The CPU Redefined: AMD Torrenze and Intel CSI

janp writes "In the near future the Central Processing Unit (CPU) will not be as central anymore. AMD has announced the Torrenza platform that revives the concept of co-processors. Intel is also taking steps in this direction with the announcement of the CSI. With these technologies in the future we can put special chips (GPU's, APU's, etc. etc.) directly on the motherboard in a special socket. Hardware.Info has published a clear introduction to AMD Torrenza and Intel CSI and sneak peaks into the future of processors."

Previous announcements

[G3ckoG33k]

The first details emerged half a year ago:


IBM and Intel Corporation, with support from dozens of other companies, have developed a proposal to enhance PCI Express* technology to address the performance requirements of new usage models, such as visualization and extensible markup language (XML).

The proposal, codenamed "Geneseo," outlines enhancements that will enable faster connectivity between the processor -- the computer's brain -- and application accelerators, and improve the range of design options for hardware developers.


http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20 060927comp_a.htm [intel.com]

Retro-innovation

[Don_dumb]

Here spins the Wheel Of Reincarnation http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/W/wheel-of-re incarnation.html [catb.org] watch how everything comes back and then goes away again and then comes back . . .

Looks like CSI is continuation of Intel CSA bus

[timecop]

Intel introduced something called 'CSA' bus (http://www.intel.com/design/network/events/idf/cs a.htm), which was higher bandwidth than PCI and was to be used for "streaming" devices like NICs and such. Making this 'general purpose' and user accessible was the next logical step. Go intel!

Re:huh?

[dosquatch]

You could of course have different versions of "super chips".

Thereby decreasing their cost effectiveness. 'Tis a viscious circle.

Re:huh?

[mikael]

Werent the first co-processors FPUs. Arent they now integrated into the CPU?

The Intel 8086 had the Intel 8087 [wikipedia.org]
A whole collection of Intel FPU's is at Intel FPU's [cpu-collection.de]

TI's TMS34020 (a programmable 2D rasterisation chip), had the TMS34082 coprocessor (capable of vector/matrix operations)
(Some pictures here [amiga-hardware.com]. Up to four coprocessors could be used.

Now, both of these form the basis of a current day CPU and GPU (vertex/geometry/pixel shader units).

Re:huh?

[thygrrr]

Nope, the A500 also had 4096 colours in HAM mode. They were basically the same hardware, except the A2000 had different - and more - expansion slots and was a desktop machine while the A500 was a typical home computer/console kind of thingy.

Re:huh?

[sjwaste]

Intel's quad cores are, and they're actually two Core2 dies connected together I believe. "Native" quad core is in the works by AMD and Intel, but is currently not on the consumer market.

Now, if there are other CPU's out there doing native quad core for general purpose computing, I'm unaware and withdraw my ignorance if so :)