[Beowulf] Gentoo in the HPC environment

[Jonathan Aquilina]

I think my question though is this. can one see negative impacts if the
compiler gets upgraded regardless of if its gcc or intel.

>
> On 07/01/2014 12:17 AM, Matt Wallis wrote:
>> On 01/07/14 13:45, Jonathan Aquilina wrote:
>>> This question probably sounds like a stupid one, but what difference
>>> in an
>>> HPC environment and to parallel written code does compiler version
>>> make?
>>
>> Depends on the day of the week, the processor, the code, and your
>> cluster really.
>>
>> Sometimes code from GCC is faster, sometimes code from the Intel
>> compiler is faster.
>> Some people write code that only compiles with the Intel compiler, or
>> link against libraries distributed with the compiler.
>>
>> Then of course you might have a BlueGene with PPC cores rather than
>> x86, and while the difference in performance between GCC for PPC and
>> the IBM XL compilers is slight these days, it wasn't always the case.
>
> One of my researchers has found that his code that is integer-heavy runs
> up to 5x faster on our BG/P when compiled with GCC over the same code
> compiled with the IBM XL compilers. For floating point heavy codes, the
> IBM XL compiles produce much faster code.
>
>>
>> Intel also distributes highly tuned versions of some maths libraries
>> with their compilers, and libraries designed for offloading work to
>> the the Xeon Phi, without recompiling the application.
>>
>> And then when it comes time to debug why the application doesn't work,
>> commercial compiler suites often come with very good debugging tools.
>>
>> Matt.
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin Computing
> To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit
> http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
>