Foo_ (foo@nomail.com) on 12/5/07 wrote:
---------------------------
>DaveC (davecuny@gmail.com) on 12/5/07 wrote:
>---------------------------
>>
>>Okay, now I'm confused. Sun just went crazy telling everyone and their brother
>>that Niagara II needs every bit of 64 threads, and now Niagara III will go back
>>to 32 threads? Is Niagara III just Rock mini?
>
>The article says "Both processors feature 16 cores and Niagara 3 has 32 threads".
>Since Rock cores are supposed to be much fatter than Niagara's, perhaps Niagara
>is being drastically shrunk so as to efficiently target the low-end?
>
>

That would make sense, but when has Sun's MPU group ever made complete sense? :-p However, you're not really "shrinking" N3 if you ADD cores.

Thing is, they have a adequately-performing core that's engineered for 8 threads per core, so why abandon the many thread idea for dual thread? Why not just beef up the cores?

My guess is that N3 is very similar to Rock but w/out the scout threads and SMP.

Still, it is puzzling.

DaveC