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Desktop Parallel Processessing
The Future of Personal Computing

Desktop Parallel Processessing

wuliheron
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Posted 10/10/09 - 05:26 PM: Subject: Desktop Parallel Processessing	#1
I decided to build my own computer this year and, unbeknownst to me, my timing was serendipitious. Not only is it easier to do so than ever before, but this year marks a significant transition away from linear desktop processessing and towards parallel processing with the introduction of Directx 11 and new multiteraflop graphics cards that can do a great deal more than merely process eye candy. For example, Stanford U. has a program called folding@home which takes advantage of newer Radeon graphics cards to calculate how proteins fold when the computer is not otherwise placing any serious demands on the gpu. Previously programs had been devised which took advantage of screen savers for distributed computing, but the transition of desktop computers to fully parallel processing machines opens the door for much more flexible and powerful distributed computing oportunities. Exactly where all of this new technology is going in the near future is what I would like to explore here. For those of you who might be interested, here are my specs. Antec 300 case w/ 4 120mm and a 140mm fan Phenom II 940 oc@3.7 ghz Coolermaster V8 cpu cooler 8 gb ddr2 1066 mhz ram Radeon 4830 oc@690gpu & 1080mem My own computer is rather modest by current standards and cost perhaps $500.00 (US) to build. In contrast, the newest directx 11 compliant graphics cards alone cost $380.00. The current generations of operating systems are 64 bit, however, supposidly a 128 bit operating system would be ideal for linear processing because it would allow a single cpu to process all the graphics, audio, physics, and operating instructions simultaneously without the need for additional instructions on what order to process and recompile these things. Unfortunately the current state of the art of processor manufacturing is rapidly approaching the limits of how fast silicone chips can get with air cooling. Hence the move over the last decade from single processor chips to dual and quad processor chips with 8 and even 16 core processors planned for the near future. As is to be expected, the ability of programmers to take advantage of these extra cpu processors has lagged behind the ability of manufacturers to make them. Unfortunately this situation has been compounded in recent years by a rather ackward transition in the industry from 32 bit operating systems to 64 bit ones. Even when programmers were able to take advantage of multiple cpu cores, the output usually still had to be recompiled and fed to the gpu in a synchronous fashion. However, the newest generation of graphics cards can now accept multiple inputs from the cpu more readily and the process of programming these has also been simplified allowing for processing that takes significantly greater advantage of the combination of multiple cpu cores and gpu streaming processors. The end result is that the latest generation of personal computers now have not only multiple cpu cores, but also graphics cards that are rapidly becoming parallel processing computers in their own rite and the combination of the two has largely yet to be explored potential. Of course, the most complex parallel processing computer on the planet is still arguably the human brain and, no doubt, future desktop computing will incorporate at least some specialized neural network circuitry. The question I would like to explore here today is exactly what are we going to do with all this increased processing power and where do people see the technology taking us in the near future. Edited by Bobard on 10/11/09 - 12:04 AM. Reason: highlighted philosophical question

swstephe
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Posted 10/11/09 - 12:45 AM:	#2
The move from 32-bit to 64-bit is pretty obvious. All 32-bit CPU's are limited to 4 gigabytes of address space. A 64-bit CPU moves that limit up to 18 exabytes, (18 * 10^18). I had a chance to play around with an "nCube", back in the 1990's. It had 256 CPUs. I managed to bring a database query to its knees when I realized that truly parallel CPU's have to deal with available hardware bottlenecks, like disk "pinging" and network. It has been around for ages, (long before PC's), but only became affordable -- especially with the chip manufacturers building the "cores" into their chips. There was also the "electric sheep" program and SETI research which would timeshare your computer when it was idle. An even bigger move, which is only now just showing up in the news, is the move by industry giants toward "cloud computing". That is where online resources are kept in clouds and your PC uses it transparently as a "service". They are trading fast internet speeds, (not available to us on Borneo Island), with disk storage. Microsoft and Google just recently traded shots. Google with it's "Google Apps" and Microsoft with "Word in the Clouds", which makes documents virtually sharable.
Ethics is the measuring of morality. Morality is the measuring of good. Good is the measuring of benefit. Benefit is the measure of values.

