1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,840 Not long ago, we did an episode on a line of CPUs that were not made by AMD or Intel, 2 00:00:05,840 --> 00:00:10,560 but rather by an AMD backed Chinese joint venture just for the Chinese market. 3 00:00:10,560 --> 00:00:14,560 But these aren't the only alternative desktop and server CPUs out there. 4 00:00:14,560 --> 00:00:18,880 Russia also got in on the fund some years back and it appears the company behind it, 5 00:00:18,880 --> 00:00:24,720 MCST in case you can't read Cyrillic, is once again producing a lineup of CPUs called Elbrus. 6 00:00:25,360 --> 00:00:29,600 So why are they doing this and how exactly are they different from more traditional offerings? 7 00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:34,160 To answer, we collaborated with our friend Dr. Ian Cutrus of Anontek and we'd like to give him a 8 00:00:34,160 --> 00:00:38,320 big thank you and a sloppy kiss for his help. And after you've done watching this video, 9 00:00:38,320 --> 00:00:42,240 be sure to check out his personal YouTube channel, Tech Tech Potato, for lots of cool 10 00:00:42,240 --> 00:00:47,280 insights into all things hardware. So like China, Russia is interested in completely 11 00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:51,760 controlling the silicon that goes into its processors. They want to avoid potential 12 00:00:51,760 --> 00:00:56,480 backdoors from chips designed outside the country, namely AMD and Intel's, 13 00:00:56,480 --> 00:01:02,000 and maybe even put in a few backdoors of their own. The Russian government has put in orders for 14 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:06,880 lots of Elbrus chips and is even forcing some of their own departments to use them. 15 00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:10,480 But other than being Russia-controlled, what makes them distinct? Well, 16 00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:16,080 probably the biggest thing is that they're designed using a BLIW or Berry Long Instruction 17 00:01:16,080 --> 00:01:19,680 Word architecture. Don't you just love how engineers name things? 18 00:01:19,680 --> 00:01:23,840 Anyways, what this means is that when you write a program for an Elbrus chip, 19 00:01:23,840 --> 00:01:30,080 you pack several operations into one instruction, meaning the way that CPU runs is more parallel 20 00:01:30,080 --> 00:01:35,280 than your average x86 core that's probably sitting on your desktop or laptop right now. 21 00:01:35,280 --> 00:01:41,760 In fact, AMD had some mainstream graphics cards several generations ago that ran on a VLIW-like 22 00:01:41,760 --> 00:01:46,240 architecture since parallel processing is more efficient for graphics operations, 23 00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:52,320 which you can learn more about up here. This does make an Elbrus CPU more difficult to code for, 24 00:01:52,320 --> 00:01:55,680 especially as the hardware has a much more difficult time 25 00:01:55,680 --> 00:02:01,280 deciding on its own what the most efficient order to execute instructions in would be. 26 00:02:01,280 --> 00:02:07,200 This is called out-of-order processing, a key feature of virtually all modern x86 CPUs. 27 00:02:07,200 --> 00:02:12,480 It also means that general performance for something like just running an operating system 28 00:02:12,480 --> 00:02:15,920 isn't as good as what you'd get on a modern x86 chip. 29 00:02:15,920 --> 00:02:20,800 Although Elbrus can run x86-based OSes and programs through hardware translation, 30 00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:26,480 you're only looking at performance of about 80% of what you get with a comparable x86 processor, 31 00:02:26,480 --> 00:02:31,600 and that's best case. But they're designed this way for a couple of reasons. 32 00:02:31,600 --> 00:02:37,520 One, a chip that's hard to code for ultimately gives Russia more control over its own hardware. 33 00:02:37,520 --> 00:02:42,960 Two, Elbrus chips are expected to have lots of uses in government supercomputers to model things 34 00:02:42,960 --> 00:02:48,320 like weather and military applications, uses that are more specialized, meaning that MCST 35 00:02:48,320 --> 00:02:54,240 isn't as concerned about general performance. MCST is also the only major company that makes 36 00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:58,560 Elbrus motherboards, and it looks like it'll remain this way for the foreseeable future, 37 00:02:58,560 --> 00:03:03,680 meaning it's going to be very difficult to get your hands on an Elbrus chip if you live outside 38 00:03:03,680 --> 00:03:07,920 of Russia. Inside the country, the Russian powers that be envision the chips becoming 39 00:03:07,920 --> 00:03:13,120 widespread in government, medicine, and education, and although there are variants for plain old 40 00:03:13,200 --> 00:03:19,600 desktop PCs in these industries, the big focus is on servers and enterprise level deployments. 41 00:03:19,600 --> 00:03:24,720 And since they're not trying to really compete with AMD and Intel in the traditional sense, 42 00:03:24,720 --> 00:03:29,120 Russia looks like it will be fine with the process nodes being a little behind. 43 00:03:29,120 --> 00:03:36,320 Elbrus currently uses the 28-nanometer process with an 8-core model costing around 1700 US dollars. 44 00:03:36,320 --> 00:03:41,920 However, they are looking at coming out with a 16-nanometer 16-core model in 2022, 45 00:03:41,920 --> 00:03:46,400 with a 7-nanometer 32-core chip two or three years after that. 46 00:03:46,960 --> 00:03:52,800 Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm suddenly in the mood for a cold bowl of borscht. 47 00:03:52,800 --> 00:04:00,000 So thanks for watching guys, if you liked this video, give it a thumbs up, hit subscribe, like why not, and hit us up in the comments section with your suggestions for topics that 48 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:01,680 we should cover in the future.