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Hm, that's interesting. If true, it sounds like they need to take a lesson from nVidia and start providing more tools -- for example, the CUDA compiler, and li

by chubot 11y ago

Hm, that's interesting. If true, it sounds like they need to take a lesson from nVidia and start providing more tools -- for example, the CUDA compiler, and libraries like cuDNN and cuFFT. I'm sure you can do better by hand than the code generated by the CUDA compiler. But people need something to get started with, and it's probably good enough for a lot of applications. In order to get adoption, the vendor has to meet developers closer to the application. There are very few people writing assembly code from scratch anymore... and those that do are probably the kind of people who are designing their own hardware anyway! It makes more sense for the vendor to be writing libraries in assembly, since they know the architecture best. Then apps can build on top of that in higher level languages.

aristidb 11y ago
They even have some interesting tools, but should IMHO invest more in them: https://ispc.github.io/ https://ispc.github.io/
sklogic 11y ago
Cuda computational model does not fit Phi well, you need a different approach (and, ideally, a different language).
rbanffy 11y ago
They have good OpenCL and MPI support. Intel has tools that help characterize the performance of programs running on it. They are, obviously, complex tools that take some time and dedication to master. http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780124104143.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780124104143.do is an introduction and weights more than 400 pages.
- 14113 11y ago
  According to an Intel employee I spoke to, OpenCL won't be available from day one on knights landing - all it will support will be OpenMP and MPI. Apparently they're the two main libraries which their target customer (HPC) require, so they're not putting any effort into OpenCL until they're sure it's wanted.
  - rbanffy 11y ago
    Intel already supports OpenCL on previous versions of the Phi. I see no reason not to assume that code will run at higher performance on Knights Landing than it did on previous versions, even if the code generated does not squeeze out every tiny bit of performance of the x86 side of the cores.
    - 14113 11y ago
      I'm not sure you understand - I mean they won't actually provide an OpenCL runtime/compiler. It's not that the code won't be slower/less performant, it's that it won't actually be possible to run it at all.

by chubot 11y ago

aristidb 11y ago

They even have some interesting tools, but should IMHO invest more in them: https://ispc.github.io/ https://ispc.github.io/

sklogic 11y ago

Cuda computational model does not fit Phi well, you need a different approach (and, ideally, a different language).

rbanffy 11y ago

They have good OpenCL and MPI support. Intel has tools that help characterize the performance of programs running on it. They are, obviously, complex tools that take some time and dedication to master. http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780124104143.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780124104143.do is an introduction and weights more than 400 pages.

14113 11y ago
According to an Intel employee I spoke to, OpenCL won't be available from day one on knights landing - all it will support will be OpenMP and MPI. Apparently they're the two main libraries which their target customer (HPC) require, so they're not putting any effort into OpenCL until they're sure it's wanted.
- rbanffy 11y ago
  Intel already supports OpenCL on previous versions of the Phi. I see no reason not to assume that code will run at higher performance on Knights Landing than it did on previous versions, even if the code generated does not squeeze out every tiny bit of performance of the x86 side of the cores.
  - 14113 11y ago
    I'm not sure you understand - I mean they won't actually provide an OpenCL runtime/compiler. It's not that the code won't be slower/less performant, it's that it won't actually be possible to run it at all.