Intel Still Slowly Hacking Towards Open-Source OpenCL 2.0 Linux Support

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Still Slowly Hacking Towards Open-Source OpenCL 2.0 Linux Support

Following last month's update to Beignet, the Intel open-source project for providing open-source OpenCL compute support for their HD/Iris Graphics hardware, that brought Skylake support, SPIR, and other updates, there was some hope that OpenCL 2.0 support might become a greater focus to complement Beignet's OpenCL 1.2 support. Sadly, it looks like things are still moving slowly on the CL 2.0 front...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Beignet-Slow-OpenCL-2.0

[duby229]

No surprise there, what with the whole "stand alone" complex....

[AJenbo]

No surprise there, what with the whole "stand alone" complex....

[Marc Driftmeyer]

You expected otherwise? Intel is busy pushing OpenMP and libraries for Psi. Just like Nvidia they are pushing their own junk.

[SystemCrasher]

Well, IMHO it's worth of nothing since Intel lacks any appealing offers (in terms of price to performance ratio). With AMD GPUs I can get a cheap yet powerful number crunchers to do heavy lifting where I really need more than common CPU could handle. And AMD got some cheap yet powerful devices. And I can even add several of these into one computer. What intel could offer, on other hand? Most integrated GPUs are useless since they lack on-bord VRAM, and having CPU and GPU fighting for RAM bandwidth on same system RAM bus is really worst idea ever. Not to mention DDR3/4 is quite slow, even compared to GDDR5 (not to mention HBM). Sure, there is Iris. And it even got own VRAM, which makes it more fancy. But if we take a look on pricing... hey, Intel, I can get about 2 x R9 270s at same price tag. Not to mention Iris can't beat even single one.

So, Intel got OpenCL 2.0 support, blah-blah-blah. But I'm not really sure how to make any practical use of it which would give noticeable benefits. It's something like Nouveau which got OpenGL 4.x first of all drivers, but its horribly slow due to lack of reclocking. So I do not get why Michael so excited about it.