cpu

The factor factor, part 2

In the first part of this series, I claimed that a great secret in the microprocessor industry largely determines whether new products succeed or fail.

I noted that this secret shouldn't be a secret at all because many people (including myself) have talked about it over the years, but clearly a lot of people are in the dark because they continually disregard it and develop products that are doomed.

I gave several examples of products that failed because their creators didn't know the great secret. Those products included RISC processors, media processors, and intelligent RAM chips, in which processor cores were integrated with memory to eliminate one of the great bottlenecks in computer performance.

During my eight years at Microprocessor Report, I covered the markets for media processors, 3D-graphics chips, network processors, and what I coined extreme processors--chips with large numbers of simple cores running in parallel. Many of these chips were cheaper, easier to design, and twice as fast as competing products--and still failed.

However, some did succeed. The critical factor that made the difference in most of these cases is the essence of the so-called secret.

One of those successes is the graphics processing unit, or GPU.

I was reminded again of the secret at Nvidia's recent GPU Technology Conference, where many of the talks dealt with GPU computing.

(Disclosure: I recently wrote a technical white paper for Nvidia.)

Although the GPU field dates back only five or six years, GPUs have already earned a place alongside CPUs. Each is clearly superior for certain kinds of applications.

This is true in spite of the fact that GPUs aren't nearly as easy to program as CPUs. Like other forms of parallel programming, GPU programming requires new hardware (the GPU itself), significant new extensions for programming languages, and a different mindset for programmers--one that simply wasn't part of standard computer-science curriculum for most of the last 50 years.

Brain thing acts as CPU meter, enters your nightmares

I like Japanese artist Mio Lizawa because he's the kind of guy who sits around and thinks, "My, wouldn't it be great if my PC had some sort of pulsating, frightening, brain-like thing hanging out of the side of it?" and then goes out and builds just such a thing.

"Mechanical Tumor" is art. At least I think it is. And it's functional: the more CPU usage his computer is experiencing, the larger the, uh, thing gets. Write a letter to grandma and it sits there rather quietly. Start playing Warcraft and it … Read more

Intel's CPU share hits four-year high

Intel's share of the global CPU market hit a four-year high in the second quarter of 2009, says a report released Monday by market researcher iSuppli.

Thanks to a slight uptick in PC sales, Intel captured 80.6 percent of microprocessor revenue worldwide, growing from 79.1 percent in the first quarter of the year and 79.2 percent in the second quarter of 2008. This is the largest slice of the market Intel's had since its 82.4 percent share in 2005.

The gain in Intel's market share came at the expense of AMD, which saw … Read more

A new view of 3D graphics

Have we reached the end of the road for conventional 3D rendering?

Siggraph 2009 ended Friday, and I've spent the last few days digesting what I learned there. Although I've been involved in the graphics industry since 1990 and I've attended Siggraph most years since 1992, a crisis of sorts seems to have snuck up on me.

At the High Performance Graphics conference before the main show, keynote speeches from Larry Gritz of Sony Pictures Imageworks and Tim Sweeney of Epic Games showed that traditional 3D-rendering methods are being augmented and even supplanted by new techniques for motion-picture production as well as real-time computer games.

Gritz reckoned that 3D became a fully integrated element of the moviemaking process in 1989 when computer-generated characters first interacted with human characters in James Cameron's "The Abyss."

Gritz described how Imageworks has moved to a new ray-tracing rendering system called "Arnold" for several films currently in production, replacing the Reyes (Render Everything Your Eyes See) rendering system, probably the most widely used technology in the industry.

According to Gritz, Reyes rendering led to unmanageable complexity in the artistic component of the production process, outweighing the render-time advantages of the Reyes method. But Gritz says even these advantages diminished as the demand for higher quality drove Imageworks to make more use of ray tracing and a sophisticated lighting model called global illumination.

The bottom line for Imageworks is that Arnold, which was licensed from Marcos Fajardo of Solid Angle, takes longer to do the final rendering, but is easier on the artists and makes it easier to create the models and lighting effects--a net win.

Sweeney echoed this theme the next day, which surprised me considering Sweeney's focus is real-time rendering for 3D games--notably with Epic's Unreal Engine, which has been used in hundreds of 3D games on all the major platforms. Game rendering uses far less sophisticated techniques because each frame has to be rendered in perhaps one-sixtieth of a second, not the four or five hours on average that can be devoted to a single frame of a motion picture.

It seems that Sweeney is also… Read more

System diagnostics toolbox

SiSoftware Sandra provides a robust package of diagnostic tools for testing your system and teasing out its problems--or potential headaches.

