It's all Apple's Fault.

[MisterMac]

And what, do you think everyone wrote assembly for these other uarchs? They used compilers and used the same languages. But for good performance they had to write code differently at a high level. Making code highly parallelizable and amenable to different types of CPUs (or GPUs!) has more in common than you realize.



I definitely didn't say the majority of people that buy games have 8 threads. But why aren't they well utilized? Because not all software threads well and a lot that does is a very difficult undertaking with a lot of compromises. That's what I keep trying to say.



Yes, I absolutely believe the single threaded bottleneck in this scenario would be the most major problem.



I think you have a much different idea of what "market" means than I do. When I say market I mean what people WANT. You seem to think Apple created the iPhone market. I see it the other way around entirely - as far as I'm concerned, it's the market that encouraged Apple to create iPhone. That they got this way by realizing market trends and realizing what people would want.



They all hit close to the same limit over 100W. The only reason the newer CPUs have grown to fill up that same limit is because they have more cores.



Is that what you think I'm doing? If you don't understand how Pentium 4 convinced Intel that they needed to change their design philosophy then there's a lot you don't understand about the history of their CPU development...



These features require proper OS support, not that everyone starts writing completely different applications. I really don't see what you're getting at anyway. These power saving features have nothing to do with peak power consumption.



You're making several (more) strawman arguments here. But I'll start off with - no, I don't think that software will ever be threaded as much as possible. Or optimized as much as possible. That's outrageous. All software is limited by fixed schedules, budgets, and design targets - and past that it's limited by the skill of the people writing it.

But the argument has never really been about whether or not software will utilize threading as much as possible, it's been an argument about what "as much as possible" means. You seem to imply that most software can be lot more parallel than it is. Or, at the very least, you're saying that it could be the extent that justifies more cores. This is little more than a wild assumption on your part, an overly optimistic dream coming from someone who probably has no experience in making general purpose software more parallel. And the question has never been about whether or not you could use more cores, but whether or not they're worth their cost in die area.

You're blaming Intel for having poorer judgement than you claim, because they're not putting as many cores on devices as YOU think would be beneficial. When I say that the market dictates their decision, that doesn't mean that they're basing this merely on what exists now. You think that they don't evaluate potential? You think that they don't respond to where software development can go? They ARE moving along with changes in software - by making their vectors wider and more capable (AVX2) and by making their IGPs wider, more general purpose, and more tightly coupled. And guess what, they make these changes by evaluating the market and where they think it makes sense to move things.

AMD puts in more cores and they bet stronger on stuff like HSA, but it's not because they're more progressive/forward thinking than Intel, it's because they're playing in a different market. One called a niche, where it's better to be faster in 10% of software than more moderately slower in 100% of software. If they could do what Intel is doing they'd most likely have a different strategy.

What's really, REALLY puzzling is how you think Apple's products have ANYTHING to do with any of this. Intel has been putting more cores in server and enthusiast products only before iPhone. They have been focusing on increasing perf/W over increasing peak perf before iPhone. They've been working on a lower power (and cheaper) processor variant before iPhone. And somehow, somehow you think iPhone convinced Intel to not sell you a 6 core (but with no more single threaded performance..) CPU for $300 instead of $600. Please tell me how this works. Please tell me how you think developing SoC friendly processes has dictated how many cores they slap down on their high end mainstream parts.

I never mentioned i think intel should sell me X Cores @ Y Price.
(Well - i do want them to - but i do not see it as their problem for not servicing me).
Please stop putting words in my mouth.

Please stop calling stuff strawman that's not a strawman.
Your completely not responding to anything.

Your finally on to something about the skill of the people writing it.
You and i - have to believe in some way - market will train for what it sees fit for the future.
If the market demands more people who write managed code amass - it'll educate them.
(Hi Java and .NET!).

That also includes as a software engineer in a performance area - knows how to design and instruct his team to write code that threads well for any uARCH - IF an abundance of threads become availeble.

