantage of it. (Atleast in a desktop setting, servers are another story)

Graphics are the one thing that really shine in that area though, which is why GPUs have been doing this for years now. It'll be interesting to see how much Photoshop CS6 takes advantage of it.

These CPUs might be great for very specialized purposes like video servers or multiple stream encoders, but I doubt they'll have much use in a regular desktop. It was the swipe at intel and the comparison to the desktop CPU that sort of got me a tad riled about it in the first place (Even if it was just in jest)

 

[seekermeister]

I said nothing in jest, but then I said nothing intended as a swipe at Intel either. You need to understand that I'm an AMD user, and have been so since I returned several Intel computers to where I bought them, back when I first got into computers. For reasons no longer of any applicability to current hardware, I switched over to AMD, and was very happy that I did. Therefore, it would please me if AMD would be able to regain it's market share, because that would ensure it's continued availability in the future. As others have said, the competition would benefit all users of both Intel and AMD, and that is of more interest to me, than that of either manufacturers...or developers. Naturally, all sectors are important, because the interests of one sector effects the others. In any case, there is no reason to become riled at my viewpoint.

 

[fseal]

I said nothing in jest, but then I said nothing intended as a swipe at Intel either. ...

Sorry I didn't mean you. I meant the tone of the original article

"Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Lowell laugh in the face of Intel's weedy handful of cores in its new CPU lineup:"

and

" the team was able to process 5 gigabytes per sec of movie files, which is about 20 times the rate that existing high-end computers can manage."

I mean obviously it was in jest, but the comparison wasn't really warranted. The two aren't comparable. The 1000 core CPU they are talking about could not do 95% of what an intel cpu could do at 1/100th the speed. Though it can do a very few things that are very constrained somewhat faster. They should have compared it to a modern GPU instead. Since a modern GPU is in fact a large single/dual core CPU coupled with 500 or so smaller task oriented cores.

They should have billed this as a possible runtime programmable coprocessor to existing CPU tech. That would have been a practical and awesome suggestion for it's use

 

[seekermeister]

The two aren't comparable. The 1000 core CPU they are talking about could not do 95% of what an intel cpu could do at 1/100th the speed.

Don't take this as an argument, but I can't help get the feeling that you are letting your Intel bias get ahead of your accessment of this processor. I realize that you do know a lot more than I do about it, but I feel that you are looking only at what has been done with this technology so far, rather than at what may be possible. If this processor was ideally designed on premium PCB, with clocking to match, and properly blocked into segments, I can't see any reason that it shouldn't excel in comparison to a CGU/GPU set. I understand that programs would have to be designed to work with it properly, but originally I had the impression that the programming that we were speaking of was for the CPU itself, rather than the programs...yes/no?

Maybe this approach has been worked on to the end of it's possibilities, as your comments suggest, but from a layman's view, it still looks to have promise.

 

[kbronski]

Incredible technology, but considering the average laptop still only comes with a quad-core and desktops come with 6-cores as standard, doesn't it seem like this would be a little bit far-out in terms of hitting public consumer markets? I could always be drastically wrong, though.

The main question raised in my mind by this article, however, isn't a matter of processing capability, but rather one of data carrying. What type of cable would be needed to carry all the data that can be processed by this? What does this do to our already super-fast SSDs?

Oh, and then there's this: how does one cool this?