Xeon Phi for under $200 - any hobbyist uses? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2014, 02:39:29 am
content: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTgzNjYFor those willing to do some custom software compiling/development, exactly how useful is a Xeon Phi to a hobbyist?

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2014, 04:23:44 am
content: If you check the documentation for that card, very few non-server motherboards have a BIOS which will work properly with it. You need to provide your own cooling air, but that's not hard to arrange. The BIOS issue is more of a sticking point, unless you have a high end server motherboard.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 13, 2014, 05:23:21 am
content: I have a DX79SI board. I'm trying to see if it would work with a Xeon Phi but it looks like nobody else has tried that combination or even asked if it would work. It looks like the author of Phoronix has one (along with loads of other motherboards) so maybe he can try it if he gets a Xeon Phi for review.Assuming it can be made to work, how easy is it to make use of a Xeon Phi and exactly how good of a deal is it if you could get one for just under $200?

author: eas
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 29, 2014, 04:36:36 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on November 13, 2014, 02:39:29 amWell, that depends on exactly what highly parallel workloads that can run in-core on 6GB that the hobbyist finds too slow or expensive to run now.That you don't know already suggests that this wouldn't be a very good deal for you, but if you are still curious, look at thecase studies hereor theapplication guide.One conspicuous absence relevant to the focus of this community: Electronic Design Automation tools. From a bit of googling, it looks like they aren't very far down the road to making use of multiple threads available on a standard multicore CPU, much less the 50+ cores on a Xeon Phi.

author: blackice504
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 29, 2014, 11:41:04 am
content: Quote from: coppice on November 13, 2014, 04:23:44 amHello the reasons this does not have a fan as its designed for a server case and yeah server boards were in mind when this card was made this does not mean you could not get away with running it in your machine but as to what you can do with it you will have to make that determination for your self.To anyone else who may read this please keep in mind that if you do buy this card and put into your machines thinking your going to make some death machine to kill people in games or just to hack the planet or other evil plans this may not be the card for you. "i was very sad at that but there other things i can do with this card". ***i want a death machine i deserve a death machine***To the bios questions regarding this product i am sure nearly all Asus boards and Asrock boards "virtually the same company" have compatible bios as i can not remember not seen this in Asus/Asrock board.however Asus OEM boards that you may find in some HP and DELL systems generally don't have this setting as they are the low end boards $70 price range but i am sure any person wanting a Xeon Phi would not have a board in that price range anyway unless they got a HP / DELL desktop the Alienware boards i have not personally seen but i would hope they not stick a there standard boards in those considering the price people pay for them but then again it is HP / DELL sorry i forget which company bought out Alien ware but i am you would know if you own one so check have a look for those settings in your bios.Other uses for these cards for virtual machines but support is limited right now.Vmware last time i checked has no support but i have not done a deep dig around.Xen SUPPORTEDScaleMP SUPPORTEDIntel and Third Party Tools.https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-and-third-party-tools-and-libraries-available-with-support-for-intelr-xeon-phitmFor those in Australia i shall let you know if i can get one "$200" but i only found out today and will know on Monday if i can get from my distributor .i been to busy to login see what's going on.Thanks for the heads up."What is the world coming to when a scientist can't buy a dooms day device"I guess i have to just make atomic monsters instead......

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 30, 2014, 11:42:15 pm
content: Quote from: eas on November 29, 2014, 04:36:36 amThe use case of upscaling video sounds like a very interesting one but just how does it compare against using a GPU?

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2014, 02:43:08 am
content: Quote from: blackice504 on November 29, 2014, 11:41:04 amInteresting. Wheer do ASUS put their "BIOS support for memory mapped I/O address ranges above 4GB" option in the BIOS configuration? I couldn't find one in a couple of Asus motherboards for Haswell processors I looked at.

author: blackice504
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2014, 08:07:23 am
content: Quote from: coppice on December 01, 2014, 02:43:08 amI don't own any desktop boards with LGA1150 but i will look into it soon as i can for you.but right at this second i need be cooking i shall get back to you tonight keep in mind i am in Australia and its 7PM right now.

