parallax-scroll wrote:
Intel Unveils Supercomputing Multicore Processor

snip

Intel said the MIC architecture is derived from several Intel
projects, including Larrabee and such Intel Labs research projects as
the single-chip cloud computer. The MIC architecture is separate from
Intel's Xeon chips used in mainstream business computing. The former
architecture is designed for highly parallel applications used in
supercomputing.

This is not good news for the kind of supercomputing I understand, which
is already bandwidth-bound. I've talked about this problem at length in
another forum, and there is little point in my going on about it here.
You can put more transistors on a chip from now until doomsday, but,
unless you can keep them fed, there is no point.

The cheapness of flops compared to bandwidth has already skewed
computational physics, and the appearance of chips like Knights Corner
will only make it worse. My prediction: more pretty plots and more Top
500 hype than ever. Less and less good computational physics.

Embarrassingly parallel applications will benefit, as always. There may
be applications in biology that I don't understand.

Robert.