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textlapseyesterday at 6:55 PM1 replyview on HN

warp is expensive - essentially it's running a 'don't run code' to maintain SIMT.

GPUs are still not practically-Turing-complete in the sense that there are strict restrictions on loops/goto/IO/waiting (there are a bunch of band-aids to make it pretend it's not a functional programming model).

So I am not sure retrofitting a Ferrari to cosplay an Amazon delivery van is useful other than for tech showcase?

Good tech showcase though :)


Replies

zozbot234yesterday at 7:51 PM

I think you're conflating GPU 'threads' and 'warps'. GPU 'threads' are SIMD lanes that are all running with the exact same instructions and control flow (only with different filtering/predication), whereas GPU warps are hardware-level threads that run on a single compute unit. There's no issue with adding extra "don't run code" when using warps, unlike GPU threads.

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