Independent Test: Xeon Phi Shocks Tesla GPU

This article is taken from Go Parallel: Independent Test: Xeon Phi Shocks Tesla GPU

Intel’s Xeon Phi coprocessor outperforms Nvidia’s Tesla graphic-processing unit (GPU) on the operations used by “solver” applications in science and engineering, according to independent tests at Ohio State University.

When comparing Intel’s Xeon Phi to Nvidia’s Tesla, most reviewers dwell on how much easier it is to rewrite parallel programs for the Intel coprocessor, since it runs the same x86 instruction set as a 64-bit Pentium. 

Nvidia’s “Cuda” cores on its Tesla coprocessor, on the other hand, do not even try to emulate the x86 instruction set, opting instead for more economical instructions that allow it to cram many more cores on a chip.

As a result, Nvidia’s Tesla has 40-times more cores (2,496) than Intel’s Xeon Phi (60). The question then becomes: “is it worth it” to rewrite x86 parallel software for Nvidia’s Cuda, in order to gain access to the thousands of more cores available with Tesla over Xeon Phi?
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