Asteroids@Home: New FMA application released

We are happy to present you another set of applications that will utilize those CPUs, which possess the FMA instruction set!

It was built to support both Linux and Windows OS with 64bit architecture.
What must be taken into account with these applications is that depending on the CPU architecture, generation, model, version, speed and number of utilized cores, in some cases the FMA applications may run slower than the corresponding AVX ones because of how those instructions are handled on different architectures, details that I'll not going further here as there is a lot of information on Internet. Also, there could be another case using even the same FMA application. For instance, there could be a situation where on the same particular system, having your preferences restrict the use of just a single core of, let's say, an Intel(R) Xeon(R) W Processor Xeon W-2195 of the Skylake-W Architecture, that single core will run much faster, close to processors' Turbo frequency of 4.3GHz, than if your configuration allows the client to utilize let's say 12 or more cores. In the second case those cores will run close to the processors' base frequency of 2.3GHz, depending on their actual number, which will result drastically in lowering of the application performance. Take a look at this article where under the "Per Core Turbo Data" chapter you will find explanation about how the Turbo ratio limits works.

Still, while the Boinc server is capable of finding the best performed application for every particular system, taking into account multiple factors, and after a while it will start sending the right one for every particular system. Which means that even if your CPU is equipped with the FMA engine it still might receive an AVX tasks and there is nothing to be concerned.

So happy crunching and thank you for your support!

Radim Vančo (FoxKyong)

More...