Bobard
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Posted 10/11/09 - 01:02 AM:	#3
The answer surely is very unremarkable: more of the same. Computers, while undeniably getting more and more powerful, conceptually they have not changed since the early days of computing. Don’t be fooled by all the bells and whistles and clouds and massive parallelism – they remain simple linear processing devices. This isn’t going to change in the short to mid term. The only possibility I see on the horizon is quantum computing but it’s going to be a long, long time before there are any practical applications. As a child of the seventies this disgusts me – I was promised holidays on the moon and jet packs!
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wuliheron
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Posted 10/11/09 - 03:16 AM:	#4
Bobard wrote: The answer surely is very unremarkable: more of the same. Computers, while undeniably getting more and more powerful, conceptually they have not changed since the early days of computing. Don’t be fooled by all the bells and whistles and clouds and massive parallelism – they remain simple linear processing devices. This isn’t going to change in the short to mid term. The only possibility I see on the horizon is quantum computing but it’s going to be a long, long time before there are any practical applications. As a child of the seventies this disgusts me – I was promised holidays on the moon and jet packs! Instead you got a home computer that less than a decade ago would have been considered a supercomputer. You can still take a vacation in space and buy a jet pack, but they will cost you a bundle. Silicon is just so much cheaper. swstephe wrote: The move from 32-bit to 64-bit is pretty obvious. All 32-bit CPU's are limited to 4 gigabytes of address space. A 64-bit CPU moves that limit up to 18 exabytes, (18 * 10^18). I had a chance to play around with an "nCube", back in the 1990's. It had 256 CPUs. I managed to bring a database query to its knees when I realized that truly parallel CPU's have to deal with available hardware bottlenecks, like disk "pinging" and network. It has been around for ages, (long before PC's), but only became affordable -- especially with the chip manufacturers building the "cores" into their chips. There was also the "electric sheep" program and SETI research which would timeshare your computer when it was idle. An even bigger move, which is only now just showing up in the news, is the move by industry giants toward "cloud computing". That is where online resources are kept in clouds and your PC uses it transparently as a "service". They are trading fast internet speeds, (not available to us on Borneo Island), with disk storage. Microsoft and Google just recently traded shots. Google with it's "Google Apps" and Microsoft with "Word in the Clouds", which makes documents virtually sharable. Unfortunately the current optical fiber technology is on a par with the original telegraph wire. The technology simply does not exist to do serious multiplexing which could increase existing optical fiber capacity by orders of magnatude. Optical "combs" exist which can split the laser into countless seperate beams, but as yet they can't seperate them out on the receiving end. Assuming they do overcome this obsticle it could conceivably lead to high speed internet replacing and supplimenting virtually all current forms of communication as well as expanding the use of cloud computing and distributed computing. Just as the all those old telegraph wires were rapidly torn down and replaced once they figured out how to send multiple audio signals over a single wire, high capacity optical fibers might be in Borneo's near future. Networking is another one of those other areas where the technology and basic science are still in their infancy and we could conceivably see dramatic new applications in the near future. Contextualizing intranet protocals is one of the bigger pushes in recent years. It's difficult for me to imagine what a contextualized worldwide web might be like, but it would certainly be a welcome change from the current anarchy.

nousPLOTINU
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Posted 10/13/09 - 03:52 AM:	#5
As computing power increases most of it will be directed towards the creation and maintenance of social puzzles! We may find more lookup libraries stored locally avoiding transmission delays. There is a difference between multiple cpu usage and parallel computing algorithmns which means quantum computing is seriously deficient and is pratically off the horizon.
It is not that I think I know, it is that I know when I think.

Cadrache
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Posted 10/13/09 - 09:18 AM:	#6
As long as the communications channels between processor locations keeps up to speed. (where my own problem lies lol.)
"...There was a writer who asked why it was that when we find positive experiences we say that only the physical facts are real, but in negative experiences we believe that reality is subjective. He made an example of those who say that in birth only the pain is real, the joy a subjective point of view, but that in death it is the emotional loss that is the reality." - Tony Ballantyne, Recursion. _____________________________________________ Truth is want. - The internal state of matters. Truth is Need. - The external state of affairs.

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