Intel Releases x86-simd-sort v1.0 Library For High Performance AVX-512 Sorting

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Releases x86-simd-sort v1.0 Library For High Performance AVX-512 Sorting

Last month you may recall the news of Intel having an extremely fast AVX-512 sorting library they published as open-source and found adoption already by the popular Numpy Python library. In the case of Numpy it could deliver some 10~17x speed-ups. That header-only library has now reached version 1.0...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/x86-simd-sort-1.0

[Joe2021]

Very nice, indeed. Anyways, intel should provide ASAP a roadmap for AVX-512. This is becoming ridiculous. There might have been good reasons to kill AVX-512 on Alder Lake and Raptor Lake, but those are implementation details for which I, as a customer, do not care for.

[ayumu]

* Laughs in RISC-V Vector extension.

[toughy]

I just finished my new i9-13900K build ... and no AVX-512 support ! I mean other people bought the same CPU and they have AVX-512, but when I buy it, I don't have it ? How would I not feel frustrated and why does Intel treat customers so bad ?

[Paradigm Shifter]

This AVX-512 quicksort library works for Intel AVX-512 enabled processors as well as new AMD Zen 4 (Ryzen 7000 series / 4th Gen EPYC) processors also boasting AVX-512.

I'm genuinely surprised that there isn't some sort of "if CPU=AMD then hamstring" in there (I know, I know, it would get ripped out because it's open source...)

Wow.

Maybe Intel has changed.

And the lack of AVX-512 in current Intel desktop chips is bemusing, agreed.

[Chugworth]

While some of you are looking at your computers with a sad face for not having a processor that supports AVX-512, I'll just be over here rocking on my laptop with an 11th gen Intel that does support AVX-512.

Not sure what I'll do with it though...

[brucethemoose]

While some of you are looking at your computers with a sad face for not having a processor that supports AVX-512, I'll just be over here rocking on my laptop with an 11th gen Intel that does support AVX-512.

Not sure what I'll do with it though...

Run Clear Linux or CachyOS?

Or OpenSUSE I guess.

[stormcrow]

I just finished my new i9-13900K build ... and no AVX-512 support ! I mean other people bought the same CPU and they have AVX-512, but when I buy it, I don't have it ? How would I not feel frustrated and why does Intel treat customers so bad ?

Are you sure you mean 13xxx? Cuz while the early Alder Lake (12xxx) chips can force AVX-512 to be enabled if you jump through considerable hoops, later Alder Lake and Raptor Lake desktop CPUs have AVX-512 permanently disabled. Stop buying Intel if you don't like their arbitrary feature sets.

[brucethemoose]

Are you sure you mean 13xxx? Cuz while the early Alder Lake (12xxx) chips can force AVX-512 to be enabled if you jump through considerable hoops, later Alder Lake and Raptor Lake desktop CPUs have AVX-512 permanently disabled. Stop buying Intel if you don't like their arbitrary feature sets.

I hate Intel fusing too, but this limitation kinda makes technical sense because the E cores dont have AVX512 compatibility. That core design choice was made many years ago, maybe even before Intel knew it would be used in a big/little setup, and they cant just add avx512 in 2 years before release.

And allowing it without extensive testing could have unforseen consequences (like bricking chips) that Intel doesn't want to deal with, and the benefits (lightly threaded AVX512 workloads?) are pretty niche.

I do hate it on principle though, and IIRC nothing bad happened with previous firmware "unlocks," like the AMD 290->290X thing.

[kobblestown]

I hate Intel fusing too, but this limitation kinda makes technical sense because the E cores dont have AVX512 compatibility.

So what? If a thread running on an E Core tries to execute an AVX-512 instruction it will trap into the OS and it can reschedule it on a P-core taking note that it should never be scheduled back to an E-core. In the olden days, this was used to emulate the presence of an FPU coprocessor. Now it simply needs to move to another core. The technology is there. Yet intel decided to take the axe.

I'm sorry, but intel is entirely to blame here. At the very least they could have kept the possiblity to enable AVX-512 if you disable all E-cores.