FPGA vs. multi-core CPUs vs. GPUs: Hands-on experience with a sorting application

Currently there are several interesting alternatives for low-cost high-performance computing. We report here our experiences with an N-gram extraction and sorting problem, originated in the design of a real-time network intrusion detection system. We have considered FPGAs, multi-core CPUs in symmetric multi-CPU machines and GPUs and have created implementations for each of these platforms. After carefully comparing the advantages and disadvantages of each we have decided to go forward with the implementation written for multi-core CPUs. Arguments for and against each platform are presented - corresponding to our hands-on experience - that we intend to be useful in helping with the selection of the hardware acceleration solutions for new projects.