This section graphically highlights the key benefits of Intel TBB.  For a more comprehensive description of the features, click on the Features & Benefits button below to visit the open source site.

Figure 1. Intel TBB offers comprehensive, abstracted templates, containers and classes for parallelism.  Version 2.1 expands usage models and improves performance and usability.

Intel TBB lets developers focus on adding value to their application instead of thread management.  Figure 2 highlights dramatically simpler multi-thread implementation with Intel TBB versus native threads. Intel TBB utilizes robust functions that reduce threading errors like deadlock and race conditions.

Figure 2. Side-by-side comparison of equivalent Windows* thread functionality that requires significantly more code to make a 2D ray tracing program, Tacheon, correctly threaded. Linux and Mac OSX developers can expect similar results.

Intel TBB 2.1 offers considerable improvements above 2.0 through pivotal functionality, performance, and usability enhancements.

Do more: Intel TBB 2.1 enables new use cases by allowing developers to create threads that don’t interfere with working tasks.  Now Intel TBB can be more generally applied to cross-platform applications which need the benefit of threading in both computational and interfacing components. Use Intel TBB to work with GUIs, AI, I/O operations, and network events without blocking ongoing computation being done by other active tasks.

Do it faster: Intel TBB 2.1 has significantly improved performance on workloads which benefit from static scheduling.  Now Intel TBB’s work-stealing task scheduler more efficiency prioritizes work to reduce unnecessary task stealing.  Use Intel TBB to abstract from thread maintenance and be assured of great performance no matter what workload your algorithm works on.

Figure 4. Benchmarks highlight how the auto and task affinity scheduling available in version 2.1 can significantly improve performance over simple task scheduling that was the only choice in the previous version.  Developers get performance benefits with minimal or no code changes because of the continued

Do it easier: Intel TBB 2.1 makes it easier to use in Microsoft Visual Studio* by offering a compile configuration plug-in.  Now Intel TBB makes it simple to configure different compilation variables for multiple development phases including debug and production. 

Intel TBB is cross-platform (Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X), supports 32-bit and 64-bit applications and works with Intel, Microsoft and GNU compilers.  Intel TBB is specifically designed to work in concert with other threading technologies, such as Win32*, POSIX*, and OpenMP* threads, providing a high degree of design and development flexibility. The templates implemented in Intel TBB rely on generic programming in order to provide high-speed and flexible algorithms with very few implementation constraints.

Intel TBB is compatible with Intel® Thread Checker, Intel® Thread Profiler, and the Intel® Compilers, to enable the rapid implementation of high-performance threads in applications.

Binary distributions, including commercial distributions, are validated and officially supported for the hardware, software, operating systems and compilers listed here.

Hardware - Recommended

Microsoft Windows*: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor or Intel® Xeon® processor or higher

Linux*: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor or Intel® Xeon® processor or Intel® Itanium® processor or higher

Mac OS* X: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor or higher

Intel® Pentium® 4 processor family

Intel® Pentium® D processor family

Intel® Xeon® processor family

Intel® Core™ 2 processor family

Intel® Itanium® processor family (Linux* systems only)

Non Intel® processors compatible with the above processors

Supported operating system (see below)

Supported compiler (see below)

Xcode* tool suite 2.4.1 or higher (Mac OS* X systems only)

Microsoft* Internet Explorer* 6.0, or other compatible web browser

Adobe® Reader®* 6.0 or higher

Software – Recommended

Intel® C++ Compiler 10.0 or higher

Intel® Thread Profiler 3.1 or higher

Microsoft* Windows* XP Professional

Linux

Mac OS X

Software - Supported Compilers

Windows

Linux

Mac OS X

With the purchase of Intel TBB, you will receive one year of technical support and product updates from Intel® Premier Support, our interactive issue management and communication web site. This premium support service allows you to submit questions, download product updates, and access technical notes, application notes, and other documentation. For more information, visit the Intel Registration Center.

Which Intel TBB license is right for your needs?

Intel TBB is available commercially as a binary distribution, and in open source in both source and binary forms. If you need commercial support services you should purchase either a standalone commercial license or take advantage of the considerable value in purchasing the Compiler Professional Edition (Intel® Software Development Products – Product Suites). If your legal counsel is comfortable with your use of software under the Intel TBB open source license and you do not require commercial support services, please download the latest version of open source Intel TBB (http://threadingbuildingblocks.org).  If you require commercial support services for platforms not supported by Intel TBB please contact us.

When built from source, Intel TBB is intended to be highly portable and so supports a wide variety of operating systems and platforms.  Binary distributions, including commercial distributions, are validated and officially supported for the hardware, software, operating systems and compilers listed here.