4 ms·

This reads as a fairly direct attack on the idea of that many core architectures such as the Intel Xeon Phi (which does exactly that: replaces 8 powerful Xeon c

This reads as a fairly direct attack on the idea of that many core architectures such as the Intel Xeon Phi (which does exactly that: replaces 8 powerful Xeon cores with 60+ slower ones per socket) will ever become the norm on the client side. It's an interesting argument but rests upon all new algorithms (he brings up machine vision as an example) having dedicated hardware. Ultimately, sure, but there's still a hell of a gap between viable algorithm and dedicated mobile-ready hardware. If the pace of invention slows I'd agree with Linus. I think the pace of invention will continue to accelerate and parallel processing on the client will be a valuable resource to have.

taspeotis 12y ago
> This reads as a fairly direct attack on the idea of that many core architectures such as the Intel Xeon Phi Whoever's pushing that should read the overview page for Intel Xeon Phi [1]: > While a majority of applications (80 to 90 percent) will continue to achieve maximum performance on Intel Xeon processors, certain highly parallel applications will benefit dramatically by using Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors. To take full advantage of Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors, an application must scale well to over 100 software threads and either make extensive use of vectors or efficiently use more local memory bandwidth than is available on an Intel Xeon processor. Examples of segments with highly parallel applications include: animation, energy, finance, life sciences, manufacturing, medical, public sector, weather, and more. Following that is a picture that says "pick the right tool for the job". [1] http://www.intel.com.au/content/www/au/en/processors/xeon/xeon-phi-coprocessor-overview.html http://www.intel.com.au/content/www/au/en/processors/xeon/xe...
- raverbashing 12y ago
  So, it's a rebirth of Larabee? (Essentially a Intel "GPGPU")
  - dfox 12y ago
    Yes, it's essentially Larabee without framebuffer.
  - pmjordan 12y ago
    Yes, although the graphics card version (which was to be the first product based on the design) got cancelled, they persevered with the chip design itself.
Quequau 12y ago
OK, I admit I'm commenting based on a pastebin page purporting to be a comment from Linus on RealWorldTech and I can't get to the forums to read the actual content... but having said all that, I don't agree. While your characterization of Phi as "Replacing 8 powerful Xeon cores with 60+ slower ones per socket" is sort of/mostly fair. Phi isn't really the dumb cacheless cores that are mentioned. Moreover, Phi very much is a niche product designed specifically for a market that is not exactly enjoying substantial performance gains in the last few generations of mass market Xeons. Instead I thought of some other products... like the 8 core ARM SoCs for handys and other mobile devices; which, lets be honest, is much less than a well designed & implemented SoC that is ideally suited for the use it's being marketed for. The Adepteva Epiphany chips (available on their Parallella boards) fit this description almost perfectly, as do Kalray and GreenArray chips. Though I guess one could make the argument that they're all very much niche products. Anyway, I'm not sure we've really got enough information to comment further.

taspeotis 12y ago

> This reads as a fairly direct attack on the idea of that many core architectures such as the Intel Xeon Phi Whoever's pushing that should read the overview page for Intel Xeon Phi [1]: > While a majority of applications (80 to 90 percent) will continue to achieve maximum performance on Intel Xeon processors, certain highly parallel applications will benefit dramatically by using Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors. To take full advantage of Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors, an application must scale well to over 100 software threads and either make extensive use of vectors or efficiently use more local memory bandwidth than is available on an Intel Xeon processor. Examples of segments with highly parallel applications include: animation, energy, finance, life sciences, manufacturing, medical, public sector, weather, and more. Following that is a picture that says "pick the right tool for the job". [1] http://www.intel.com.au/content/www/au/en/processors/xeon/xeon-phi-coprocessor-overview.html http://www.intel.com.au/content/www/au/en/processors/xeon/xe...

raverbashing 12y ago
So, it's a rebirth of Larabee? (Essentially a Intel "GPGPU")
- dfox 12y ago
  Yes, it's essentially Larabee without framebuffer.
- pmjordan 12y ago
  Yes, although the graphics card version (which was to be the first product based on the design) got cancelled, they persevered with the chip design itself.

Quequau 12y ago

OK, I admit I'm commenting based on a pastebin page purporting to be a comment from Linus on RealWorldTech and I can't get to the forums to read the actual content... but having said all that, I don't agree. While your characterization of Phi as "Replacing 8 powerful Xeon cores with 60+ slower ones per socket" is sort of/mostly fair. Phi isn't really the dumb cacheless cores that are mentioned. Moreover, Phi very much is a niche product designed specifically for a market that is not exactly enjoying substantial performance gains in the last few generations of mass market Xeons. Instead I thought of some other products... like the 8 core ARM SoCs for handys and other mobile devices; which, lets be honest, is much less than a well designed & implemented SoC that is ideally suited for the use it's being marketed for. The Adepteva Epiphany chips (available on their Parallella boards) fit this description almost perfectly, as do Kalray and GreenArray chips. Though I guess one could make the argument that they're all very much niche products. Anyway, I'm not sure we've really got enough information to comment further.