author: eas
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 02, 2014, 12:04:04 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on November 30, 2014, 11:42:15 pmWell, according to the case study, it is 5x faster, but its also proprietary software, so, for you, I guess the Xeon Phi's absolute performance at video upscaling is 0 frames per second. I don't know if there is GPU based software available, but if it is, I'd say the Xeon Phi compares poorly, without a non-trivial amount of custom development.Intel seems to be betting on Xeon Phi for parallel computing because they've kept the program going even after their attempt at making it a new GPU architecture failed. I have to wonder though how that is going to work out in the long run against NVIDIA, now that NVIDIA has their own IP for what by most accounts is a very performant ARM8 CPU core.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 02, 2014, 03:47:43 am
content: Quote from: eas on December 02, 2014, 12:04:04 amWhere did you find a speedup of 5x? Most are like the NEC upscaled video one, and distorted. The NEC one shows an initial speed of 6 units on a Xeon. This rises to 10 when the Xeon code is properly parallelised. It rises to 30 when the Xeon is combined with a Xeon Phi. This gets listed as a 5x improvement, but its really 2x. The rise from 6 to 10 is just using the Xeon properly. The rise from 10 to 30 is using the Xeon properly and getting a Xeon Phi to help. The Xeon Phi appears to contribute 20 units, and the Xeon 10 units. The Xeon Phi is twice the speed of the Xeon.One thing a number of studies say is the time to get efficient code on a Xeon Phi is far shorter than on an nVidia GPU. I wonder if that is just because its really hard to adapt existing code, or would the same speed difference be there if the application were developed from scratch with the appropriate target hardware in mind?

author: blackice504
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 03, 2014, 04:44:59 pm
content: Sorry everyone shit hit the fan its always like this around the season.........this is not the best video but i am sure i seen the xeon phi in this not the exact model but Xeon Phi, so there power must be decent.I will find the video when i can still no word from distro as yet but as i said guys i been flat out hence i am typing this at 3:41AM.Why does everyone panic to have there computers up and running around the holidays? lol.

author: blackice504
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 03, 2014, 04:46:15 pm
content: Quote from: blackice504 on December 01, 2014, 08:07:23 amI am so sorry for getting back to you later lets take this to pm and i will help you out there.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 03, 2014, 05:50:34 pm
content: Surprised the NVidia K20x based Cray can do half of the work with 1/6th of the cores, but still at the same power consumption.Also the BlueGene/Q seems like it's the more efficient power wise.As for the Sparc, seems a bit power hungry.http://www.top500.org/lists/2014/06/

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 04, 2014, 02:18:57 am
content: Quote from: miguelvp on December 03, 2014, 05:50:34 pmThose core counts are largely meaningless for the nVidia devices. Core has a pretty definite meaning with a Xeon. Its only slightly greyer for a Xeon Phi. For the nVidia devices core means whatever they want it to. Comparing total die area or power consumption for similar generation devices is more meaningful. HPC clusters cost rather more year in electricity than their purchase price, so power is a really big factor when choosing these solutions. Performance per watt, rather than per core, is what people are looking for as buyers. Performance per mm^2 of silicon has interest for engineers.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 04, 2014, 03:59:41 am
content: Quote from: eas on December 02, 2014, 12:04:04 amNvidia has good upscaling built right in their driver/hardware. I use mpv as a frontend for VDPAU. The bar is set high, but if Xeon Phi can do better, the videophiles might be interested.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 04, 2014, 04:13:58 am
content: It doesn't hurt that Intel has probably the best compiler for parallel processing out there.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 04, 2014, 04:31:25 am
content: Quote from: miguelvp on December 04, 2014, 04:13:58 amHave you worked with the Xeon Phi? I am not sure you can extrapolate Intel's performance in getting effective use out of a Xeon to their being able to do the same for a Xeon Phi. I haven't seen anything about their success with code generation for the Xeon Phi that is any better than marketing grade. The latest nVidia CUDA compiler is good at using the resources of a GPU, but a lot of that probably comes from using the developer's abilities to lay things sensibly before the compiler even starts to work on the problem. Effective automated use of highly parallel compute resources still has a long way to go.

author: blackice504
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 04, 2014, 01:20:45 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on December 04, 2014, 04:31:25 amI thought you wanted help with your board?I did say sorry i was busy but i still find it strange that most of Asus range covers this true i not seen many 1150's lately but allot of the other boards had it on LGA775