Would you be able to compile Java or Python on a Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessor.

[Capt Swirly]

Hello,

I am getting a Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessor and was wondering if there is a compiler or application that would allow you to run Java or Python program on a Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessor whether it be offload or native (but I am preferring native). If so is there a documentation or how-to of running it?

Thank you

 

 

[da na]

Please don't buy a Phi. There's absolutely nothing you can do on them, bought one to mess around with a while ago and they are quite useless, unfortunately - probably would be slower than your CPU if you got it working anyway.

[svmlegacy]

57 minutes ago, Capt Swirly said:

Hello,

I am getting a Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessor and was wondering if there is a compiler or application that would allow you to run Java or Python program on a Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessor whether it be offload or native (but I am preferring native). If so is there a documentation or how-to of running it?

Thank you

You'll need to read the Intel Developer manual for the Xeon Phi if you wish to attempt to use it.

 

As Mel0n said, they are not for the faint of heart, and the typical compile workloads are not going to benefit from it even if it did work.

[8tg]

The issue with Phi coprocessors is that all development for them hit a wall and then they ended up in resale markets. There’s a few proper uses for them but those uses were outmoded by other hardware that does it better.

If you have a phi it’s more for the hobbyist sake of things, the hardware is there, but doing anything with it is entirely DIY or building off of other hobbyists projects.

If the goal is some kind of compute heavy task and you don’t have a phi, the solution is not a phi. Plenty of other, properly supported solutions exist for compute workloads.

 

[jaslion]

The phi was an experimental piece of tech. It hit a brick wall in development and died a quick death.

 

It's basically useless even in the tasks it was aimed to be good at.

 

Only very few use cases were they good for but at that point it was better to buy a normal x86 system as the performance of the phi was just too low for the cost. That and it was miserable to work with and develop for.

 

Btw raw performance a Phi 7210 is slower than a i5 4460. That something you can pick up in an entire pc for like 50$.

 

Even a prime unit first gen one with 64 cores in 2010 was only about 35% faster than a dual x5650 system. Which really was not a lot considering everything

 

[Eigenvektor]

Java generally compiles to hardware independent Bytecode, which is then run on a Java Virtual Machine that is hardware specific. So you'd need a JVM that is compiled/optimized for a Phi. That being said, at least according to Intel, that is already the case: https://www.intel.com/content/dam/develop/public/us/en/documents/java-performance-wp-d46.pdf

[igormp]

On 2/26/2023 at 7:38 PM, Capt Swirly said:

I am getting a Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessor

Why? If you only want to learn how to do multithreaded programming, any modern CPU should do it. If you can scale your work to 4~8 threads, you should be able to do it for 1024 without many changes.

On 2/26/2023 at 7:38 PM, Capt Swirly said:

was wondering if there is a compiler or application that would allow you to run Java or Python program on a Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessor

I mean, you can just run linux straight out of if, so you can just ssh into it and install python or any java runtime that you want.

 

Keep in mind that it'll be useless for python since you'll be stuck with the GIL and get locked to a single core, making the whole idea of a Xeon Phi useless to begin with.

[Franck]

any CPU intel gen 5 and up outperform ridiculously the phi. Also having less core will reduce the context switching and reduce the overhead of creating more threads.

[igormp]

1 hour ago, Franck said:

Also having less core will reduce the context switching and reduce the overhead of creating more threads.

It's the other way around. When you have more threads than cores, you'll need to keep switching between which thread is active in a given core, and thus will increase the amount of context switching.

 

Anyhow, the difference in IPC and clocks should make up for it.