Larrabee Based On a Bundle of Old Pentium Chips 286
arcticstoat writes "Intel's Pat Gelsinger recently revealed that Larrabee's 32 IA cores will in fact be based on Intel's ancient P54C architecture, which was last seen in the original Pentium chips, such as the Pentium 75, in the early 1990s. The chip will feature 32 of these cores, which will each feature a 512-bit wide SIMD (single input, multiple data) vector processing unit."
Pentium 75? (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds good! (Score:2, Funny)
Sounds great, as long as you don't plan on doing any floating point math [wikipedia.org] on it!
Pentiums? (Score:4, Funny)
This is just unbelievably good news. After all this time, I get to start telling Pentium jokes again! I never thought I would!
I'm no expert but (Score:5, Funny)
The card features one 150W power connector, as well as a 75W connector. Heise deduces that this results in a total power consumption of 300W,
Um, that just doesn't seem to quite add up to me.
Re:What the hell is Larrabee? (Score:5, Funny)
It's one of the larger cities in Wyoming. Get with it. ;)
Re:Pentiums? (Score:5, Funny)
Intel... where quality is job 0.9995675!
Weird Al was right.... (Score:2, Funny)
It really is all about the Pentiums.
Re:What the hell is Larrabee? (Score:5, Funny)
It's one of the larger cities in Wyoming. Get with it. ;)
Only if you have a head cold.
Re:Pentium 75? (Score:5, Funny)
Making math errors at blazing speeds...
32 Pentiums 75? (Score:2, Funny)
Core 1: 4195835/3145727 = 1.33382
Core 2: 4195835/3145727 = 1.33382
Core 3: 4195835/3145727 = 1.33382
Core 4: 4195835/3145727 = 1.33382
.
.
.
Core 31: 4195835/3145727 = 1.33382
Core 32: 4195835/3145727 = mmm... 1.33374? Oh, f*ck!
Re:Pentiums? (Score:3, Funny)
This is slashdot. You didn't need something like this to beat the Pentium dead horse... or for that matter, any dead horse.
In other words,
In Soviet Russia, floating-point arithmetic messes up Pentium
Netcraft confirms, Pentium is undead. Brainssss!
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these.
Et cetera, ad infinitum.
Re:I'm no expert but (Score:5, Funny)
It does if you work it out on a Pentium I [wikipedia.org] :D
Marko DeBeeste (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sounds good! (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, only Intel provide you with a floating point that really floats - why you never know where it's going to end up! Now that's floating!:D
Re:I'm no expert but (Score:5, Funny)
Or from the loss of mental acuity due to serious RF interference melting your brain.
"Look at da pretty colors..."
Re:Pentium 75? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, don't worry about that. Games will just be more interesting. For example, that 3D monster you're trying to hack to death with a chainsaw will now suddenly shift to a different part of the screen... Or maybe you'll get a cool color-cycling effect from some incorrectly calculated values...
"Intel Graphics Inside--it's all in good fun!"
Re:Sounds good! (Score:2, Funny)
Intel, Intel, give me your answer do,
Going hazy, can't divide three by two.
My answers I can't see 'em,
They're stuck in my Pent-i-um,
So you'd look great
If you would make
A functional FPU.
(best sung by mid-'90s speech synthesisers)
Re:Pentium 75? (Score:3, Funny)
I advocate ARM as the best. :(
Bill Waterson process (Score:5, Funny)
One does not "shrink" a chip by taking photomasks and shrinkenating.
'course not. You use a transmogrifier. In the industry, it is known as the "Bill Watterson" process.
It can also be used to turn photomasks into elephants, which, while less profitable, is immensely entertaining if the operator didn't see you change the setting.
Re:I'm no expert but (Score:3, Funny)
Seeing as it's based on a cluster of Pentiums, did you really expect it to add up?
Re:Pentium 75? (Score:5, Funny)
You mean my FPS will behave like World of Warcraft now? Wonderful!
Re:Pentium 75? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh it performed them reliably.. just reliably wrong.
Re:What the hell is Larrabee? (Score:5, Funny)
The three largest "Cities" are: Cheyenne -- 56k,
That's insane. I could get 56K people to yell at me to Turn That Shit Down by simply turning up my stereo and opening a window at 3am...
Re:Bill Waterson process (Score:2, Funny)
You use a transmogrifier.
Just be sure to have some lager around. [reddwarf.co.uk]
Re:What the hell is Larrabee? (Score:5, Funny)
I#m very sceptic about Intes
Cool, proof of Dvorak keyboard use in the wild
You forgot one... (Score:4, Funny)
It must be asked... (Score:3, Funny)
- fully compatible with x86 instruction set. (whereas other GPU use different architecture, and often instruction sets that aren't as much adapted to run general computing).
I was about to ask "Since when is the x86 instruction set optimized to run general computing?"
Then I noticed that the word was "adapted". Yeah, that's fair...
Seriously: The x86 (inspired by the hardware driving Datapoint's early smart terminals and previous chips for building hand calculators) was contemporary with Motorola's 68x (inspired by Gordon Bell's masterfully engineered PDP-11 and VAX instruction sets). While a lot of good people have poured their hearts and souls into turning it into a silk purse, and the original sows were particularly good examples of their breeds, the x86's descent from a pair of sow's ears is still apparent.
Re:What the hell is Larrabee? (Score:5, Funny)
The hunt continues...
Re:Pentiums? (Score:3, Funny)
It's all about the Pentiums, baby.
Re:Back to 6502 assembly (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe we'll go back to a million 6502 cores running at 3 Ghz. P...
A9 07 20 ED FD 80 F9
(FB would tighten the loop at the end, but I don't remember if COUT preserves the accumulator... I'm just amazed and a little frightened that I can still remember this shit off the top of my head...)
Re:Pentium 75? (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, the grandparent is a total asshole!
Oh, wait...
Hey, Nimey, I'm sorry I called you an asshole... and for thinking you were a totally worthless dickweed. That was wrong of me, and I apologize. I also apologize for the "worthless potato-sack of crap" comment I was going to make before I remembered my manners.
*phew*... thanks, AC. It feels great to be nice to people for a change.
Re:Yes, "based on" seems to be the key phrase (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Pentium 75? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Pentium 75? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Pentium 75? (Score:3, Funny)
Heh. Hence the joke at the time that the Intel Inside sticker was the warning label.
Re:It prob wont have a [proper] driver for Linux (Score:2, Funny)
People who want to seriously fly a plane simply do so. :-)