http://scalability.org/?p=118 not so random musings and mutterings about high performance computing Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:49:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 http://scalability.org/?p=118&cpage=1#comment-468 Accelerators at SC ‘06 at business|bytes|genes|molecules Sat, 11 Nov 2006 16:11:03 +0000 http://scalability.org/?p=118#comment-468 [...] I am not going to be at SC ‘06 (How I’ve never made it to one of those conferences remains a mystery and a travesty). Wired is carrying an article about the next revolution in supercomputing, specifically using GPUs as accelerators, a topic that has been covered here and on other blogs before. Both ATI and Nvidia are jumping into the fray big time as the article suggests. One of the best parts of the article was that Folding@home was mentioned (its not all about gaming). The article suggests that, in general, the speed gains made by GPUs are far greater than those made by CPUs, however, the data from Folding@home and UNC suggests significant variance and algorithm dependence. In other words, certain applications will benefit greatly from GPUs (probably those with lots of floating point calculations, while others will not. I think given the push from ATI and NVidia, we will have an excellent idea of the applications where GPUs will provide the most benefit fairly soon. [...] [...] I am not going to be at SC ‘06 (How I’ve never made it to one of those conferences remains a mystery and a travesty). Wired is carrying an article about the next revolution in supercomputing, specifically using GPUs as accelerators, a topic that has been covered here and on other blogs before. Both ATI and Nvidia are jumping into the fray big time as the article suggests. One of the best parts of the article was that Folding@home was mentioned (its not all about gaming). The article suggests that, in general, the speed gains made by GPUs are far greater than those made by CPUs, however, the data from Folding@home and UNC suggests significant variance and algorithm dependence. In other words, certain applications will benefit greatly from GPUs (probably those with lots of floating point calculations, while others will not. I think given the push from ATI and NVidia, we will have an excellent idea of the applications where GPUs will provide the most benefit fairly soon. [...]

]]> http://scalability.org/?p=118&cpage=1#comment-365 “Accelerated Computing” - The floodgates at business|bytes|genes|molecules Wed, 11 Oct 2006 15:04:38 +0000 http://scalability.org/?p=118#comment-365 [...] One of the first criteria to catch my attention is to link to me. Even better if you praise this blog (just my attempt at Kawasaki-esque humor). But seriously, Joe had a series of posts today on what he is calling “accelerated computing” (AC). We tend to agree on things from time to time and today was one of those occasions. In Drinking the koolaid, by the megaliter, Joe introduces the AC term and talks about the need for AC and the situations that drive usage and adoption. He also uses the term personal supercomputer. Now that is something I have used before and frankly, I like accelerated computing better. Sounds less grandiose for starters. Today, there are a number of choices (that too many people don’t choose to use them is another matter).  One can choose between “supercomputers” like IBM’s Blue Gene, or clusters, or blades, some kind of grid or some form of accelerator system, like an FPGA, and I am sure that I have missed something. Each has its purpose and is useful in a different scenario. Identifying the need and the appropriate solutions is something that too many IT types and scientists ignore.  Biases do play a part (I have more than my share), but in the end the good IT manager or computational scientist is one who can overcome those. [...] [...] One of the first criteria to catch my attention is to link to me. Even better if you praise this blog (just my attempt at Kawasaki-esque humor). But seriously, Joe had a series of posts today on what he is calling “accelerated computing” (AC). We tend to agree on things from time to time and today was one of those occasions. In Drinking the koolaid, by the megaliter, Joe introduces the AC term and talks about the need for AC and the situations that drive usage and adoption. He also uses the term personal supercomputer. Now that is something I have used before and frankly, I like accelerated computing better. Sounds less grandiose for starters. Today, there are a number of choices (that too many people don’t choose to use them is another matter).  One can choose between “supercomputers” like IBM’s Blue Gene, or clusters, or blades, some kind of grid or some form of accelerator system, like an FPGA, and I am sure that I have missed something. Each has its purpose and is useful in a different scenario. Identifying the need and the appropriate solutions is something that too many IT types and scientists ignore.  Biases do play a part (I have more than my share), but in the end the good IT manager or computational scientist is one who can overcome those. [...]

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