There's a fixed budget for every project sure - but how you dedicate that budget says all.
If you want a application capable of being responsive and handle different intensive workloads - and all you have is a 1,8 ghz willamette times 32.
You will find the time neccesary to make sure you can split up the design of the program into threaded que's as much as possible.

Run as much asynchronous tasks as possible - and piece everything together in order as needed.

But it's easy to write "acceptable" code when your ST performance on Haswell - is damn stellar.


I don't believe with x86 legacy and slow Instruction adoption rate - there will ever be a 50% jump from a gaming or modern day desktop workload ever - that's not somehow MT related.
(Short of graphene\carbon somehow allowing us to go beyond 5 ghz marks).

Now if you still haven't bloody figured this out - The apple references are tongue in cheek because they're the ones (that moved the market \ market moved with them depending on who you are) publicly help this movement alot.

Both in mainstream and more geek circles.
And even more so now that every apple fan knows CYCLONE IS MAD PANTS YO.

 

[ultimatebob]

Well... I think that we can blame Apple for making Smartphones easy enough to use for upper middle class people (and their spoiled kids) to use. Before then they were geek toys, and the average user was happy with their pretty colorful Motorola RAZR's.

We can't really blame Intel for not ramping up processor speeds, though. Without AMD giving them any real competition on the high end, Intel shifted their focus on low power CPU's to compete with ARM instead.

 

[Exophase]

I never mentioned i think intel should sell me X Cores @ Y Price.
(Well - i do want them to - but i do not see it as their problem for not servicing me).
Please stop putting words in my mouth.

No, you just want them to put more than four cores in a CPU. Which they have with the more expensive SB-E and IB-E with 6 cores. Which they will with the more expensive Haswell-E with 8 cores. Or you could buy Xeons. But this isn't what you want, now is it. Only, how exactly is that argument not that you want them to sell higher core CPUs for less money?

Your finally on to something about the skill of the people writing it.
You and i - have to believe in some way - market will train for what it sees fit for the future.

Uh no, when I said skill I didn't mean training, I meant talent. There's a limit to how much talent will be in the workforce.

You just keep talking about how there coooouuuld be all this more parallel code if people just triiiiied harder, how if the hardware was this or that the software would definitely HAVE to do what the hardware wants because it'd have no choice! This reminds me of this guy I talked to who was talking about how we should be putting 100,000 6502s on a die. I can't friggin tell you how many people have had and are having this idea, that if they put a bunch of cores on a chip it'll unlock all this new stuff if people just do their software differently. It's the same story every time, something from Tilera or Adapteva or even ARM, this amazing new hardware that only needs some open minded software developers to make sing. NEVER do they launch with even ONE reasonable proof of concept showing all the potential they could unlock. But I keep hearing the same crap here, how much Intel is holding everyone back by not putting as many cores as they possibly can on a chip, economics notwithstanding.

And it's obnoxious because these people don't talk about actual programming strategies, just "start using dem cores lazy developers!" You want to make a real difference? Go take some popular open source software and make it more parallelizable. You do NOT need a 100 core chip to prove that it works, you can easily show a lot of potential if you keep scaling in threads without degrading much in performance. Lead by example, I guarantee that will accomplish more than anything else.

Or find out that there are actual technical obstacles to your fantasies and not just ones of Apple ruining the marketplace. Either one is good by me.

 

[MisterMac]

The performance the OP is asking for is already there. Intel could easily give you twice the performance today. The platform performance segmentation is not so much about process now. A few things have dictated where we are now:

1. Component Integration
2. Artificial lowering of tdp
3. Market segmentation

All these are driven by profitability.

On the first point, do you remember how Intel shafted Nvidia by moving the memory controller on-die? How about the incorporation of igps on-die, though this was inspired more by the threat of AMD?
Again, four years ago mainstream desktop quads were operating at 130watts with decent heatsinks. Today, we have 84watt quads with skimpy heatsinks and paste under the ihs. Imagine an igpless 22nm chip from Intel with a 130watt tdp! Easily 12 cores (as they have in server now), and you have the performance you're asking for. Intel won't do it. You know why?
Makes no economic sense (cost); market segmentation; competition, etc. There are smart people at Intel determining how much performance is "enough" for desktop taking many all these variables into consideration. Basically, look past the desktop for the performance you're looking for, if you can find the software to take advantage of it. Be prepared to pay through the nose, unless of course, someone lights a fire under Intel's a ss!

