Xilinx ISE support for dual/quad core CPUs?

Hi,

I'm about to buy a new workstation for FPGA development and I'm
hesitating between a Core 2 Extreme @ 2.93 GHz (X6800) and the new
quad-core @ 2.66 GHz (QX6700). The price difference is 100$.

Does Xilinx have any roadmap for multi-core CPU support in the future?
I'd hate to buy a dual-core CPU just to learn that ISE v10.1 features
quad-core support...

If there is no multi-core support planned for the foreseeable future,
I'll probably buy the dual-core CPU because it's slightly faster than
the quad-core one. I'm going to work on a Virtex 4 FX100 soon so I'll
need all the horsepower I can get for the P&R runs...


Patrick

Patrick Dubois wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm about to buy a new workstation for FPGA development and I'm
> hesitating between a Core 2 Extreme @ 2.93 GHz (X6800) and the new
> quad-core @ 2.66 GHz (QX6700). The price difference is 100$.
> 
> Does Xilinx have any roadmap for multi-core CPU support in the future?
> I'd hate to buy a dual-core CPU just to learn that ISE v10.1 features
> quad-core support...
> 
> If there is no multi-core support planned for the foreseeable future,
> I'll probably buy the dual-core CPU because it's slightly faster than
> the quad-core one. I'm going to work on a Virtex 4 FX100 soon so I'll
> need all the horsepower I can get for the P&R runs...
> 
> Patrick

Considering how touchy the ISE tools can be and how much tougher PAR can be to parallelize 
than synthesis, translation and mapping, I am not expecting PAR to parallelize any time 
soon. While it certainly would be nice, I would be more interested in seeing existing 
(crash-)bugs and other annoyances get squished than seeing PAR&all crash twice as fast and 
twice as often.

If you can postpone this purchase for a few more months, I suggest you wait and get a C2D 
E6850 when they are released: these will be much less expensive (266 USD) yet a bit faster 
(3GHz with 1333MHz FSB) than the X6800. The CPU economy alone will be sufficient to 
finance most of the new quad-core system (or replacement quad-core CPU) by the time ISE 
becomes fully multi-threaded, stable and reasonably scalable beyond two CPUs.

On Mar 16, 9:04 pm, "Patrick Dubois" <prdub...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm about to buy a new workstation for FPGA development and I'm
> hesitating between a Core 2 Extreme @ 2.93 GHz (X6800) and the new
> quad-core @ 2.66 GHz (QX6700). The price difference is 100$.
>
> Does Xilinx have any roadmap for multi-core CPU support in the future?
> I'd hate to buy a dual-core CPU just to learn that ISE v10.1 features
> quad-core support...
>
> If there is no multi-core support planned for the foreseeable future,
> I'll probably buy the dual-core CPU because it's slightly faster than
> the quad-core one. I'm going to work on a Virtex 4 FX100 soon so I'll
> need all the horsepower I can get for the P&R runs...
>
> Patrick

Hi Patrick,

If you're into doing some script-buildning yourself, it is possible to
speed up builds by quite alot by hand-coding a build-file for the
Synthesis-part, but maybe your problem is the P&R and that is probably
another story. I posted something on it here.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/s3_kit/message/123
If I remember correctly the initial Build time was about 6-7 minutes.

I've mostly done Verilog in ISE but just now I'm attending a VHDL-
course at a university and they use Altera's QuartusII tools. They
also include Multi-CPU-support and at least it is possible to select
how many of your CPU's that will be used from QuartusII. Can anyone
comfirm this? Is the SMP-support in Alteras QuartusII better that the
non-existant in Xilinx ISE? My project has been so small so I can't
measure any difference! :-)

On Mar 18, 2:03 pm, "Daniel S." <digitalmastrmind_no_s...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
> If you can postpone this purchase for a few more months, I suggest you wait and get a C2D
> E6850 when they are released: these will be much less expensive (266 USD) yet a bit faster
> (3GHz with 1333MHz FSB) than the X6800.

Thanks for the suggestion, I was not aware of the E6850. Quite a price
difference indeed! Unfortunately I can't really wait very long. Too
bad that the E6850 is still a few months away...

On Mar 19, 2:53 pm, "spartan3wiz" <magnus.wedm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> If you're into doing some script-buildning yourself, it is possible to
> speed up builds by quite alot by hand-coding a build-file for the
> Synthesis-part,

Yep, I did that already. I have about 10 different modules at the
moment, each synthesized with a separate batch file.

