WEBVTT 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, 00:00:05.840 --> 00:00:10.560 but rather by an AMD backed Chinese joint venture just for the Chinese market. 00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:14.560 But these aren't the only alternative desktop and server CPUs out there. 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, 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. 00:00:25.360 --> 00:00:29.600 So why are they doing this and how exactly are they different from more traditional offerings? 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 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, 00:00:38.320 --> 00:00:42.240 be sure to check out his personal YouTube channel, Tech Tech Potato, for lots of cool 00:00:42.240 --> 00:00:47.280 insights into all things hardware. So like China, Russia is interested in completely 00:00:47.280 --> 00:00:51.760 controlling the silicon that goes into its processors. They want to avoid potential 00:00:51.760 --> 00:00:56.480 backdoors from chips designed outside the country, namely AMD and Intel's, 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 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:06.880 lots of Elbrus chips and is even forcing some of their own departments to use them. 00:01:06.880 --> 00:01:10.480 But other than being Russia-controlled, what makes them distinct? Well, 00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:16.080 probably the biggest thing is that they're designed using a BLIW or Berry Long Instruction 00:01:16.080 --> 00:01:19.680 Word architecture. Don't you just love how engineers name things? 00:01:19.680 --> 00:01:23.840 Anyways, what this means is that when you write a program for an Elbrus chip, 00:01:23.840 --> 00:01:30.080 you pack several operations into one instruction, meaning the way that CPU runs is more parallel 00:01:30.080 --> 00:01:35.280 than your average x86 core that's probably sitting on your desktop or laptop right now. 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 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:46.240 architecture since parallel processing is more efficient for graphics operations, 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, 00:01:52.320 --> 00:01:55.680 especially as the hardware has a much more difficult time 00:01:55.680 --> 00:02:01.280 deciding on its own what the most efficient order to execute instructions in would be. 00:02:01.280 --> 00:02:07.200 This is called out-of-order processing, a key feature of virtually all modern x86 CPUs. 00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:12.480 It also means that general performance for something like just running an operating system 00:02:12.480 --> 00:02:15.920 isn't as good as what you'd get on a modern x86 chip. 00:02:15.920 --> 00:02:20.800 Although Elbrus can run x86-based OSes and programs through hardware translation, 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, 00:02:26.480 --> 00:02:31.600 and that's best case. But they're designed this way for a couple of reasons. 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. 00:02:37.520 --> 00:02:42.960 Two, Elbrus chips are expected to have lots of uses in government supercomputers to model things 00:02:42.960 --> 00:02:48.320 like weather and military applications, uses that are more specialized, meaning that MCST 00:02:48.320 --> 00:02:54.240 isn't as concerned about general performance. MCST is also the only major company that makes 00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:58.560 Elbrus motherboards, and it looks like it'll remain this way for the foreseeable future, 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 00:03:03.680 --> 00:03:07.920 of Russia. Inside the country, the Russian powers that be envision the chips becoming 00:03:07.920 --> 00:03:13.120 widespread in government, medicine, and education, and although there are variants for plain old 00:03:13.200 --> 00:03:19.600 desktop PCs in these industries, the big focus is on servers and enterprise level deployments. 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, 00:03:24.720 --> 00:03:29.120 Russia looks like it will be fine with the process nodes being a little behind. 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. 00:03:36.320 --> 00:03:41.920 However, they are looking at coming out with a 16-nanometer 16-core model in 2022, 00:03:41.920 --> 00:03:46.400 with a 7-nanometer 32-core chip two or three years after that. 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. 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 00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:01.680 we should cover in the future.