Intel Going Fully Custom

[patrickjp93]

http://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/intel-first-full-custom-xeon-cpus-are-due-next-year/

 

 

“We are well into the semi-custom product, we will be into the custom product space over the next year or so,” said Stacy Smith, chief financial officer of Intel, in an interview with Barron’s.

 

 

Intel has a special roadmap for its custom products. Intel can customize its server platforms or processors themselves to support custom controllers, FPGAs or even memory solutions. Intel can also optimize performance and power consumption of chips for certain workloads and deployments. At present Intel has 35 custom Xeon processors that belong to the Grantley platform. Intel can also include intellectual property of its customers into its standard microprocessors. For example, four of such features are already present in the latest-generation Xeon “Haswell-EP” central processing units and two more features are in development for upcoming chips.

 

 

For a long time now Intel has combined Altera FPGAs onto customized flavors of its top SKUs for the likes of Microsoft and Amazon in order to provide as much flexibility for acceleration of mission-critical algorithms as possible, but in the financial sector where microseconds and even nanoseconds matter to make lightning-fast trades based on the outcomes of those algorithms, IBM's Power and Oracle's SPARC lend themselves better, and it shows in the pricing. Intel now wants to take away one of its opponents' key advantages: building chips from the ground up alongside target clients, effectively getting ASICs with minimal latency attached to their CPUs, also saving on power and heat.

 

With Intel going fully custom in the server market, we could see a shift in the balance of power between Intel, IBM, and Oracle that hasn't been felt since the original HPC war. Overall IBM and Oracle have very little marketshare, but in the areas where they dominate, it's practically a 50/50 split between the two at very high margins. It'll be interesting to see if Intel can break into IBM's last stronghold after many years of leaving Big Blue with the financial sector.

 

I wonder if Intel would be willing to collaborate with AMD and put Fiji/Greenland onto future Broadwell EP/EX and Skylake EP/EX. It seems like a good way to keep AMD alive while still taking most of the immediate financial benefit. Hell, maybe Intel will work with Nvidia and create CUDA-based APUs for some in the scientific computing arena as old systems need to be upgraded to attract new customers.

 

And as a far-fetched nonsense idea, what if this foreshadows Intel eventually going after AMD's console business 5-7 years down the road?

[Kherm]

Intel would never develop CPUs or consoles because they don't have the graphics IP

[Delusional Phil]

From reading title : So I can have a Xeon with 100 cores WITH Hyper-threading ?

[niofalpha]

Well I guess you can say things got *Puts on Glasses*

 

Custom

 

OT: Cool! Things like this benefit everyone in the long term.

 

I want a 50 core Xeon to play Minecraft on.

[SkilledRebuilds]

Intel would never develop CPUs or consoles because they don't have the graphics IP

Intel could very well let someone else do the GPU...

Say... the 970m (The Laptop GTX970 mobile edition) is still a absolute powerhouse chip, can be put in a small enclosure, and drives 1080p with EASE!

[patrickjp93]

Intel would never develop CPUs or consoles because they don't have the graphics IP

They could collaborate. More insane things have happened.

[Sharkyx1]

Intel would never develop CPUs or consoles because they don't have the graphics IP

Intel and AMD recently renegociated their terms and some beleive that AMD is now allowing intel use of its graphics IP

[Kherm]

Intel could very well let someone else do the GPU...

Say... the 970m (The Laptop GTX970 mobile edition) is still a absolute powerhouse chip, can be put in a small enclosure, and drives 1080p with EASE!

Yes, that would be a true console, not that shitty 8-core AMD APU that Xbone has

[CatCloud]

What's the big fuzz about xeon?

Can't overclock and they are slower core by core no? Sure they have more cores but thats about it.

Hmm I wonder if the Nvidia shield tablet can run console games... It's around the same price.

[CommandMan7]

I just wish stupid algorithm based computer trading would stop manipulating the economy. That stuff isn't good for anyone except the brokers.

[patrickjp93]

What's the big fuzz about xeon?

Can't overclock and they are slower core by core no? Sure they have more cores but thats about it.

It's the move itself towards doing ANYTHING custom. Intel is very much a company of standards and SKUs trying to do as much "one size fits all" as it can due to the time investment required to do fully custom chips on a per-customer basis. Semi-custom was a good balance, but if you want to make IBM's kind of money, you have to go full custom, and I think Intel's tired of having IBM and Oracle steal any thunder in the business arena.

