CPU makers join together to create a single interconnect

[NumLock21]

 

 

Quote

On Monday, seven technology companies announced that they had reached an agreement to develop and implement an interconnect that would enable different vendors’ CPUs and accelerators to talk to one another while sharing main memory.

 

In today's world of computing, both PC and mobile processors runs on different instruction sets. On PC's side, you have AMD, where is uses x86 and on moble there is ARM, which uses RISC. Both of them are not able to communicate one another, that is until now, as major cpu makers from both the PC and mobile side such as AMD, IBM, Qualcomm, ARM, and others have joined together to create a single interconnect called CCIX. CCIX which stands for Cache Coherent Interconnect for Accelerators, allows for both PC and mobile cpus with different instruction sets, to be able to communicated with each other, while sharing main memory. If they can put everything together and pull this off, then the benefits of this would be huge, as it would truly provide a plug and play environment, where any CPU can be used, be it a AMD CPU or ARM SoC. Currently it's being targeted at datacenters, and not too much info is there about CCIX. If everything works out for these CPU makers, then we might see something in 2020.

 

http://www.ccixconsortium.com/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/moorinsights/2016/05/23/a-cache-coherent-interconnect-for-accelerators-ccix-fantasy-or-nirvana/#8bb961b6afab

http://wccftech.com/arm-teams-amd-ibm-tackle-datacentre-market-mobile-giants-joined-squad/

https://semiaccurate.com/2016/05/23/38723/

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/information-technology/arm-amd-huawei-ibm-qualcomm-mellanox-and-xilinx-team-up-on-datacentre-2016-05/

 

 

[Mew]

Where's Intel in all of this?

[2FA]

3 minutes ago, CUDA_Cores said:

good, maybe SLI/crossfire won't scale so horribly after this interconnect is created

This has nothing to do with GPUs.

[TheRandomness]

MODULAR MOTHERBOARD PLS

 

It could work... right?

[Arc_Jester]

8 minutes ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

This has nothing to do with GPUs.

Actually it's supposed to work like/replace the PCIe standards. It works kinda like NVLink.

[SurvivorNVL]

Why can't IBM just buy AMD already?  Let's make AMD Great Again!

[NumLock21]

12 minutes ago, kurahk7 said:

Where's Intel in all of this?

AMD

Intel has their own omni-path interconnect code name Storm Lake. Won't be here until Skylake-E Xeons appears.

http://www.nextplatform.com/2015/07/13/inside-intels-impending-omni-path-interconnect/

 

[Just Monika]

Somehow I wasn't surprised to see Intel missing from the list, but this is interesting news either way.

[Tedol]

14 minutes ago, kurahk7 said:

Where's Intel in all of this?

Intel belongs to IBM 

[NumLock21]

2 minutes ago, Tedol said:

Intel belongs to IBM 

Yes

Intel Business Machine

[2FA]

8 minutes ago, SurvivorNVL said:

Why can't IBM just buy AMD already?  Let's make AMD Great Again!

Because then AMD would lose its licence to x86 from Intel, but then they could revoke their x64 licence to Intel. There is a complicated agreement between them in case you didn't know. Stealing my meme. JK I stole it from Joker Productions.

[SurvivorNVL]

1 minute ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

Because then AMD would lose its licence to x86 from Intel, but then they could revoke their x64 licence to Intel. There is a complicated agreement between them in case you didn't know. Stealing my meme. JK I stole it from Joker Productions.

Oh, I already know that.  IBM would have AMD64, and unless Intel wants to work hard on getting everything, and everyone over to Itanium, they'd have to renegotiate x86 for AMD64.  Personally I'd rather AMD be absorbed between Intel and nVidia, so they can have vicious battle and what not, but I'd take IBM owning them if it means they can compete.

[2FA]

14 minutes ago, Arc_Jester said:

Actually it's supposed to work like/replace the PCIe standards. It works kinda like NVLink.

Source? Because this is meant to allow sharing of resources, similar to Intel's QPI.

[Arc_Jester]

1 minute ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

Source? Because this is meant to allow sharing of resources, similar to Intel's QPI.

It says so in the forbes article if I'm not mistaken(I read about this a few days ago).

[2FA]

1 minute ago, Arc_Jester said:

It says so in the forbes article if I'm not mistaken(I read about this a few days ago).

You know how super computers are basically a shit ton of servers connected together? This is basically the same thing but standardized and allowing different components with different instruction sets to work together.

[Fetzie]

Presumably this also means you can have an ARM chip on your motherboard to handle certain workloads while your AMD CPU handles other workloads?

[NumLock21]

@Delicieuxz

I hope you don't go out and start telling everyone Intel belongs to IBM. Where IBM stands for Intel Business Machine.

 

[Delicieuxz]

@NumLock21 LOL

[TetraSky]

So... Does this mean that we could have a computer that has both an ARM CPU and a x86 CPU on the same motherboard?

If so, hopefully this means we could have something similar to what Nvidia is doing on the mobile side of things, where on IDLE it uses the less powerful onboard GPU but if you launch something, it will use the dedicated GPU.

[Coaxialgamer]

1 hour ago, SurvivorNVL said:

Why can't IBM just buy AMD already?  Let's make AMD Great Again!

Because since intel amended the x86 licensing agreement,  IBM would not be able to make x86 cpus

[Nineshadow]

3 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

So... Does this mean that we could have a computer that has both an ARM CPU and a x86 CPU on the same motherboard?

If so, hopefully this means we could have something similar to what Nvidia is doing on the mobile side of things, where on IDLE it uses the less powerful onboard GPU but if you launch something, it will use the dedicated GPU.

This is really meant for data centers, doubt we'll see anything change for consumers.

[SurvivorNVL]

1 minute ago, Coaxialgamer said:

Because since intel amended the x86 licensing agreement,  IBM would not be able to make x86 cpus

IBM would inherit AMD64 upon buying out AMD and all their assets.  They'd just renegotiate for x86.  

[Coaxialgamer]

This is pretty cool,  i've always wanted to be able to use all the processing power of my devices at the same time as coprocessors.  Hopefully this reaches the consumer side quickly

[Yog]

1 hour ago, Tedol said:

Intel belongs to IBM 

 

1 hour ago, NumLock21 said:

Yes

Intel Business Machine

Just so there's no confusion, neither of those are true.

[TetraSky]

24 minutes ago, Nineshadow said:

This is really meant for data centers, doubt we'll see anything change for consumers.

Stuff like that always trickle down to consumer products after a couple years, so here's hoping.