Creative Zii "Dual ARM based"

[ajaidevsingh]

Well the new Zii processor from Creative is quite different from what was rumored and what i hoped for. But it is quite brilliant never the less. "Check out zii.com for an intro into what zii is.

That said each zii is suppose to have like 10Gflops and a blade rack with have 2 Tflops of processing power that means this is quite phenomenal.

If we compare it to the IBM Cell which has 1 teraflop of raw computing power but is not as flexible as the zii this is also true for the 1 teraflop AMD "ATi" Rv770 architecture. The AMD GPU tech is not that scalable and the IBM Cell is scalable but not that efficient because of the SoC.

You know the real kicker Zii has split personality and thus can become say a video processor from a sound processor and vice verse that means no more use of an energy eating extra video chip in the Zen all we need are some more PE's....

But i was thinking MIPS processor should be used instead of the ARM.

 

[Peter Trend]

Hmm, we could fold on our soundcards too!?
Lol I like the split personality bit. Sounds like a pretty awesome chip!

 

[Sylvanas]

I saw the intro on the site, very interesting but we still need more details- I hope AT has an article on this. So, let me get this straight it's basically a full programmable chip whereby the 24PE's can undertake ANY task? Sounds cool anyways, looks like Creative is banking alot on this given their financial woes in recent times.

 

[ajaidevsingh]

see lots of tiny zii's working in harmony :-

http://www.engadget.com/photos...ive-zii-booth/1271454/

And yes this is a very big thing given the good scaling, a netbook may have 2-10zii processers which will effectively make it better in terms of processing power than even a C2D.

The best part is that the ARM SDK is relatively easy to handle but as i said MIPS would have been better.

 

[Ghouler]

Just checked if the Zii demo at CES made it onto Youtube and that's what I found:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk-g6CRB0O8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7a6yvEDwdE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWP3Fo98iok

I guess it all now depends how scalable this technology is, what's power efficiency like and how easy and costly it is to implement... But as for now I have to say I am very positively surprised...

 

[wwswimming]

i wonder if the Zii name is somehow a tribute to Zilog.

remember the Z-80 ?

 

[ViRGE]

Meh, I can get 4TFlops on 1U through Tesla, and that scales nicely. This seems like a solution in search of a problem.

 

[Bryf50]

Originally posted by: Ghouler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWP3Fo98iok

I was just looking at the teraflop accelerator video. Look at the size of that thing and the amount of processors. It looks like a decent video card would be able to render that same scene pretty easily.

 

[soccerballtux]

No thanks, Creative sucks. Their engineers are great at hardware but they push out crap for software and it takes them 2 years for them to finally get it to a 1.0 version that works correctly. Their customer service is terrible, too.

 

[vainster]

Guys, I got an update from ziilabs they sell the SDK now - bundled with the ziiegg hardware. Have a look here http://www.zii.com/Developer/SDKProducts.aspx

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: ajaidevsingh
Well the new Zii processor from Creative is quite different from what was rumored and what i hoped for. But it is quite brilliant never the less. "Check out zii.com for an intro into what zii is.

That said each zii is suppose to have like 10Gflops and a blade rack with have 2 Tflops of processing power that means this is quite phenomenal.

If we compare it to the IBM Cell which has 1 teraflop of raw computing power but is not as flexible as the zii this is also true for the 1 teraflop AMD "ATi" Rv770 architecture. The AMD GPU tech is not that scalable and the IBM Cell is scalable but not that efficient because of the SoC.

You know the real kicker Zii has split personality and thus can become say a video processor from a sound processor and vice verse that means no more use of an energy eating extra video chip in the Zen all we need are some more PE's....

But i was thinking MIPS processor should be used instead of the ARM.

I think the X-fi already used a MIPS processor and could do around a GFlop. But ARM processors are under way more development than MIPS, I see them eventually replacing just about everything that's not x86.

Still, if they're aiming at hand-held devices, maybe this thing has a chance to compete.

 

[slugg]

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: ajaidevsingh
Well the new Zii processor from Creative is quite different from what was rumored and what i hoped for. But it is quite brilliant never the less. "Check out zii.com for an intro into what zii is.

