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> I asked a friend that if they could "fix" or "improve" any feature of a modern microprocessor what would it be, and they struggled to come up with anything.
by vardump 10y ago
> I asked a friend that if they could "fix" or "improve" any feature of a modern microprocessor what would it be, and they struggled to come up with anything.
Ever tried to compute histogram efficiently on a modern CPU? Even if it's simple 256 bin. As far as I know, it's impossible to vectorize, things will need to go slow scalar path.
Or anything that needs to access memory at multiple (semi) random addresses inside one SIMD register (128/256/512 bits wide).
It might help if Intel could also add scatter vector instructions. Well, assuming they can also improve gather/scatter operations on the memory controller...
- jburgess777 10y agoIntel added gather operations in AVX2 and scatter operations in AVX512. Here is a presentation from 2014 describing the features and the initial compiler support: https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/cauldron2014?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=Cauldron14_AVX-512_Vector_ISA_Kirill_Yukhin_20140711.pdf https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/cauldron2014?action=AttachFile&do=g... In October 2016 Intel started talking about adding more 512 bit instructions: http://sites.utexas.edu/jdm4372/2016/11/05/intel-discloses-vectorsimd-instructions-for-future-processors/ http://sites.utexas.edu/jdm4372/2016/11/05/intel-discloses-v...