This download launches a cheerfully designed interface with an array of colorful--one might even say sprightly--icons for each of its tools. Its arrangement of tools was nicely categorized for the user's benefit: Computer Maintenance, Module Types (Benchmarks, Hardware, Software, Support), and Program Maintenance. Across the top of the window are tabs for each category that match the icons, and each tab provides access to a set of focused tools. We were very pleased with SiSoftware Sandra's performance during … Read more

GPUs and the new 'digital divide'

I spent Tuesday at Nvidia headquarters, attending the company's annual Analyst Day.

I've been to most of Nvidia's analyst events over the last decade or so, since I covered Nvidia almost from its inception while working as the graphics analyst at Microprocessor Report. These meetings are always a good way to get an update on the company's business operations, and sometimes--like this time--one provides exceptionally good insight into larger industry trends.

Nvidia has had a rough couple of quarters in the market, which CEO Jen-Hsun Huang blamed in part on a bad strategic call in early 2008: to place orders for large quantities of new chips to be delivered later in the year. When the recession hit, these orders turned into about six months of inventory, much of which simply couldn't be sold at the usual markup.

In response, Nvidia CFO David White outlined measures the company plans to take to increase revenue, sell a more valuable mix of products, reduce the cost of goods sold, and cut back on Nvidia's operating expenses.

Three things stood out for me in this presentation:

Nvidia is planning an aggressive transition to state-of-the-art ASIC fabrication technology at TSMC, the company's manufacturing partner. Within "two to three quarters," White said, about two-thirds of the chips Nvidia sells will be made using 40-nanometer process technology. (The first of these chips were announced Tuesday.)

White also acknowledged something that I've long assumed to be true: Nvidia receives "preferential allocation" on advanced process technology at TSMC. It's logical that Nvidia should get the red-carpet treatment, having been TSMC's best customer for many years, but I don't recall hearing Nvidia or TSMC put this fact on the record before.

The third notable point from White's presentation: the gross margins for Nvidia's Tegra, an ARM-based application processor--which Nvidia's Mike Rayfield, general manager of the Tegra division, says has already garnered 42 design wins at 27 companies--are much higher than I'd have guessed--at "over 45 percent." That's quite excellent for an ARM-based SoC; it's a very competitive market.

More surprises The technical sessions at the event contained their own surprises.

For example, Nvidia effectively seized control of an old Intel marketing buzzword: "balanced."

For years, Intel used to talk about… Read more

Nvidia CEO says 'Tegra,' Apple future of computing

Updated at 4:30 p.m. PDT adding Tegra, Intel, and Ion discussions.

On Tuesday, Nvidia Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang said at the company's analyst day that the graphics processor will be an equal partner with Intel processors, citing Apple as an early trendsetter.

On other fronts, Huang said that the ARM-based Tegra processor is expected to account for half of Nvidia's business in a few years. He also repeated claims about Intel crimping the success of its Ion processor in Netbooks.

Huang said that "CPU-GPU co-processing" is the future of computing. (CPU stands for central … Read more

Intel: Our graphics silicon is gaining in gaming

Any gamer worth his or her salt is quick to decry gaming on Intel graphics silicon. But wait. The platform is taking off, according to Intel.

"So you want to know what's so compelling about making sure your game runs on Intel integrated graphics?" Aaron Davies, a senior marketing manager in the Intel Visual Computing Software Development group, asked in a video on the Intel Software Network Web page. "Here's your answer: Mercury Research showed that in 2008, for the first time, integrated graphics chipsets outsold discrete (graphics chips), and in 2013, we expect to … Read more

Monitor your Mac processes

MenuMeters is a free, open-source, small-footprint set of menubar tools for monitoring CPU, disk, memory, and network usage. You set up MenuMeters in a system preference pane, adding any or all of the four meters that you want to appear in your menubar. The CPU meter displays load information along with options for graphs; the disk meter show activity on local disks, with space usage on a drop-down menu; the memory meter shows RAM usage with an optional paging activity indicator; and the network meter provides multiple options for displaying and scaling activity. MenuMeters has a long, stable history and … Read more

Quickly test and compare CPU speed

Get an accurate reading of your CPU speed and compare it online with other computers around the globe with this application.

CPU Speed Professional has a sleek, easy-to-use interface that resembles gauges from an automobile. The main function of this program is to test the speed of your CPU. It does its job quickly and efficiently in four automated steps. Results from the test are displayed in a pop-up window, on the gauge, and also in a flashing box below the gauges. It's hard to miss! There is a selection of tabs to choose from, including the CPU details … Read more