That said each zii is suppose to have like 10Gflops and a blade rack with have 2 Tflops of processing power that means this is quite phenomenal.

If we compare it to the IBM Cell which has 1 teraflop of raw computing power but is not as flexible as the zii this is also true for the 1 teraflop AMD "ATi" Rv770 architecture. The AMD GPU tech is not that scalable and the IBM Cell is scalable but not that efficient because of the SoC.

You know the real kicker Zii has split personality and thus can become say a video processor from a sound processor and vice verse that means no more use of an energy eating extra video chip in the Zen all we need are some more PE's....

But i was thinking MIPS processor should be used instead of the ARM.

I think the X-fi already used a MIPS processor and could do around a GFlop. But ARM processors are under way more development than MIPS, I see them eventually replacing just about everything that's not x86.

Still, if they're aiming at hand-held devices, maybe this thing has a chance to compete.

+1 for MIPS. The ISA is beautiful

But ARM is way more practical. MIPS is such an amazing architecture in theory, it seems...

so +1 for ARM. Looks like we have a tie

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: vainster
Guys, I got an update from ziilabs they sell the SDK now - bundled with the ziiegg hardware. Have a look here http://www.zii.com/Developer/SDKProducts.aspx

The pricing isn't bad. $400 for the plasma + SDK.
Very reasonable for an SDK, unlike some other companies that like to gouge developers.

My beagleboard can do 720P video but not 1080P. May look at the SDK.

I see the new 1Ghz ARM are making the news too. I'm glad that ARM is doing well I really like their designs and working with them isn't all that hard. I also like the way they license their tech, unlike intel who keep everything quiet.

 

[zebrax2]

Originally posted by: Modelworks

Originally posted by: vainster
Guys, I got an update from ziilabs they sell the SDK now - bundled with the ziiegg hardware. Have a look here http://www.zii.com/Developer/SDKProducts.aspx

The pricing isn't bad. $400 for the plasma + SDK.
Very reasonable for an SDK, unlike some other companies that like to gouge developers.

My beagleboard can do 720P video but not 1080P. May look at the SDK.

I see the new 1Ghz ARM are making the news too. I'm glad that ARM is doing well I really like their designs and working with them isn't all that hard. I also like the way they license their tech, unlike intel who keep everything quiet.

It's not plasma its plaszma

 

[Andrew1990]

They look rather interesting. Now I am no genius or anything, but could these eventually be toe to toe with Intel and AMDs desktop CPUs, or are they meant more for the niche market?

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: slugg

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: ajaidevsingh
Well the new Zii processor from Creative is quite different from what was rumored and what i hoped for. But it is quite brilliant never the less. "Check out zii.com for an intro into what zii is.

That said each zii is suppose to have like 10Gflops and a blade rack with have 2 Tflops of processing power that means this is quite phenomenal.

If we compare it to the IBM Cell which has 1 teraflop of raw computing power but is not as flexible as the zii this is also true for the 1 teraflop AMD "ATi" Rv770 architecture. The AMD GPU tech is not that scalable and the IBM Cell is scalable but not that efficient because of the SoC.

You know the real kicker Zii has split personality and thus can become say a video processor from a sound processor and vice verse that means no more use of an energy eating extra video chip in the Zen all we need are some more PE's....

But i was thinking MIPS processor should be used instead of the ARM.

I think the X-fi already used a MIPS processor and could do around a GFlop. But ARM processors are under way more development than MIPS, I see them eventually replacing just about everything that's not x86.

Still, if they're aiming at hand-held devices, maybe this thing has a chance to compete.

+1 for MIPS. The ISA is beautiful

But ARM is way more practical. MIPS is such an amazing architecture in theory, it seems...

so +1 for ARM. Looks like we have a tie

MIPS was clean, ARM is minimalist and very modular. ARM is one of the few cases where RISC did win out over CISC in the long run. It does everything simple and easy to do, aims for high clock speeds, and uses specialized co-processors for anything more specific.

