High Performance Computing

by Kevin Dowd and Kevin Dowd

Book Overview

This book is a "must" for anyone who needs to worry about computer performance, either as a software developer or as a buyer. But it also provides valuable insights for those among us who do relatively little programming and run mostly third-party application software. Even if you never touch a line of code, "High Performance Computing" will give you a feel for how the most recent generation of computer hardware works. If you work with computers,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565920325
• ISBN13: 9781565920323
• Release Date: June 1993
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 398 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent book on modern computing power

Explains very nicely and precisely the HW fundamentals of the multiprocessors, memory, RISC, insights in software and optimization concepts like register stacks and nested loops. Very much useful for not to get confused by the buzzwords in the super computer industry. Good book for both the engineers and managers of hardware companies. It is simple and non intrusive read. If you are new engineer in processor design or compiler architecture jobs, this book gives lot of insight and learning needed for your job. However this book is not a bible on computer architecture like Hennessy's books.

very clear explanation of otherwise hard to grip concepts.

Materials covered in certain chapters are equivalent to a one semester class at MIT.. though in less detail, the lucid explanation of the fundamental concepts are impressive.. this book is a very good start for someone who has never touched the subject of Parallel Computing before.

Knowledge of software+hardware makes a complete programmer

This book provides great insight into the _performance_ of hardware. How can one be a good programmer without knowing how it is that data gets to memory, how data flows through the CPU and what it is in the hardware that makes ones code fast or slow? It amazes me that most of the developers that I work with are ignorant or could not care less about the effects of cache misses, what superscalar/superpipelined really means, and how a "improper" stride through their array can make the performance of their code deplorable. This book makes for a great read and is guaranteed to make a programmer a better programmer.

Anybody work in numerical analysis can't miss this book.

It is an excellent book I have read. It includes the latest state of art IA-64 architure, RISC, compiler ...