Intel Xe Graphics Being Part Of The First US Exascale Supercomputer Is Great For Linux

[schmidtbag]

Also will we see ARM or RISC-V on the TOP500?

For ARM, no, not unless it is used strictly as a medium for something else like ASICs or GPUs. ARM was never built with supercomputers in mind, so although there's nothing stopping you from buying millions of ARM cores to build a supercomputer, it isn't worth the effort. RISC-V has potential to reach the top 500 but its adoption is pretty slow. I think RISC-V will probably become the most popular architecture for university supercomputers, because it can be tweaked to fit very specific scientific needs.

[nils_]

Who is anticipating any Intel graphics *ever*? I think the word you're looking for is 'dread'.

I quite like them, it's the only reason I currently still buy Intel CPUs since it's just a hassle-free Linux experience even on new hardware.

[uid313]

For ARM, no, not unless it is used strictly as a medium for something else like ASICs or GPUs. ARM was never built with supercomputers in mind, so although there's nothing stopping you from buying millions of ARM cores to build a supercomputer, it isn't worth the effort. RISC-V has potential to reach the top 500 but its adoption is pretty slow. I think RISC-V will probably become the most popular architecture for university supercomputers, because it can be tweaked to fit very specific scientific needs.

I heard ARMv8 is vastly improved over ARMv7, and its basically a new architecture.
That the IPC of Apple A12 "Bionic" is like Intel Core processor or even better.
That Apple is moving away from Intel to ARM on their Macbooks.

[schmidtbag]

I heard ARMv8 is vastly improved over ARMv7, and its basically a new architecture.
That the IPC of Apple A12 "Bionic" is like Intel Core processor or even better.
That Apple is moving away from Intel to ARM on their Macbooks.

Yes, ARMv8 has vastly improved, and I think a lot of that improvement had servers in mind. But not supercomputers. ARM is fantastic for things like web servers, where you could be handling hundreds of very basic requests, but it's not an ideal architecture for any major number-crunching. Again, nothing says you can't do that, but since most software isn't built/optimized for ARM, if you're going to pick an obscure architecture, you might as well go for one of the many other choices that can likely do a better job.

[wizard69]

I suspect the folks at Fujitsu will argue with you. While I agree the majority of ARM hardware available to builders are not suitable for super computer use that really means nothing. Well nothing important because one can easily design ARM architecture supporting chips that are suitable. Frankly ARMs new server chips are a step in that direction.

Yes, ARMv8 has vastly improved, and I think a lot of that improvement had servers in mind. But not supercomputers. ARM is fantastic for things like web servers, where you could be handling hundreds of very basic requests, but it's not an ideal architecture for any major number-crunching. Again, nothing says you can't do that, but since most software isn't built/optimized for ARM, if you're going to pick an obscure architecture, you might as well go for one of the many other choices that can likely do a better job.

[wizard69]

The thing that has me wondering is this, are these coming GPUs even optimized for GPU usage? Could Intel actually be designing a compute engine that also has GPU functionality as an after thought. Such an approach might be better for future work loads in AI and compute.

Effectively this would be the opposite of the NVidia or AMD approach where compute was more of an after thought in GPU development. As such I wonder if a Linux kernelwill end up running on Xe.

[pal666]

The intel linux drivers are high quality.

that's why they are replacing them with gallium

[sireangelus]

TOP500 list is POWER9, POWER9, Sunway, then Xeon, Xeon, Xon, Xeon...

So POWER9 seems to the king on top, but Xeon seems to be more popular. China seems to be betting on their own Sunway processors.
How long can x86-based Xeon stay relevant on HPC when there is POWER9?
Also will we see ARM or RISC-V on the TOP500?

no the question is how long can power9 stay relevant on hpc when there is x86.

[nuetzel]

AMD, Navi please... Even Intel is pushing their GPU out. And your Vega, even though is 7nm, is old now. And you haven't push any Navi driver out. I hope Navi has the exact same control as Vega/Polaris does.

7310 Navi 10
731f Navi 10

[nuetzel]

that's why they are replacing them with gallium

Corrected: NIR.