Re: Short Vectors Versus Long Vectors

On Wed, 24 Apr 2024 22:33:17 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro
<ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Wed, 24 Apr 2024 09:28:06 GMT, Anton Ertl wrote:

And yet, supercomputers these days often have lots of GPUs.

Some do, some don’t. I’m not sure that GPUs are accepted as de rigueur in
supercomputer design yet. I think this is just another instance of Ivan
Sutherland’s “wheel of reincarnation”
<http://www.cap-lore.com/Hardware/Wheel.html>.

What do GPUs do, when they're included in supercomputers?

One of the things that those supercomputers that _do_ include GPUs are
praised for is being energy-efficient.

The problem with GPUs is that since their computational capabilities
are built on what the shader part does, their flexibility is limited.
This is what has made me think there could be a place for Cray-style
vectors. So some supercomputers don't have GPU accelerators, because
they're intended to work on problems for which GPU accelerators
wouldn't provide much help.

Since when GPUs _can_ be used, they save lots of electricity, I doubt
strongly that they're just a passing fad.

John Savard