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[tugrul_512bit]

Normally I give it 256 workitems per workgroup and 64 cores compute those workitems but what if I just pick 4 items with float16 math? Does the compiler map each item to  whole 16-wide SIMDs in any of drivers or GCN versions?

[dipak · Accepted solution]

On CGN, processing elements or vector-lanes of each  SIMD are effectively scalar. I don't think vectorization has much effect on GCN devices as compared to earlier VLIW arch. In fact, vectorization may degrade the performance as mentioned in the optimization guide:

"Notes" under section "Specific Guidelines for GCN family GPUs"

• Vectorization is no longer needed, nor desirable; in fact, it can affect performance because it requires a greater number of VGPRs for storage. It is recommended not to combine work-items.
• Read coalescing does not work for 64-bit data sizes. This means reads for float2, int2, and double might be slower than expected.

Regards,

[tugrul_512bit]

Thank you