4 ms·

Now that Intel has announced Xeon Phi, I dare to hope that "gpu programming" will become an artifact of the past, so "open-source drivers" will become a moot po

by zvrba 14y ago

Now that Intel has announced Xeon Phi, I dare to hope that "gpu programming" will become an artifact of the past, so "open-source drivers" will become a moot point anyway. (Xeon Phi runs linux as a local OS.)

masklinn 14y ago
> Now that Intel has announced Xeon Phi, I dare to hope that "gpu programming" will become an artifact of the past Your hope makes no sense, MIC is still SIMD and requires programming for SIMD, it's not fairies and rainbow magically turning code into SIMD-compatible instructions. Not only that, it's completely and utterly irrelevant to TFA because: > so "open-source drivers" will become a moot point anyway TFA is about GPUs, not SIMD GPGPU. GPUs need drivers. Even IGPs require drivers. > Xeon Phi runs linux as a local OS Xeon Phi does not run anything any "local OS", Xeon Phi is a CPU arch. A computer based on Phi may run linux as a local OS, that does not magically mean the OS needs not be aware of the architecture and how to communicate with it.
- mcabral 14y ago
  > Xeon Phi does not run anything any "local OS", Xeon Phi is a CPU arch. A computer based on Phi may run linux as a local OS, that does not magically mean the OS needs not be aware of the architecture and how to communicate with it. I think that zvrba's post was referring to the fact that Xeon Phi cards are internally running an embedded version of Linux. The host system doesn't need to know about that technical detail due to drivers on the host system hiding that away, but he is still correct [edit: in that there is a Linux subsystem present.] http://www.anandtech.com/show/6017/intel-announces-xeon-phi-family-of-coprocessors-mic-goes-retail/ http://www.anandtech.com/show/6017/intel-announces-xeon-phi-... "Meanwhile on the software side of things in an interesting move Intel is going to be equipping Xeon Phi co-processors with their own OS, in effect making them stand-alone computers (despite the co-processor designation) and significantly deviating from what we’ve seen on similar products (i.e. Tesla). Xeon Phis will be independently running an embedded form of Linux, which Intel has said will be of particular benefit for cluster users."

by zvrba 14y ago

masklinn 14y ago

> Now that Intel has announced Xeon Phi, I dare to hope that "gpu programming" will become an artifact of the past Your hope makes no sense, MIC is still SIMD and requires programming for SIMD, it's not fairies and rainbow magically turning code into SIMD-compatible instructions. Not only that, it's completely and utterly irrelevant to TFA because: > so "open-source drivers" will become a moot point anyway TFA is about GPUs, not SIMD GPGPU. GPUs need drivers. Even IGPs require drivers. > Xeon Phi runs linux as a local OS Xeon Phi does not run anything any "local OS", Xeon Phi is a CPU arch. A computer based on Phi may run linux as a local OS, that does not magically mean the OS needs not be aware of the architecture and how to communicate with it.

mcabral 14y ago
> Xeon Phi does not run anything any "local OS", Xeon Phi is a CPU arch. A computer based on Phi may run linux as a local OS, that does not magically mean the OS needs not be aware of the architecture and how to communicate with it. I think that zvrba's post was referring to the fact that Xeon Phi cards are internally running an embedded version of Linux. The host system doesn't need to know about that technical detail due to drivers on the host system hiding that away, but he is still correct [edit: in that there is a Linux subsystem present.] http://www.anandtech.com/show/6017/intel-announces-xeon-phi-family-of-coprocessors-mic-goes-retail/ http://www.anandtech.com/show/6017/intel-announces-xeon-phi-... "Meanwhile on the software side of things in an interesting move Intel is going to be equipping Xeon Phi co-processors with their own OS, in effect making them stand-alone computers (despite the co-processor designation) and significantly deviating from what we’ve seen on similar products (i.e. Tesla). Xeon Phis will be independently running an embedded form of Linux, which Intel has said will be of particular benefit for cluster users."