Sorting Algorithm Breaks Giga-Sort Barrier, With GPUs

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the University of Virginia have recently open sourced an algorithm capable of sorting at a rate of one billion (integer) keys per second using a GPU. Although GPUs are often assumed to be poorly suited for algorithms like sorting, their results are several times faster than the best known CPU-based sorting implementations."

No Surprise...

[Anonymous Coward]

GPUs have always been better at sorting your money from your wallet.

Re:Excel Charts

[bramp]

I've also found this annoying when reading papers. Perhaps I just spend too much time learning how to use gnuplot so that my graphs look nice.

Re:Not a barrier

[CoolGopher]

It's just a milestone.

Hang on, since when do you measure sorting performance using a distance indicator? And an imperial one at that!

No, this is not a serious comment.

Re:Not a barrier

[martin-boundary]

It means the Queen of England herself endorses the calculations?

I think the bubble sort would be the wrong way to

[joeyadams]

I think the bubble sort would be the wrong way to go.

—Barack Obama

New level of gaming.

[Murdoch5]

Hold on, so I can play Jezz Ball, Chips Challenge and all my favourite old school games with a greater level of speed.

PRON! Marches on!

[jewishbaconzombies]

Thank god, because my online Porn collection isn't going to sort itself.

Re:Excel Charts

[Anonymous Coward]

Researchers at the University of Virginia have recently open sourced

I stopped this shit about right there. You think I'm going to trust my sorting to some open sores buggy shit? I think I'll just keep using Microsoft for my algorithms thank you very much.

Re:Not a barrier

[PatPending]

Actually, if you look at shockwave dynamics during the moment an object crosses from subsonic to supersonic velocity, it can very easily be considered much more of a barrier than 1gkeys/sec can.

Actually in this case, your analogy should use ludicrous speed.

Re:Not impressed unless...

[Anonymous Coward]

Please update your sig to reflect your new status... It should be "Tired of my customary (Score:0)"

Re:The video card in question..

[MarkRose]

I never would have suspected the GTX480 would have been good at this sorta thing.

Re:PRON! Marches on!

[Anonymous Coward]

A porn collection is something that needs to be sorted manually.

Re:Um...

[Guido del Confuso]

O( n / log(P) ) not so much.

That algorithm does particularly poorly on just one processor. In fact, if it ran successfully the universe would implode. [mathfail.com]

Great

[robinvanleeuwen]

No we can finally sort the digits of Pi...

Re:PRON! Marches on!

[Anonymous Coward]

"I sorted that whole 1 giga porn collection single-handedly!".

1 billion? Up it to over 4 billion!

[Mr Z]

You know, if they up it to just a bit over 4 billion unique 32-bit keys, say around 4,294,967,296 or so, I think I could sort them rather efficiently, as long as they weren't attached to any payload. ;-)