3 ms·

Sure, as a standalone graphics card for gaming it's low end. But as an accelerator to a CPU, it seems like a phenomenally underutilized resource. It has a di

by nkurz 10y ago

Sure, as a standalone graphics card for gaming it's low end. But as an accelerator to a CPU, it seems like a phenomenally underutilized resource. It has a direct connection to RAM, a 128MB cache, and the high tier can do over a TFlop/s[1]. For use cases like Ben mentioned of rotating a RAW file that fits in this cache, it's almost a perfect fit, yet almost no-one would think of using it so it stays dark. Why is this? Not too many years ago it would have been thought insane to have a TFlop of unused capability on die, and now it's a non-story. I don't think it's because we have no use for the speed-up. Rather I think that the tooling just isn't there for most programmers to be able to make use of it. [1] http://wccftech.com/intel-iris-pro-graphics-gamers/ http://wccftech.com/intel-iris-pro-graphics-gamers/

sliken 10y ago
Well there's a bunch of problems: 1) If your are going to completely rewrite your code for an accelerator you are liking going to use CUDA to target a MUCH better accelerator. 2) If you don't you are likely going to ignore the decent intel GPUs because astonishingly small number of the intel SKUs (let alone the non-intel) have a decent GPU. Try to find a regular product/laptop with a i5-5675c or i7-5775c in it for instance. 3) CUDA was available first and seems to have the lion share of the mindshare. OpenCL is a distant second. 4) Even if you have the right SKU, devices with said SKU are often not designed for heavy GPU use and will heavily thermally throttle. I've played this game hoping for a linux laptop with a non-crappy GPU and I didn't want to play games with nvidia feeding pixels through the intel GPU to get to the screen. Very few laptops have the Iris chips. The lenovo 721s has the iris 540, but they locked linux out with their broken BIOS that disables AHCI. The XPS 13 has it as an option, but you have to get the I7 and the 3200x1800 shiny/relective screen that halves your battery life. I did manage to buy an Iris 540 NUC, nice little machine and the GPU seems to keep up quite well for the light usage I've tried. Most web games, full screen 1080P movies, and minecraft.

by nkurz 10y ago

sliken 10y ago

Well there's a bunch of problems: 1) If your are going to completely rewrite your code for an accelerator you are liking going to use CUDA to target a MUCH better accelerator. 2) If you don't you are likely going to ignore the decent intel GPUs because astonishingly small number of the intel SKUs (let alone the non-intel) have a decent GPU. Try to find a regular product/laptop with a i5-5675c or i7-5775c in it for instance. 3) CUDA was available first and seems to have the lion share of the mindshare. OpenCL is a distant second. 4) Even if you have the right SKU, devices with said SKU are often not designed for heavy GPU use and will heavily thermally throttle. I've played this game hoping for a linux laptop with a non-crappy GPU and I didn't want to play games with nvidia feeding pixels through the intel GPU to get to the screen. Very few laptops have the Iris chips. The lenovo 721s has the iris 540, but they locked linux out with their broken BIOS that disables AHCI. The XPS 13 has it as an option, but you have to get the I7 and the 3200x1800 shiny/relective screen that halves your battery life. I did manage to buy an Iris 540 NUC, nice little machine and the GPU seems to keep up quite well for the light usage I've tried. Most web games, full screen 1080P movies, and minecraft.