> but maybe your problem is the P&R and that is probably
> another story. I posted something on it here.http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/s3_kit/message/123
> If I remember correctly the initial Build time was about 6-7 minutes.

Yes, the P&R is my problem. It's especially frustrating when all
you're doing is changing a few Chipscope signals and you have to go
through the whole P&R from scratch.

On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:39:11 -0700, Patrick Dubois wrote:

> On Mar 18, 2:03 pm, "Daniel S." <digitalmastrmind_no_s...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>> If you can postpone this purchase for a few more months, I suggest you
>> wait and get a C2D E6850 when they are released: these will be much
>> less expensive (266 USD) yet a bit faster (3GHz with 1333MHz FSB) than
>> the X6800.
> 
> Thanks for the suggestion, I was not aware of the E6850. Quite a price
> difference indeed! Unfortunately I can't really wait very long. Too bad
> that the E6850 is still a few months away...

The E6700 has a lot of headroom, I'm running mine overclocked to 3GHz 
using the stock Intel cooler and 4G of DDR2 800 RAM slightly underclocked 
to 750MHz (the RAM speed is set to 667 in the BIOS, the core clock is at 
300 instead of 266 which gives you 752). I'm running the system 24/7 
doing NC Verilog simulations and Xilinx place and routes. It's been up 
since Dec without any problems. 

On Mar 19, 4:06 pm, "B. Joshua Rosen"
> The E6700 has a lot of headroom, I'm running mine overclocked to 3GHz
> using the stock Intel cooler and 4G of DDR2 800 RAM slightly underclocked
> to 750MHz (the RAM speed is set to 667 in the BIOS, the core clock is at
> 300 instead of 266 which gives you 752). I'm running the system 24/7
> doing NC Verilog simulations and Xilinx place and routes. It's been up
> since Dec without any problems.

I wish I could buy a system that has overclocking potential.
Unfortunately we are mostly limited to Dell machines, which do not
provide any overclocking possibilities in the bios. Maybe I can
convince the IT guy to buy from another supplier. Do you have any
recommendation for a reputable PC builder company which doesn't lock
its bioses as much as Dell does (for a reasonnable price)?

Thanks.

On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:11:48 -0700, Patrick Dubois wrote:

> On Mar 19, 4:06 pm, "B. Joshua Rosen"
>> The E6700 has a lot of headroom, I'm running mine overclocked to 3GHz
>> using the stock Intel cooler and 4G of DDR2 800 RAM slightly
>> underclocked to 750MHz (the RAM speed is set to 667 in the BIOS, the
>> core clock is at 300 instead of 266 which gives you 752). I'm running
>> the system 24/7 doing NC Verilog simulations and Xilinx place and
>> routes. It's been up since Dec without any problems.
> 
> I wish I could buy a system that has overclocking potential.
> Unfortunately we are mostly limited to Dell machines, which do not
> provide any overclocking possibilities in the bios. Maybe I can convince
> the IT guy to buy from another supplier. Do you have any recommendation
> for a reputable PC builder company which doesn't lock its bioses as much
> as Dell does (for a reasonnable price)?
> 
> Thanks.

I built my system from components I bought from Newegg. I don't know of 
any reliable online sources for custom machines, I used to use Monarch 
but they've gone backrupt. Any local white box builder could put the 
system together for you, that's you best bet for a system that can be 
overclocked.

On Mar 19, 6:25 pm, General Schvantzkoph <schvantzk...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

> I built my system from components I bought from Newegg. I don't know of
> any reliable online sources for custom machines, I used to use Monarch
> but they've gone backrupt. Any local white box builder could put the
> system together for you, that's you best bet for a system that can be
> overclocked.

The problem with white box builders is warranty... With Dell, you can
have a technician on site within 24 hours if there is a problem. With
a white box computer, you're pretty much on your own (or rather, in my
case, the IT guys are on their own).

Patrick Dubois wrote:

> On Mar 19, 6:25 pm, General Schvantzkoph <schvantzk...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> 
> 
>>I built my system from components I bought from Newegg. I don't know of
>>any reliable online sources for custom machines, I used to use Monarch
>>but they've gone backrupt. Any local white box builder could put the
>>system together for you, that's you best bet for a system that can be
>>overclocked.
> 
> 
> The problem with white box builders is warranty... With Dell, you can
> have a technician on site within 24 hours if there is a problem. With
> a white box computer, you're pretty much on your own (or rather, in my
> case, the IT guys are on their own).
> 

There are a few high-end white box builders such as Hypersonic that 
cater to the gamers, warranty their machines, and have been around for a 
while.  They tend to be rather pricey though.