cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Dead heat in a zeppelin race

Arne_Saknussemm
Level 40
4,875 Views
23 REPLIES 23

Korth
Level 14
These AMD SoCs could be a Very Serious Thing if they could mount them on PCIe (or maybe even M.2) form factors, just plug some hard processing into unused slots, much like NVIDIA GPU-Accelerators or Xeon Phi modules. Maybe not very useful for gaming or cryptomining, but possibly very potent in workstation and productivity environments.

And imagine how much more potent these AMD SoCs could be with embedded AMD "SSG" memory.

I'm more of an Epiphany-V kinda guy, to be honest, still helping some pals figure out how to mount Parallella into PCIe3 bus.
"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others." - Douglas Adams

[/Korth]

Korth wrote:
still helping some pals figure out how to mount Parallella into PCIe3 bus.


Korth! why do I think that's a photo more than an avatar...;)

Korth
Level 14
My avatar photo was taken on a bad hair day, though.
"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others." - Douglas Adams

[/Korth]

Arne_Saknussemm
Level 40
LOL...I was looking at that Epiphany people seem very excited but I don't get why...?

Korth
Level 14
Well, my guys are just tinkering with Epiphany-III boards, they want to make plug-and-play dedicated 2D or 3D or PhysX (or whatever) cards for their PCs. But the hardware is fully (re)configurable and modular and scalar.

The excitement is open-ended parallel processing and power efficiency. The boards are capped at 5W max and any number of them could be linked together. All opensource schema and all Digi-Key parts. Not as fast as high-end GPUs, but almost as powerful processing for the same price and far more powerful processing for the same electricity. Not really of much interest (yet?) for consumer platforms but a potent future platform approach for datacenters. Cost and bulk and specs and power requirements means you could pack a whole lot of these modules into a server rack with minimum power suck and with minimum thermal output, plus the modules are easily interchangeable ... it's very exciting indeed for big enterprise folks, massively increased computing density which also requires less investment in base hardware, electrical infrastructure, and cooling systems ... not to mention drastically reduced monthly electricity bills.
"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others." - Douglas Adams

[/Korth]

Arne_Saknussemm
Level 40
OK, sweet...innovation and competition always yield benefits!

Maybe a few stuck together could run hairworks without crippling the Witcher 3 😄

Korth
Level 14
I'm pretty sure they could, lol.

Answering the inevitable mindless "But can it run Crysis?" trolling at work, their Epiphany-III SBC mounted on an 8xPCIe2 card can indeed run Crysis at 2560x1440 "Very High" (x64, 8xAA, DX10) around ~45fps average. Compared to average of ~48fps on GTX680, ~50fps on HD7970, ~54fps on GTX780Ti, ~70fps on RX580, ~77fps on GTX980Ti.

They're currently trying to fit two Epiphany-III SBCs onto an 8xPCIe3 card.
Their ultimate goal is to mount four Epiphany-III SBCs on a 16xPCIe3 card. An emulated GPU running ~20W, costing ~$650, without reliance on crappy AMD or NVIDIA drivers.

So yeah, it is actually kind of exciting, lol. And they're not even working with Epiphany-IV, let alone Epiphany-V.
"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others." - Douglas Adams

[/Korth]

Arne_Saknussemm
Level 40
That's cool! :cool:

But hang on... how many epiphanies can you have? There'll be more Epiphanies than Rocky films before long...

Korth
Level 14
Just sayin' there's enough new technology "out there" already that people are starting to figure out new applications and new ways to do old tasks better.

So I think these AMD SoCs have a lot of potential ... if AMD is willing to push (or allow) them to be used to full potential. Distributed GPU (like distributed CPU) is the path forward, complex GPU cards can already be emulated on simplex MPU cards and the gap is closing. These Epiphany SBCs might not have achieved full performance parity with heavy-workstation GPUs or with top-end gaming GPUs yet but it seems obvious where things are going. I'm hoping AMD can take the helm before somebody else does, lol.
"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others." - Douglas Adams

[/Korth]