A super computer for everyone!

RupeeClock

Colors 3D Snivy!
Member
Joined
May 15, 2008
Messages
6,497
Trophies
1
Age
34
Website
Visit site
XP
2,965
Country
A shitload of cores doesn't mean a shitload of power, and it sure as hell won't be true 45Ghz.
You don't just add up individual cores, more than that software has to be tailored to utilise multiple cores, and few do unless they are specialist software such as render farms.
Let's divide that 45Ghz figure by the 64 core figure they gave, *gasp*, that's just 700Mhz per core!
Now suppose you have software that only utilises four cores at best, it'll get 2.8Ghz of performance out of that.
This is as opposed to a regular Quadcore processor rated at 2.8Ghz, which if all four cores were utilised could operate at something akin to 11.2Ghz.

Actually Ghz isn't even a reliable way to tell the processing speed of a processor. It's merely the clock speed, it takes well designed architecture that minimizes every possible transmission to get the fastest calculations. For how cheap these processors are made out to be, I have serious doubts you will accomplish much of anything with these.

It's too good to be true, you'll probably get what's advertised but it will likely fall far beneath your expectations. You'll probably be better off grabbing a Raspberry Pi.
 

exangel

executioner angel
Member
Joined
Apr 20, 2010
Messages
1,571
Trophies
0
Age
40
Location
Tucson, AZ
XP
602
Country
United States

RupeeClock

Colors 3D Snivy!
Member
Joined
May 15, 2008
Messages
6,497
Trophies
1
Age
34
Website
Visit site
XP
2,965
Country
So I guess you can't play games on this?

Games like Skyrim and such? No. This is running on CPUs with the ARM architecture. Most games are designed with Microsoft directX and X86 in mind.
What if I have a Linux version of a game?
There are ARM ports of Linux. (edit: Obviously it comes with Ubuntu.. but there are other distros as well that will presumably work..)
Isn't Raspberry Pi already a rather nice ARM processor board, with SD card and USB slots?

This project seems to be LIKE that, but geared towards being able to process tons of applications at once, or maybe one or two applications utilising a ton of cores.

Also I was thinking about x86/64 processors with those figures earlier. A theoretical 45Ghz on ARM processors is FAR more significant than on x86/x64 processors.
 

tueidj

I R Expert
Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
2,569
Trophies
0
Website
Visit site
XP
999
Country
The Raspberry Pi's CPU is out of date and doesn't even have an FPU (there are much nicer ARM boards, you just need to look). A dual-core Cortex A9 would outperform it by 10x, even without the 16-core Epiphany accelerator.
 

notmeanymore

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2009
Messages
2,700
Trophies
1
XP
711
Country
United States
Why does it feel like half of these posts are recycled from this thread?

Get some new material, folks.

That aside, I'd be interested to see how good this device would be at Bitcoin mining.
 

Qtis

Grey Knight Inquisitor
Member
Joined
Feb 28, 2010
Messages
3,817
Trophies
2
Location
The Forge
XP
1,737
Country
Antarctica
Do people understand that this project is more about an affordable dev platform than anything else? Just like the Raspberry Pi, it will not be the top of the notch in x86 gaming, but it'll be something else. Sure it could be used, but as many have said, it's ARM based. It's not as easy as it sounds. On the other hand, it could be used as a remote desktop mirroring device à la AppleTV + Airplay. Just like the Pi (I'll be setting it up for Airplay + remote backups).

Hopefully this becomes something. Faster than the Pi, but for a higher price :P
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 people

Issac

Iᔕᔕᗩᑕ
Supervisor
Joined
Apr 10, 2004
Messages
7,025
Trophies
3
Location
Sweden
XP
7,349
Country
Sweden
I find this interesting, and would like to try it out to compute brown number pairs, digits of pi, fractals and other mathematical fun stuff (where high precision and calculation speed is wanted).
 

Mantis41

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Jun 3, 2009
Messages
1,851
Trophies
0
Location
earth
XP
454
Country
United States
Hmmm, Portable password hacker anyone?

Reminds me of one of those movies. Agent plugs device into security panel and the code magically appears within a few seconds.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person

Fishaman P

Speedrunner
Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2010
Messages
3,322
Trophies
1
Location
Wisconsin
Website
twitch.tv
XP
2,194
Country
United States
GHz =/= performance
GHZ * #ofCores =/= "Total" GHz

IMO, having a dual-core base with 16/64 weak CPUs on the side won't help much. Any decent graphics card can beat that performance by a mile with GPGPU.
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
    Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYZD7ykz9aQ +1