Back to the topic though, I'm somewhat changing my tune about this Zii. It's an impressive amount of power for such a compact design, but I wonder about battery life.
If they could release it for under $300 with phone hardware (and no required contract), I'd snap one up.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: Andrew1990
They look rather interesting. Now I am no genius or anything, but could these eventually be toe to toe with Intel and AMDs desktop CPUs, or are they meant more for the niche market?

Highly scalable (debatable, they don't seem to have the high speed interconnects and local cache needed for it), powerful mini cpu. You'll probably see it mostly in mobile devices, I don't think it has the power for anyone to want to do some kind of distributed computing in it.

 

[Andrew1990]

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: Andrew1990
They look rather interesting. Now I am no genius or anything, but could these eventually be toe to toe with Intel and AMDs desktop CPUs, or are they meant more for the niche market?

Highly scalable (debatable, they don't seem to have the high speed interconnects and local cache needed for it), powerful mini cpu. You'll probably see it mostly in mobile devices, I don't think it has the power for anyone to want to do some kind of distributed computing in it.

Ah, so these are meant for things like smart phones and Mobile Gaming systems then if I am reading it right.

 

[drizek]

Hopefully this will be the basis of the next generation of Android phones. The Hero right now is really really nice, but everyone says it is too slow. The phone is great, the interface is great, they just need a fast enough processor for it and this looks like a perfect match.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: Andrew1990
They look rather interesting. Now I am no genius or anything, but could these eventually be toe to toe with Intel and AMDs desktop CPUs, or are they meant more for the niche market?

Highly scalable (debatable, they don't seem to have the high speed interconnects and local cache needed for it), powerful mini cpu. You'll probably see it mostly in mobile devices, I don't think it has the power for anyone to want to do some kind of distributed computing in it.

That is the great thing about ARM. If someone wants to design a version that is for distributed computing they can. With x86 there is so much licensing garbage to wade through that no changes get done without performing a sacrifice to the gods at intel or amd.


ARM already has access to the same high speed interconnects that x86 has.
http://www.arm.com/products/ph...h-speed-interface.html

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: Modelworks

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: Andrew1990
They look rather interesting. Now I am no genius or anything, but could these eventually be toe to toe with Intel and AMDs desktop CPUs, or are they meant more for the niche market?

Highly scalable (debatable, they don't seem to have the high speed interconnects and local cache needed for it), powerful mini cpu. You'll probably see it mostly in mobile devices, I don't think it has the power for anyone to want to do some kind of distributed computing in it.

That is the great thing about ARM. If someone wants to design a version that is for distributed computing they can. With x86 there is so much licensing garbage to wade through that no changes get done without performing a sacrifice to the gods at intel or amd.


ARM already has access to the same high speed interconnects that x86 has.
http://www.arm.com/products/ph...h-speed-interface.html

But does the Zii? Distributed computing seems to demand local caches, shared cache, and point to point interconnects.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: Modelworks

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: Andrew1990
They look rather interesting. Now I am no genius or anything, but could these eventually be toe to toe with Intel and AMDs desktop CPUs, or are they meant more for the niche market?

Highly scalable (debatable, they don't seem to have the high speed interconnects and local cache needed for it), powerful mini cpu. You'll probably see it mostly in mobile devices, I don't think it has the power for anyone to want to do some kind of distributed computing in it.

That is the great thing about ARM. If someone wants to design a version that is for distributed computing they can. With x86 there is so much licensing garbage to wade through that no changes get done without performing a sacrifice to the gods at intel or amd.


ARM already has access to the same high speed interconnects that x86 has.
http://www.arm.com/products/ph...h-speed-interface.html

But does the Zii? Distributed computing seems to demand local caches, shared cache, and point to point interconnects.

Yes it does. The development boards have the standard interconnect breakout that connects to every pin on the chip. So you could link whatever you needed to other boards to chain them together. Shared cache might require an extra ic, but it is definitely doable.


I know it is possible because I know someone that chained 4 of the below boards together to do distributed computing. The zii is much more powerful than these boards.


http://www.futurlec.com/STM32_Development_Board.shtml