Speedy parallel Macs?


A new rumor about a Mac with a very large core

This could be a very interesting development. PPC Macs had short, but wide processing, which attempts to make computing faster by distributing the processing across the wide pipe - the drawback being that you can't dial clock speeds as high and your lookaheads are short. Intel PCs had long, but thin processing, which allows for much higher clock speeds and deeper look ahead, but things like bubbles (where you can't determine the next instruction, or your look aheads were rendered useless by a branch) are much more costly.

Think of it this way - at the McDonald's you can go in, where there are 5 cashiers and shorter lines, but slower service at each one. Or you can go to the drivethru, where their is a longer line and only 1 cashier but they are trying to push people through faster. All things being equal, they are probably about the same. But if you have a slow cashier or some guy in front of you takes forever with his order, if you're inside you can just move over to another line. Conversely, some McDonald's put a lot of focus on their drivethru and can move people through it much more faster because its their only focus. So each has its benefits and downsides.

But now, we arrive at the peanut butter meets chocolate moment. Having both a huge parallel core, and really fast pipelines could very well give you the best of both worlds. You could process a lot of stuff at one time, and make the time it takes to process it much faster. Definitely something to keep an eye on.

( H/T to my fellow SigDev blogger Andrew. SigDev = Significant Developments, a group blog and soon to be podcast about cool new technology and futurism )

Posted: Tue - April 4, 2006 at 02:53 PM | | | | | | |

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