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> vector instructions are fundamentally necessary For which percentage of users? > AMD is actually adding AVX-512 Which is irrelevant to in-market support fo

by mdb31 4y ago

> vector instructions are fundamentally necessary For which percentage of users? > AMD is actually adding AVX-512 Which is irrelevant to in-market support for that instruction set.

XorNot 4y ago
Why would it be irrelevant? Even the paucity of availability isn't really a problem - the big winners here are server users in data centers, not desktops or laptops. How much string parsing and munging is happening ingesting big datasets right now? If running a specially optimized function set on part of your fleet reduces utilization, that's direct cost savings you realize. If the AMD is then widening that support base, you're deeply favoring expanding usage while you scale up.
- _rtld_global_ro 4y ago
  Given Intel's AVX extension could cause silent failures on servers (very high work load for prolonged time, compare to end user computers), I'm not sure it would be a big win for servers either: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2102.11245.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2102.11245.pdf.
  - jcranmer 4y ago
    I'm downvoting you because the assertion you're implying--that use of AVX increases soft failure rates more than using non-AVX instructions would--is not sustained by the source you use as reference.
    - tialaramex 4y ago
      Indeed, I'd summarise that source as "At Facebook sometimes weird stuff happens. We postulate it's not because of all the buggy code written by Software Engineers like us, it must be hardware. As well as lots of speculation about hypothetical widespread problems that would show we're actually not writing buggy software, here's a single concrete example where it was hardware". If anything I'd say that Core 59 is one of those exceptions that prove the rule. This is such a rare phenomenon that when it does happen you can do the work to pin it down and say yup, this CPU is busted - if it was really commonplace you'd constantly trip over these bugs and get nowhere. There probably isn't really, as that paper claims, a "systemic issue across generations" except that those generations are all running Facebook's buggy code.
      - janwas 4y ago
        One interesting anecdote is that HPC planning for exascale included significant concern about machine failures and (silent) data corruption. When running at large enough scale, even seemingly small failure rates translate into "oh, there goes another one".
mhh__ 4y ago
Any users who either wants performance or uses a language that can depend on a fast library.
retrac 4y ago
> For which percentage of users? Anyone using software that benefits from vector instructions. That includes a variety of compression, search, and image processing algorithms. Your JPEG decompression library might be using SSE2 or Neon. All high-end processors have included some form of vector instruction for like 20+ years now. Even the processor in my old eBook reader has the ARM Neon instructions.

by mdb31 4y ago

> vector instructions are fundamentally necessary For which percentage of users? > AMD is actually adding AVX-512 Which is irrelevant to in-market support for that instruction set.

XorNot 4y ago

Why would it be irrelevant? Even the paucity of availability isn't really a problem - the big winners here are server users in data centers, not desktops or laptops. How much string parsing and munging is happening ingesting big datasets right now? If running a specially optimized function set on part of your fleet reduces utilization, that's direct cost savings you realize. If the AMD is then widening that support base, you're deeply favoring expanding usage while you scale up.

_rtld_global_ro 4y ago
Given Intel's AVX extension could cause silent failures on servers (very high work load for prolonged time, compare to end user computers), I'm not sure it would be a big win for servers either: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2102.11245.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2102.11245.pdf.
- jcranmer 4y ago
  I'm downvoting you because the assertion you're implying--that use of AVX increases soft failure rates more than using non-AVX instructions would--is not sustained by the source you use as reference.
  - tialaramex 4y ago
    Indeed, I'd summarise that source as "At Facebook sometimes weird stuff happens. We postulate it's not because of all the buggy code written by Software Engineers like us, it must be hardware. As well as lots of speculation about hypothetical widespread problems that would show we're actually not writing buggy software, here's a single concrete example where it was hardware". If anything I'd say that Core 59 is one of those exceptions that prove the rule. This is such a rare phenomenon that when it does happen you can do the work to pin it down and say yup, this CPU is busted - if it was really commonplace you'd constantly trip over these bugs and get nowhere. There probably isn't really, as that paper claims, a "systemic issue across generations" except that those generations are all running Facebook's buggy code.
    - janwas 4y ago
      One interesting anecdote is that HPC planning for exascale included significant concern about machine failures and (silent) data corruption. When running at large enough scale, even seemingly small failure rates translate into "oh, there goes another one".

mhh__ 4y ago

Any users who either wants performance or uses a language that can depend on a fast library.

retrac 4y ago

> For which percentage of users? Anyone using software that benefits from vector instructions. That includes a variety of compression, search, and image processing algorithms. Your JPEG decompression library might be using SSE2 or Neon. All high-end processors have included some form of vector instruction for like 20+ years now. Even the processor in my old eBook reader has the ARM Neon instructions.