Yes - because it is not deemed worth to chase from intel's side, from AMDs side anyone's side really.

Why is that? well mobile computing from phones to tablets to watches to glasses.

If you remove that fashion accessory glitz that some brands sell their products under - i just wonder how the technology behind would have advanced.

And would it not be more towards performance @ top envelopes rather than lowest?

 

[MisterMac]

No, you just want them to put more than four cores in a CPU. Which they have with the more expensive SB-E and IB-E with 6 cores. Which they will with the more expensive Haswell-E with 8 cores. Or you could buy Xeons. But this isn't what you want, now is it. Only, how exactly is that argument not that you want them to sell higher core CPUs for less money?



Uh no, when I said skill I didn't mean training, I meant talent. There's a limit to how much talent will be in the workforce.

You just keep talking about how there coooouuuld be all this more parallel code if people just triiiiied harder, how if the hardware was this or that the software would definitely HAVE to do what the hardware wants because it'd have no choice! This reminds me of this guy I talked to who was talking about how we should be putting 100,000 6502s on a die. I can't friggin tell you how many people have had and are having this idea, that if they put a bunch of cores on a chip it'll unlock all this new stuff if people just do their software differently. It's the same story every time, something from Tilera or Adapteva or even ARM, this amazing new hardware that only needs some open minded software developers to make sing. NEVER do they launch with even ONE reasonable proof of concept showing all the potential they could unlock. But I keep hearing the same crap here, how much Intel is holding everyone back by not putting as many cores as they possibly can on a chip, economics be damned.

And it's obnoxious because these people don't talk about actual programming strategies, just "start using dem cores lazy developers!" You want to make a real difference? Go take some popular open source software and make it more parallelizable. You do NOT need a 100 core chip to prove that it works, you can easily show a lot of potential if you keep scaling in threads without degrading much in performance. Lead by example, I guarantee that will accomplish more than anything else.

Or find out that there are actual technical obstacles to your fantasies and not just ones of Apple ruining the marketplace. Either one is good by me.

Your just stupidly narrowminded.

I don't say it's intel problem to sell me that shit stop it.
You like putting words of in my mouth - but i never said that.

I'm not saying parallelizing code is easy.
I'm saying if that's what hindered progress for intel\amds many customers - then they'd educate themselves to achieve their goals solve it.

Just like they have in SERVER WORKLOADS.
That's not the case for mainstream since the whole good enough\mobile craze happened.



And for the love of god - your daft little punk if you can't find the tongue in cheek this was written in.

Apple isn't a sole factor - it was one factor of many. learn to read.
Work on your ability to decypher the written word better.

Name calling and insults are not allowed here
Markfw900
Anandtech Moderator

 

[Exophase]

Maybe someone else can help explain what it is you're really trying to say because you keep saying I'm missing it and I keep rereading your posts and I keep not seeing it. You say you're not just blaming Apple, but I can't find a single cause for your complaining in the opening thread except this one:

"If that stupid touch phone and that stupid tablet hadn't come out - neither intel nor gf nor tsmc would be tuning they're processes to low leakage CMOS designs."

And you, like others, attribute the success of smartphones and tablets entirely to Apple.

Well, that and your thread title is "it's all Apple fault." But yeah it's tongue in cheek and all that, too bad I can't determine what you're actually trying to be serious about then.

