Intel® Software Network

Start March.2009, we introduced a series of Intel® Parallel Studio webinars. During the live broadcast webcasts, we received numerous questions about this new product. The followings contain Top 5 most asked questions and a detailed list of Q&A from each webinar. We thought these may be useful to you through the product evaluations.. If you are interested in taking recorded webinars, please register it here.

Top 5 most asked questions:

Q1. What is the difference between Intel® Parallel Composer and the usual Intel® C++ Compiler Professional?
A. Please see http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-parallel-studio/topic/65980/. A more detailed article will come soon.

Q2: What about using Intel C++ to cross-compiling between Mac OSX*/Linux*?
A: Intel® C++ Compiler Professional Edition products are also available for Linux and Mac OS X. Cross-compiling between these two operating systems is not a supported user-model. You will not be able to cross-compile between OSs. Please see http://intel.com/software/products for additional information.

Q3: Sure your product target is Intel Platform how about other brand CPUs. When we use your product it will also work in other CPUs without problem and same performance?
A: Intel® Parallel Studio runs on platforms with an IA-32 or Intel® 64 architecture processor supporting the Intel® Streaming SIMD Extensions 2 (Intel® SSE2) instructions (Intel® Pentium® 4 processor or later, or compatible non-Intel processor).

Q4. Do I need to use Intel® VTune™ Performance analyzer or Intel® Thread Checker etc. any more since I found that Intel® Parallel Studio can do what VTune analyzer always do?
A. VTune analyzer provides additional functionality. For example, VTune Event Based Sampling (the ability to track processor level events) is one such area. The Intel(R) Parallel Amplifier, an Intel(R) Parallel Studio tool, provides information on the performance of your code. Use the Parallel Amplifier to analyze the following types of performance issues in your threaded applications:
- Identify the most time-consuming (hot) functions
- Locate sections of code that do not effectively utilize available processor time
- Determine the best sections of code to optimize for sequential performance and for threaded performance
- Locate synchronization objects that affect the program performance
- Find whether, where, and why your program spends time on input/output operations
- Identify and compare the performance impact of different synchronization methods, different numbers of threads, or different algorithms

Q5. What is the difference between Intel® VTune™ analyzer/Intel® Thread Checker and Intel® Parallel Studio? Or can they be used in a good combination somehow?
A. Yes. Moreover, Parallel Studio is built on the latest technology (PIN) for faster analysis. Also, Parallel Inspector includes memory checking in addition to "Thread Checking". Parallel Amplifier has Statistical Call Graph for profiling your applications with low overhead to detect where time is spent in your application. See Intel® Parallel Amplifier vs. Intel® VTune™ Performance Analyzer Comparison.


Detailed Q&A lists from each webinar:

1. Go-Parallelism! Ease the Onramp for C/C++ Windows* Development - March 10
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/questions-and-answers-webinar1-go-parallelism/

2. Solve Parallelism with Intel® Parallel Studio - March 17
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/qa-from-webinar-solve-parallelism-with-intel-parallel-studio/

3. Simplify Parallelism with Intel® Parallel Composer -  March 24
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/march-24-simplify-parallelism-with-intel-parallel-composer-parallel-studio-seminar-2-presenter-joe-wolf/

4. Parallel Implementation Methods with Intel® Parallel Composer - March 31
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/parallel-implementation-methods-with-intel-parallel-composer-webinar-qa/

5. Debugging Parallel Code for Fast, Reliable Applications - April 7
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/debugging-parallel-code-for-fast-reliable-applications-webinar-questions-and-answers/

6. Find Errors in Windows C++ Parallel Applications - April 14
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/qa-from-webinar-find-errors-in-parallel-applications/

7. Easy Ways to Solve Parallel Performance Challenges - April 21
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/easy-ways-to-solve-parallel-performance-challenges-webinar-questions-and-answers/

8. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Improve Parallel Application Quality and Performance - April 28
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/qa-from-webcast-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

9. The Key to Scaling Applications for Multi-core - May 5
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/the-key-to-scaling-applications-for-multicore-webinar-questions-and-answers/

10. Identify and Address Threading Opportunities - May 12
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/identify-and-address-threading-opportunities-webinar-questions-and-answers/

11. Image Processing: Stop Developing Code from Scratch - May 19
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/questions-and-answers-from-webinar-ipp/

12. Simplifying Parallelism Implementation with Intel® Threading Building Blocks - May 26
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/qa-from-webcast-the-simplifying-parallelism-implementation-with-intel-threading-building-blocks/

13. Static Analysis and Intel® C++ Compilers - June 2
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/static-analysis-and-intel-c-compilers-webinar-qa/

For more about Intel Parallel Studio and product evaluation, please visit http://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-parallel-studio-home/


Thank You.
Intel Parallel Studio Support Team
Intel Corp.