Processor

Parallel programming is a new popular curriculum for graduate schools. As processors as in CPU, GPU, etc. are hitting their clock speed limit, higher core count is expected in modern processors instead of higher clock as before. There is no reason why one should hesitate to take up parallel programming course and workshop.

While you may think that there are no obvious applications that require the multiple cores settings, why should I bother? However, reality is cruel. Those standing still simply get obsolete. It's up to you to innovate! Innovating is the key to success.

Check out SpeedGo Computing blog and their website for more information about parallel programming.

Finally we got a Woodcrest machine for benchmark. Thanks to CopperBlue again for contributing the machine.

The Intel Xeon Dual-Core 2.66GHz (Woodcrest) achieves much better 32bit performance than AMD64X2 4200+ (2.2GHz). Running Woodcrest in 64bit achieves even higher performance.

Can you believe Woodcrest is even slower than the aging AMD64 X2? I suggest CopperBlue upgrade his Java JVM to 1.5.x. There is significant performance boost in Java 1.5 over Java 1.4. Otherwise, his latest processor is just as slow as my 1+ year-old processor. Do you care?

This round we manage to get an Intel Core Duo 2.16GHz with Shared 2MB L2, Mac Book Pro, to benchmark. Thanks CopperBlue for contributing his laptop. How does it compare to AMD64 X2 4200+ (2.2GHz) with 2 x 512KB Private L2 which has almost the same clock speed? However, AMD64 X2 is able to run in both 32bit mode and 64bit mode, whereas Core Duo runs only 32bit mode. Does it matter?

Let's see the first benchmark xversi-c-benchmark-v0.1 which utilizes only one core.

Intel Core Duo 2.16GHz has slight advantage over AMD64 X2 4200+ in 32bit mode. Interestingly, AMD64 X2 running in 64bit mode boost up the performance almost by 2x. Itanium II with much lower clock speed is clearly out of the game.

What about the Parallel Reversi? Let's see the next benchmark xversi-java-parallel-benchmark-v0.1.

AMD64 X2 4200+ clearly has an advantage running in 64bit mode. The 64bit JVM definitely helps in boosting the performance. Hence, if you own a 64bit processor, use a 64bit OS, and 64bit components such as Sun Java for x86_64.

I have made little changes to let the xversi-c to play by itself. Get a copy of the benchmark version under GPL now xversi-c-benchmark-v0.1.tgz with binaries for Linux x86 or x86_64 included. It basically sets evaluation level to 6, so that it will run for a while. I first run it on my PC, surprisingly, the 64bit version is running much faster.

Host: AMD64 X2 4200+ (2.2GHz)
Compiler: GCC 4.1.1 64bit
Time 3m0.532s

Compiler: GCC 4.1.1 32bit
Time 5m7.210s

Before running this, I thought applications that do not use 64bit data types extensively probably would not benefit from running in 64bit mode. I have yet to investigate the exact causes of this performance difference. I do hope you can shed the light for me if you are experience in this. :)

See performance of the same program on other platforms, you probably will find another surprises.

Host: Itanium II 1.5GHz
Compiler: Intel(R) C Itanium(R) Compiler for Itanium(R)-based applications Version 9.0 Build 20050430 Package ID: l_cc_p_9.0.021
Time 6m35.306s

Host: Itanium II 1.4GHz
Compiler: Intel(R) C Itanium(R) Compiler for Itanium(R)-based applications Version 9.0 Build 20051201 Package ID: l_cc_c_9.0.030
Time 7m16.698s

Compiler: GCC 4.1.0
Time 6m8.471s

Host: Intel Core Duo 1.83GHz
Compiler: GCC
Time 5m5.423s

Host: Intel Pentium 4 HT 3GHz
Compiler: Intel(R) C Compiler for 32-bit applications, Version 9.0 Build 20051201Z Package ID: l_cc_c_9.0.030
Time 5m7.080s

Compiler: GCC 4.1.0
Time 4m37.404s

It's quite impressive to see that Intel Core Duo is on par with the Pentium 4 HT 3GHz, considering the clockspeed difference. And the GCC 4.1.0 is actually outperforms the Intel compiler v9 quite significantly. However, I didnt try out all the compiler switches in Intel compiler. On all the platforms, I merely use -O3. Regarding Itanium II, they are famous with their floating-point performance. In this case, that does not apply, as evaluations merely use Integer operations. In addition, Itanium II has lower clockspeed than other platforms. With higher clockspeed, it will probably work faster than other platforms.