[Opcode]

Intel would never develop CPUs or consoles because they don't have the graphics IP

Intel has already made it apparent that they don't really care about the gaming industry.

[TwistedDictator]

Intel could very well let someone else do the GPU...

Say... the 970m (The Laptop GTX970 mobile edition) is still a absolute powerhouse chip, can be put in a small enclosure, and drives 1080p with EASE!

 

Yes, that would be a true console, not that shitty 8-core AMD APU that Xbone has

 

Putting a good intel chip and a 970m isnt cheap. There more to think about when creating a console...

[othertomperson]

Why would they bother with consoles? Multi-core Atoms are in literally everything else.

[Delusional Phil]

What's the big fuzz about xeon?

Can't overclock and they are slower core by core no? Sure they have more cores but thats about it.

Hmm I wonder if the Nvidia shield tablet can run console games... It's around the same price.

The thing is power efficient while still have similar or better processing speed then the regular core i7 consumer grade ... Also it can use ECC memory and that is super important for high precision server 

[patrickjp93]

I just wish stupid algorithm based computer trading would stop manipulating the economy. That stuff isn't good for anyone except the brokers.

Eh, you'd be surprised how it only exposes inefficiencies. It's not really manipulating the economy at all. The moment anyone could prove otherwise would bring the FTC down on wallstreet so hard the streets of NYC would flood with money and the blood of investment bankers.

[NumLock21]

I've also heard, they made special cpus that's designed to run in extreme cold weather.

[patrickjp93]

Putting a good intel chip and a 970m isnt cheap. There more to think about when creating a console...

Throw together a lightweight Avoton or Xeon D and a 970M as one die on Intel's fabs? You can bet your butt that'd be cheaper than an I5 and a 970M on their own.

[patrickjp93]

I've also heard, they made special cpus that's designed to run in extreme cold weather.

Like every CPU ever that runs better the colder it gets (seizure limits of silicon notwithstanding)?

[Toddwjp]

What's the big fuzz about xeon?

Can't overclock and they are slower core by core no? Sure they have more cores but thats about it.

Hmm I wonder if the Nvidia shield tablet can run console games... It's around the same price.

 

because there were intel makes its money, there excellent server chips, low power, ecc memory etc

[CatCloud]

because there were intel makes its money, there excellent server chips, low power, ecc memory etc

right but I Se gamers use them.. I don't se how ecc is needed for that.

[Toddwjp]

right but I Se gamers use them.. I don't se how ecc is needed for that.

 

gamers use them sometimes because they have a lower price compared to their equivalent consumer CPU, eg a quad core xeon with hyper threading is around £30-40 cheaper then an unlocked i7, so if they need the multi-threading for other things they use there pc for, eg they multi task allot or render videos or run there own server then its arguable a better option for the price.

 

Also theoretically with DX12 around the corner and cpu work becoming much easier to share between cores a xeon with hyper threading will become a very good cpu for gaming.

[NumLock21]

Like every CPU ever that runs better the colder it gets (seizure limits of silicon notwithstanding)?

Yeah but cold up to a certain point, just like a cpu will work at high temps. once it reach pass that limit, it stops working.

Some old article on these custom cpus

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/187055-intel-releases-rare-details-of-its-customized-oracle-cpus-and-there-a-lot-more-to-come

[SkilledRebuilds]

Putting a good intel chip and a 970m isnt cheap. There more to think about when creating a console...

Yeah I know, I have no doubts that it would never happen, one can dream...

In about 5 generations on consoles they may even have something as powerful as the 970m /booyah

 

 

[Trik'Stari]

Yeah I know, I have no doubts that it would never happen, one can dream...

In about 5 generations on consoles they may even have something as powerful as the 970m /booyah

-snip

You mean the GTX 480, which is what they used in that build if I remember correctly.

 

Seriously, console is f**ked if they don't do something big in the next iteration. Personally I hope they go down in FLAMES. Then maybe Dev's will wake up and say "oh yeah, this is supposed to be more of an art form than a cash cow" and start making excellent games for PC, and just completely ignore consoles while the console divisions of MS and Sony go bankrupt (Nintendo is immune to it....supposedly)