Kind of a shame that high-end MIPS hasn't taken off (well, returned I guess- I had MIPS-based SGI workstations in the early 2000's), these are interesting designs. P6600 with 6C/24T would be a low-power beast if there was software for the platform.
IMGTEC are gonna need some kind of USP or hook that gets vendors to overlook the different architecture and buy in, whether that's a low price, high performance or some useful feature not available in other architectures. Intel already has it covered on widespread adoption in laptops/desktops/server and performance-per-watt, ARM wins on power efficiency and in the mobile space (and is looking to move into ultra low-power IoT as well as servers), and POWER has the threading advantage and RAS features on high-end server systems.
I'm not sure where MIPS can slot in in all of this.
Cavium and Broadcom used to be big proponents of the MIPS architecture, having their own MIPS designed cores, but both have switched to ARM. You can find a lot of MIPS cores in wireless and networking controllers.
The thing with MIPS is that the per-thread performance is poor, so it is good if you just need a ton of light-weight threads but isn't competitive with even ARM or PPC if your sw arch doesn't take advantage of what they're good at.
I guess the 'competing CPU IP' is an A15 which would put the P5600 in A57 Coremark/Mhz ballpark. I think the reason we're not seeing any competitive SOC with Warrior IP is software. It took Google way too long to really get MIPS (and x86 for that matter) well implemented into the Android NDK.
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KateH - Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - link
Kind of a shame that high-end MIPS hasn't taken off (well, returned I guess- I had MIPS-based SGI workstations in the early 2000's), these are interesting designs. P6600 with 6C/24T would be a low-power beast if there was software for the platform.jospoortvliet - Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - link
There is just too much competition. Intel, ARM and OpenPOWER leave little room...SarahKerrigan - Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - link
I would call Broadcom's XLP II (20 cores, 2+ GHz, 4-issue out-of-order, 4-threaded SMT) pretty high end. It just doesn't use licensed cores.alexvoica - Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - link
There are several high-end SoCs using MIPS, including Broadcom and Cavium (mentioned below) but also the new Loongson-3A2000 and 3B2000.http://blog.imgtec.com/mips-processors/loongson-mi...
We also have a new customer targeting the HPC space using MIPS64, more details coming soon.
r3loaded - Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - link
IMGTEC are gonna need some kind of USP or hook that gets vendors to overlook the different architecture and buy in, whether that's a low price, high performance or some useful feature not available in other architectures. Intel already has it covered on widespread adoption in laptops/desktops/server and performance-per-watt, ARM wins on power efficiency and in the mobile space (and is looking to move into ultra low-power IoT as well as servers), and POWER has the threading advantage and RAS features on high-end server systems.I'm not sure where MIPS can slot in in all of this.
sseemaku - Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - link
Are there any devices with MIPS CPUs? Considering the amount of investment that would have gone to make these cores, they will need good design wins.MrMilli - Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - link
Cavium and Broadcom used to be big proponents of the MIPS architecture, having their own MIPS designed cores, but both have switched to ARM.You can find a lot of MIPS cores in wireless and networking controllers.
A5 - Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - link
Cavium is still making new MIPS cores, I know.The thing with MIPS is that the per-thread performance is poor, so it is good if you just need a ton of light-weight threads but isn't competitive with even ARM or PPC if your sw arch doesn't take advantage of what they're good at.
MrMilli - Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - link
Maybe true for what Cavium makes but the P5600 is supposed to have very good single threaded performance.http://blog.imgtec.com/mips-processors/mips-p5600-...
http://blog.imgtec.com/multimedia/the-day-i-design...
I guess the 'competing CPU IP' is an A15 which would put the P5600 in A57 Coremark/Mhz ballpark. I think the reason we're not seeing any competitive SOC with Warrior IP is software. It took Google way too long to really get MIPS (and x86 for that matter) well implemented into the Android NDK.
alexvoica - Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - link
Ian wrote an article about the new Baikal-T1 using a dual-core MIPS P5600.http://www.anandtech.com/show/9285/spot-the-cpu-ru...
ruthan - Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - link
Any info about TDP?SarahKerrigan - Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - link
"The P6600 keeps most of the predecessor's characteristics such as hardware multi-threading of up to 4 threads per core"P5600 wasn't multithreaded. The previous multithreaded Imgtec cores were interAptiv and I6400 (and, if I recall, 34Kc before that.)
SarahKerrigan - Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - link
Actually, I'm not seeing any other source, including Imgtec, saying P6600 is multithreaded either. I suspect Anandtech may be misreporting here.Andrei Frumusanu - Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - link
You're right, I mixed up the I6400's multi-threading with the P5600's capabilities.Arnulf - Wednesday, November 11, 2015 - link
Hello Alex Voica, I have slightly off-topic question for you if I may:Can we expect CI20 upgrade with faster CPU anytime soon, perhaps some of this P6600 stuff trickling into JZ line?