Nobody solved a problem in server workloads because server workloads have always by definition consisted of dealing with a large number of totally independent tasks. Oh, and servers are also these tightly crammed boxes sitting in these loud rooms with special cooling, where power efficiency is very important. When the customer is you, Mr. Wants A Box Under His Desk (even though the real customer is Mrs. Wants A Computer On Her Lap) the constraints are just a little bit different. I don't know how you think there's this big gulf of untapped performance when 150W processors means the fans get a ton louder and no one wants louder fans. Or 200W processors means water cooling and people most certainly do not want that. The current enthusiast desktop processors from Intel use 125+W and are therefore pushing the limits of what people are willing to put in a desktop. And yes we obviously are talking about their enthusiast CPUs and not their mainstream ones because you insist the problem is NOT that they're charging too much money for cores.

Or maybe you really think that they should be giving us less single threaded performance with more cores. In which case I bet they could slap a whole lot of those silly phone-driven Atom CPUs on a core, if they can figure out a good interconnect.

But I still don't know what any of this has to do with phones.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Yawn. Don't you realize Intel has been massively overselling CPU performance way north of most people needs since 2006 onwards. The consumers decided that is not exactly worth paying for and are only voting with their wallets.

 

[PPB]

I see this 3 year stasis as a good chance for software to catch up. Going in further Hardware improvements CPU wise wouldnt mean squat if we just dont let single threaded software to die first. Not expecting really 2x perf from going 1 to 2 threads in most software (o 4x for going quad thread, for that matter), but I bet the gains would still be superior than hardware engineerings peeling their asses over trying to extract another 10% of single threaded performance out of a already mature arch like Haswell, for example.


I even think that if we just cut the CPU refresh cycle for a couple of years (meh, what we are seeing these days isnt that far away anyways), we would still get better performance out of our hardware thanks to software finally catching up. That sort of thing that happens on consoles between first released games and the last ones in the console's lifespan. But then Intel, AMD and the ARM crew have to sell something to stay alive, you know :hmm:

I dont blame the ultramobile boom to this stagnation: it was just bound to happen. As exophase said, you just cant keep ramping up performance mindlessly. That's why Sandy Bridge-Ivy-HW lower power compsumption changes over good ol' Nehalem were so welcomed, and that's why AMD going back to lower tdps with APU only designs is a good thing too.

The better path would be something like this: for one generation, try to up the performance, at the expense of a higher power budget. The next one, work the efficiency side of things nad try to reach the same performance with less power. Pretty similar to what Tick Tock is from Intel, but the lower-power side being approached more from the uArch side and not rely so much in process node, we all know that is a dead end if someone is not coming up with an alternative soon enough.

 

[Yarn]

This whole thread is funny to me . I thought exo would stop replying after it became obvious that the OP wasn't getting one of the central flaws in his argument.

 

[deathBOB]

https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1309_14-17_mickens.pdf

 

[blackened23]

This is the most ridiculous thread I've read in a LONG TIME. And yes, I love my iPad. It is a great on the go gadget for browsing and media consumption. Oddly enough, I love my desktop too. Apple are such jerks for creating a small portable device that lets me do every web/media consumption function with a ton of battery life. I'm sorry, not every portable device requires a core i7 processor that can do 17 gabillion teraflops while rendering in photoshop - when i'm on the go, I generally am just fine doing basic web functions and media consumption. Apple filled a niche there, a niche which a LOT of people enjoy.

Just face the facts. Some functions of computing DO NOT require 8 cores, 17 gabillion teraflops, or a core i7. Most users fit into a category where they can get what they want from computing without a core i7 processor. It is not Apple's fault that this happened - stating that is just silly.

If you need more performance, you're free to get a more powerful laptop. How did anything change for you? Let's not derail the thread from the Apple haters having their fun, though.

 

[ultimatebob]

https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1309_14-17_mickens.pdf

Wow... I want some of the stuff this guy was on when he wrote this

 

[Exophase]

https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1309_14-17_mickens.pdf

That was beautiful.

