On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 05:22:52PM -0700, Matt E. wrote:
Cell chip makes laptop debut in Toshiba Qosmio… but why? | Ars Technica
Thanks. The guy writing the article is basically clueless.
From the article:
The flavor of Cell BE that Toshiba uses in the G50 is called the
SpursEngine, and it’s a 65nm, four-SPE variant of the PlayStation 3’s
CPU. (Recall that the PS3’s Cell is fabbed with eight “synergistic
processing elements,” or SPEs, but only seven of them are functional
for yield reasons.) My guess is that Toshiba is taking Cell chips that
don’t have seven fully functional SPEs, shutting off four of the SPEs
(including the non-functional ones), and selling the resulting
four-SPE part as the SpursEngine.
His guess is total BS…
Interview w/ Toshiba guy w/ a clue:
I wonder if they’ll make the documentation on the SpursEngine
available and if Linux will run on the G50?
Eric
They got enough stuff wrong in the article to comment.
Spurs is not a powerpc. It is a four spe coprocessor sitting in a very
Intel-like system as the Toshiba laptop has a Core 2 Duo in it along
with
the spe coprocessor running at 1/2 clock for power reasons.
The Sony PS3 does NOT have 7 spes available. It has six. They used up
one
of those available aid running the silly hypervisor.
And on and on.
Bob