Recent Results Show HBM Can Make CPUs the Desired Platform for AI and HPC

Third-party performance benchmarks show CPUs with HBM2e memory now have sufficient memory bandwidth and computational capabilities to match GPU performance on many HPC and AI workloads. Recent Intel and third-party benchmarks now provide hard evidence that the upcoming Intel® Xeon® processors codenamed Sapphire Rapids with high bandwidth memory (fast, high bandwidth HBM2e memory) and Intel® Advanced Matrix Extensions can match the performance of GPUs for many AI and HPC workloads.

OpenMP and SIMD Instructions on Intel Xeon Phi

“Vector instruction sets have progressed over time, and it important to use the most appropriate vector instruction set when running on specific hardware. The OpenMP SIMD directive allows the developer to explicitly tell the compiler to vectorize a loop. In this case, human intervention will override the compilers sense of dependencies, but that is OK if the developer knows their application well.”

Video: OpenMP and the Intel Compiler

In this video from the Intel HPC Developer Conference at SC15, Kent Millfield from TACC presents: OpenMP and the Intel Compiler. “The OpenMP standard has recently been extended to cover offload and SIMD. The Intel compiler has provided its own implementations of offload and SIMD for some time before the extensions to the OpenMP standard was approved, and that standard is still evolving. This talk describes what you can do with the Intel compiler that you cannot yet do in OpenMP including some where gaps are getting closed soon, and some which will remain for a while. The talk will also highlight where things are done differently between the language interfaces of the Intel compiler and the OpenMP standard. The talk is relevant both to those who seek to port existing code to the OpenMP standard, and to those who are starting afresh.”

Code Modernization: Two Perspectives, One Goal

“Modern systems will continue to grow in scale, and applications must evolve to fully exploit the performance of these systems. While today’s HPC developers are aware of code modernization, many are not yet taking full advantage of the environment and hardware capabilities available to them. Intel is committed to helping the HPC community develop modern code that can fully leverage today’s hardware and carry forward to the future. This requires a multi-year effort complete with all the necessary training, tools and support. The customer training we provide and the initiatives and programs we have launched and will continue to create all support that effort.”