 

[Sheep221]

The OP has problem with computers and phones and similar machines becoming fashion trend rather technology trend.
It's very challenging right now to make faster chips, but since you can't advertise and sell new products based on 2-5-10% increments which are only felt in the hardest programs and games, you switch to fashion trend to attract the general public.
Smartphones with apps, wifi, tablets and more are devices very old, what happened is that they were turned from machines to gadgets. I think I could download apps in to Nokia 7210 and 3510i respectively via GPRS internet, the very same apps written in Java, which are now same modern Android apps, year 2002. Nokia 7650, 3650 and more, all symbian based smartphones, released in 2000 and Sony Ericsson P900 had touch and type form factor, in 2003. Nokia Communicators from 2003 had WiFi...etc All very expensive and sophisticated technological flagships of that era, but they were only used by geeks and buinessmen as no one else bought those due to lack of attractive design. Today they are not bringing new anything technological-wise, they are only bundled in better casing, attractive larger screen and touch screen controls. Touch screen is in fact not more effective than keypad, but it is more appealing to use. That's all, my and 4.0 phone basically does same things software-wise as did my 3510i 10 years ago. But with Android, iPhone, Windows Phone and more, you are just having more eye candy and more playful stuff, e.g it's all about fashion rather than innovation. To not deny it, the innovation did happen but it's not the reason the smartphones sell better.

Similar could be to lesser extend written about desktops and laptops alike.

 

[magomago]

The OP has problem with computers and phones and similar machines becoming fashion trend rather technology trend.
It's very challenging right now to make faster chips, but since you can't advertise and sell new products based on 2-5-10% increments which are only felt in the hardest programs and games, you switch to fashion trend to attract the general public.
Smartphones with apps, wifi, tablets and more are devices very old, what happened is that they were turned from machines to gadgets. I think I could download apps in to Nokia 7210 and 3510i respectively via GPRS internet, the very same apps written in Java, which are now same modern Android apps, year 2002. Nokia 7650, 3650 and more, all symbian based smartphones, released in 2000 and Sony Ericsson P900 had touch and type form factor, in 2003. Nokia Communicators from 2003 had WiFi...etc All very expensive and sophisticated technological flagships of that era, but they were only used by geeks and buinessmen as no one else bought those due to lack of attractive design. Today they are not bringing new anything technological-wise, they are only bundled in better casing, attractive larger screen and touch screen controls. Touch screen is in fact not more effective than keypad, but it is more appealing to use. That's all, my and 4.0 phone basically does same things software-wise as did my 3510i 10 years ago. But with Android, iPhone, Windows Phone and more, you are just having more eye candy and more playful stuff, e.g it's all about fashion rather than innovation. To not deny it, the innovation did happen but it's not the reason the smartphones sell better.

Similar could be to lesser extend written about desktops and laptops alike.

Yes and No. There is still advancement, but I think its more about data integration and presenting you that information in a convenient manner. There is no way you are going to tell me that Android doesn't do a better job with Organizaing and presenting data than my old blackberry.

 

[Idontcare]

That was beautiful.

My thoughts exactly. On so many levels, not just the technical ones either. His method of story telling was captivating as well, a rarity.

 

[Ajay]

https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1309_14-17_mickens.pdf

Wow... I want some of the stuff this guy was on when he wrote this

Seriously, I think I could have written this if I 'dropped some acid'. Even without LSD, this was inspired and hilarious :thumbsup:



PS, No I've never done LSD, I just binged on some Netflix Fringe episodes recently

 

[aigomorla]

Apple is not a processor nor is it a CPU company.

how does this topic even belong in this section??

 

[2is]

If I had a choice between an old flip phone and a desktop system that has a CPU 3x more powerful than what I have, or stick with my 3770k and iPhone. I'd choose to stick with my current situation. Smart phones have provided much more fulfillment in my life than a faster desktop would have. I remember when I'd drive around from place to place until I found a haircut shop or restaurant that didn't have a wait... Not an issue anymore with the entertainment value I carry around in my pocket.

 

[Tsavo]

Apple is not a processor nor is it a CPU company.

how does this topic even belong in this section??

Because the thread is about CPU's, not socks, basketballs or small British engines that never run properly.

:thumbsdown: