GPUs, Why They Are So Important, and Why Everyone Hates Them

Barry Smith, MCS
Quantum information science grant

LANS Seminar

Abstract: GPUs will come to dominate the mid to high range of numerical simulation within the next few years. Both Oak Ridge's and Argonne's first exascale computers will be powered by GPUs. I will discuss at a cartoon level what architectural features make them inevitable for numerical computations and how these same features and other attributes make them so disliked by most developers of numerical simulation applications and libraries.