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Emergent properties and AMD's Phenom CPUs?

C

conundrum

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hi all.

I've been doing some research into AI, and have found some interesting
stuff.

Seems that most if not all new CPUs are now so complex and optimised
that hundreds of "rip up/retry" cycles are needed just to get the CPU
to work at all. This is another reason why overclocking the new chips
is rarely effective.

So you have a CPU that has been designed by a computer, checked over
(briefly) by designers, sent back n times for "repairs" and then
finally masked and built.

Obviously errors can and do creep in, the AMD "Phenom" quad-core
series are on the verge of a product recall due to an unrepairable
performance-sapping erratum (15%!) and are probably going to have to
be scrapped en masse.

The main issue on fast CPUs is interference between adjacent lines on
multiple layers, and overclocking just makes things worse. However if
you don't mind the odd one-in-1B calculation being inaccurate then
this is not an issue.

For AI use, randomness can be a good thing (see "New Scientist"
article on random interference on neural nets generating "ideas")

I predict that sooner or later, one or more of the new CPUs will
display emergent properties such as generating a coherent pattern from
random "noise" fed into the chip. In fact such a test may well reveal
ways to increase performance so it is probably already being done.

Perhaps AMD shouldn't scrap these chips just yet, sell them to the
scientific community for research use :)

-A
 
M

Marra

Jan 1, 1970
0
They rarely scrap chips anyway they just disable the faulty core and
sell them on.

For the software I write 1 error is disasterous !
 

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