[Beowulf] What class of PDEs/numerical schemes suitable for GPU clusters

[Joe Landman]

John Hearns wrote:
> 
> 
> 2008/11/21 Franz Marini <franz.marini at mi.infn.it 
> <mailto:franz.marini at mi.infn.it>>
> 
>     H
>     Regarding the proprietary-ness of CUDA, I would argue that being
>     proprietary also means that it probably better targets the NV GPU
>     architecture, and a more general, portable solution, like OpenCL (which
>     seems to be closer than expected, by the way) will possibly mean a
>     somewhat less optimal use of the GPU. M
> 
> 
> Guys, I'm going to be controversial here.
> The market may  SAY otherwise, but the market does not give a rat's 
> behind about proprietariness.

Absolutely true.  The market cares about price and price performance.

> Tell a scientist that her N-body dynamics astrophysics model will run 
> 500 times faster on a certain GPU and
> she'll get more papers published and an invite to a conference in Hawaii 
> next year and you'll see those
> grant dollars being spent.

Yup.

> Tell and engineer that his Nastran model or his CFD simulation will 
> finish whilst he goes off to lunch/coffee and he'll
> bite your hand off.

:)

The idea is for users, that increasing throughput is most important. 
Minimizing the wallclock time at the most reasonable price, or getting 
the least price and a reasonable wall clock time.

> It all comes down to codes - when the ISV codes use these things, you'll 
> see the uptake.

Yup.  Thats it.  Not controversial, but quite true.  Without the ISVs, 
there will be no clear winner.  With the ISVs, you will see one emerge.

My take is that one is emerging.



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Joseph Landman, Ph.D
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