AMD's master plan to topple Intel - Back to the top on a radical GPU
theregister.co.uk
AMD's master plan to topple Intel - Back to the top on a radical GPU
1–10 of 43 posts
Re: AMD's master plan to topple Intel - Back to the top on a radical GPU
#2I'd love to be able to go back to the diverse ecosystem we had in the 80's, but I don't see how an architecture that deviates significantly from the x86 norm could gain traction in this Windows world.
Re: AMD's master plan to topple Intel - Back to the top on a radical GPU
#3How about Bulldozer sometime soon? I've been putting off my upgrades to see how it compares to Sandy Bridge, but that Q2 2011 launch didn't exactly happen.
Re: AMD's master plan to topple Intel - Back to the top on a radical GPU
#4I'd love to be able to go back to the diverse ecosystem we had in the 80's, but I don't see how an architecture that deviates significantly from the x86 norm could gain traction in this Windows world.
I do: cloud computing and mobile.
5 years from now, it won't be a windows world. Consumers will be spending most of their time using iOS, Android, and Windows Mobile devices. On the server, a large % of apps will be written on a layer above the OS (GAE, Azure, Heroku, DjangoZoom, ...).
Re: AMD's master plan to topple Intel - Back to the top on a radical GPU
#5Strangely, AMD had almost always better technical talent/product in terms of architectural design, but always stumbled on intel's business practices (see computer history museum panel) and manufacturing weaknesses.
For the better part, they made a better x86 for their time: 386, 486, K5 (core), 3DNow (all the SIMD intel lacked, and the MMX patch in response was a joke), 64bit (which intel was late by years) etc. comes to mind. I hope it will be different this time.
Re: AMD's master plan to topple Intel - Back to the top on a radical GPU
#6The architecture reminds me of the PS3's Cell processor, but not as insane.
Re: AMD's master plan to topple Intel - Back to the top on a radical GPU
#7I'd love to be able to go back to the diverse ecosystem we had in the 80's, but I don't see how an architecture that deviates significantly from the x86 norm could gain traction in this Windows world.
I wouldn't be surprised if more users were on devices that ran linux than devices that ran windows nowadays.
Re: AMD's master plan to topple Intel - Back to the top on a radical GPU
#8I'd love to be able to go back to the diverse ecosystem we had in the 80's, but I don't see how an architecture that deviates significantly from the x86 norm could gain traction in this Windows world.
I don't think this is meant to replace the x86 ISA, but rather SIMD units like MMX/SSE and traditional GPU shaders. The article was a bit muddled -- I'm waiting for the Anandtech version.
Successful adoption will be dependent on good tooling. Auto-vectorizing is really hard in compilers, mostly because current languages aren't really built for it. But if AMD were to introduce something purpose-built (eg, with a Matlab-like syntax), then that might compel devs who aren't assembly or GPU gurus to develop against this.
Re: AMD's master plan to topple Intel - Back to the top on a radical GPU
#9I've been waiting for them to make more official announcements to this effect, and more details - there's been more than enough info to imply this is their goal for quite a while now. And I feel I must say: WANT. If this succeeds, it'll be a game-changer in almost every way.
Re: AMD's master plan to topple Intel - Back to the top on a radical GPU
#10I'd love to be able to go back to the diverse ecosystem we had in the 80's, but I don't see how an architecture that deviates significantly from the x86 norm could gain traction in this Windows world.
I do: cloud computing and mobile. 5 years from now, it won't be a windows world. Consumers will be spending most of their time using iOS, Android, and Windows Mobile devices. On the server, a large % of apps will be written on a layer above the OS (GAE, Azure, Heroku, DjangoZoom, ...).
I'd love to see that happen, but we have been predicting the demise of Windows since the last century but Windows is still going strong. Inertia is a powerful thing.