The comparison of parallel sorting algorithms implemented on different hardware platforms

Abstract

Sorting is a common problem in computer science. There are a lot of well-known sorting algorithms created for sequential execution on a single processor. Recently, many-core and multi-core platforms have enabled the creation of wide parallel algorithms. We have standard processors that consist of multiple cores and hardware accelerators, like the GPU. Graphic cards, with their parallel architecture, provide new opportunities to speed up many algorithms. In this paper, we describe the results from the implementation of a few different parallel sorting algorithms on GPU cards and multi-core processors. Then, a hybrid algorithm will be presented, consisting of parts executed on both platforms (a standard CPU and GPU). In recent literature about the implementation of sorting algorithms in the GPU, a fair comparison between many core and multi-core platforms is lacking. In most cases, these describe the resulting time of sorting algorithm executions on the GPU platform and a single CPU core.