Which parallel sorting algorithm has the best average case performance?
- by Craig P. Motlin
Sorting takes O(n log n) in the serial case. If we have O(n) processors we would hope for a linear speedup. O(log n) parallel algorithms exist but they have a very high constant. They also aren't applicable on commodity hardware which doesn't have anywhere near O(n) processors. With p processors, reasonable algorithms should take O(n/p log n/p)…