Category: IT

This category includes IT area

  • AMD vs Intel in AI: The Battle of the GPUs

    The world of artificial intelligence (AI) has seen a significant shift in recent years, with advancements in hardware and software technologies. Two major players in this arena are AMD and Intel, each vying for dominance in the AI chip market. In this blog post, we’ll delve into the latest developments and compare the performance of AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 series and Intel’s Core Ultra 7 258V in large language model (LLM) tasks.

     

    AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 Series: The New Champion

    AMD has been making waves in the AI community with its Ryzen AI 300 series of mobile processors. These chips have been tested against Intel’s mid-range Core Ultra 7 258V in various LLM tasks, and the results are impressive. According to AMD’s in-house testing, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 outperforms the Core Ultra 7 258V by up to 27% in token generation speed using LM Studio, a popular desktop app for downloading and hosting LLMs locally[1].

     

    The Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 was tested against several LLM models, including Meta’s Llama 3.2, Microsoft Phi 3.1 4k Mini Instruct 3b, Google’s Gemma 2 9b, and Mistral’s Nemo 2407 12b. The tests measured speed in tokens per second and acceleration in the time it took to generate the first token. The results clearly show that AMD’s chip excels in both speed and time to start outputting text.

     

    It’s worth noting that Intel’s Core Ultra 7 258V is not on a fair playing field against the HX 375. The 258V has a max turbo speed of 4.8 GHz, while the HX 375 reaches 5.1 GHz. This difference in performance is significant and affects the overall outcome of the tests. However, even with this disparity, AMD’s Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 demonstrates superior performance in LLM tasks.

     

    GPU Acceleration: The Key to Faster Performance

    One of the key features of AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 series is its ability to utilize GPU acceleration. Tests performed using the Vulkan API in LM Studio showed that the Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 achieved up to 20% faster token generation speeds when GPU acceleration was enabled. This highlights the importance of dedicated NPU and iGPU in AI tasks, especially when it comes to on-demand program-level AI tasks[1].

     

    AMD’s commitment to open innovation is evident in its support for various AI frameworks and libraries. The company continues to advance its ROCm open software stack, which now includes support for critical AI features like FP8 datatype, Flash Attention 3, and Kernel Fusion. This ensures seamless integration with popular generative AI models like Stable Diffusion 3 and Meta Llama 3[4].

     

    Intel’s Struggles in the AI Chip Market

    Intel, on the other hand, has faced significant challenges in the AI chip market. Despite its efforts to launch the Gaudi accelerator chips, Intel has fallen short of its modest revenue goal for 2024. This is a stark contrast to AMD’s upgraded sales forecast for its Instinct GPUs, which now stands at $5.5 billion for 2024[3].

     

    Intel’s CEO, Pat Gelsinger, remains bullish on the company’s long-term strategy for Gaudi chips. However, the current performance indicates that Intel is still in the early stages of scaling up sales efforts. The company’s reliance on software ease of use and the transition from Gaudi 2 to Gaudi 3 have contributed to slower-than-expected sales[3].

     

    Conclusion

    The battle between AMD and Intel in the AI chip market is heating up. AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 series has demonstrated superior performance in LLM tasks, thanks to its advanced architecture and GPU acceleration capabilities. Intel’s struggles with its Gaudi accelerator chips highlight the challenges of entering a market dominated by Nvidia. As AI continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how these companies adapt and innovate to stay ahead in the race for AI supremacy.

  • When you can’t crop the image for your header for your WordPress Page

    After you install your WordPress, and if you face an error like this, and if you can’t crop new image for your header on your dashboard,

    /var/www# php -v

    PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library ‘imagick.so’ (tried: /usr/lib/php/20240924/imagick.so (/usr/lib/php/20240924/imagick.so: undefined symbol: php_strtolower), /usr/lib/php/20240924/imagick.so.so (/usr/lib/php/20240924/imagick.so.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)) in Unknown on line 0
    PHP 8.4.0RC3 (cli) (built: Oct 30 2024 11:34:47) (NTS)
    Copyright (c) The PHP Group
    Zend Engine v4.4.0RC3, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v8.4.0RC3, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

    ==========================

    use following command

    php –ini

    Check for GD in php.ini

    1. Edit the PHP-FPM php.ini File: Open the main php.ini for PHP-FPM:
      sudo nano /etc/php/8.4/fpm/php.ini
    2. Look for extension=gd: Use the search function (usually CTRL + W in nano) to locate any lines that mention extension=gd.
    3. Comment Out Duplicate Entry: If you find extension=gd in php.ini, comment it out by adding a semicolon (;) in front of it: php.ini
      ;extension=gd
    4. Save and Exit: Save the file and exit the editor.
    5. Restart PHP-FPM: Restart PHP-FPM to apply the change:
      sudo service php8.4-fpm restart

     

  • Installing WordPress on an Ubuntu Server using Nginx, PHP, and MariaDB on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Free Tier.

    Installing WordPress on an Ubuntu Server using Nginx, PHP, and MariaDB on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Free Tier.

    Wordpress Installation

    Prerequisites

      • Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Free Tier account
      • Ubuntu Server instance
      • SSH access to the server

     

    Step 1: Update System Packages

    sudo apt update
    sudo apt upgrade -y
     

    Step 2: Install Nginx Web Server

    sudo apt install nginx -y
    sudo systemctl start nginx
    sudo systemctl enable nginx
     

    Step 3: Install MariaDB Database

    sudo apt install mariadb-server -y
    sudo systemctl start mariadb
    sudo systemctl enable mariadb
    sudo mysql_secure_installation
     

    During the secure installation:

    • Set root password
    • Remove anonymous users
    • Disallow root login remotely
    • Remove test database
    • Reload privilege tables

     

    Step 4: Install PHP 8.1 and Required Extensions

      sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
      sudo apt update
      sudo apt install php8.1-fpm php8.1-mysql php8.1-curl php8.1-gd php8.1-mbstring
    php8.1-xml php8.1-zip -y

    Step 5: Configure Database for WordPress

       sudo mariadb
    CREATE DATABASE wordpress;
    CREATE USER 'wordpress_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'strong_password';
    GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wordpress.* TO 'wordpress_user'@'localhost';
    FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
    EXIT;
     

    Step 6: Download and Install WordPress

      cd /tmp
      wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
      tar -xvf latest.tar.gz
      sudo mkdir -p /var/www/wordpress
      sudo cp -R wordpress/* /var/www/wordpress/
      sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/wordpress
      sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/wordpress
     

    Step 7: Configure Nginx for WordPress

      sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress
     

    Add the following configuration:

    server {
       listen 80;
       server_name your_domain.com;
       root /var/www/wordpress;
       index index.php;
       location / {
       try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
            }
       location ~ \.php${
       fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.4-fpm.sock;
       fastcgi_index index.php;
       include fastcgi_params;
       fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
            }
       }  

     

    Step 8: Enable Site and Restart Services

        sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
        sudo nginx -t
        sudo systemctl restart nginx
        sudo systemctl restart php8.4-fpm
     

    Step 9: Configure WordPress

    • Navigate to http://your_domain.com
    • Follow WordPress setup wizard
    • Create wp-config.php with database details
    •  

    Security Considerations

    • Configure firewall rules in Oracle Cloud Console
    • Open ports 80 and 443
    • Consider installing SSL with Let’s Encrypt
    •  

    Troubleshooting

    • Check Nginx logs: sudo tail /var/log/nginx/error.log
    • Check PHP-FPM logs: sudo tail /var/log/php8.4-fpm.log
    • Verify services: sudo systemctl status nginx php8.4-fpm mariadb