by roberto » Sat Sep 14, 2013 2:13 am
what make epiphany interesting is:
- cost per chip,
- consume of energy
- "number cruncing" capability.
the new Atom at 22nm are reducing size, consume, and run normal x86 code. It will be interesting a "comparison challenge" to compare all parameters.
I have no the hardware to test, but it will be interesting if someone that own the new 22nm atom (that are low watt consuming) try to compare with parallella.
At the moment, i will be perplex to choose where to run code because "hardware" solution (epiphany) versus "software" solution (x86) seems not to be clear who is the winner. x86 can run code without to recompile, epiphany need to revrite the code but it promise a fast parallel computation... so, different parameter to me take in consideration by programmers ad boad developers.
the idea of a cheap , no-energy-hungry, coprocessor is smart, but for the moment, the fast technology progress of x86 seems to outstrip the actual prototypes at 64 cores you have under power calculation viewpoint. I think it will became clear (read: epiphany coprocessor is the winner under all viewpoints) only with future versions, when there will be at least 1K cores, withe lesser transistor nm size and hopefully at higher clock rate.
On the market there are alternatives: fast x86 multicore cpu, coprocessor, FPGA... it will be nice to see the evoluton (maybe converge) of these different technologies.