Last week we talked about the upcoming release of Intel’s Xeon E5 processor family. This week, we have some even more important announcements regarding Intel MIC and the strategic direction that Intel is headed regarding high performance computing.
Die shot of 'Aubrey Isle,' the silicon chip included in the Intel MIC 'Knights Ferry' development platform
Anticipation is building over the upcoming release of Intel’s new Xeon processor E5 family. Formally announced last November in 2011, Intel unveiled some impressive stats for the new E5 line: full integration support for the PCI Express 3.0 base (which is estimated to double interconnect bandwidth over the PCIe 2.0 specification), over twice the performance in raw floating point operations per second (FLOPS), and substantially greater real-HPC workloads compared to the Xeon 5600 series.
In the original Intel press release, the company announced that:
This is a continuation of our look at future trends in high performance computing. In part 1 we covered the first five of the top ten trends. In this installment we’ll wrap up with the remaining five.
As we near the end of 2011, we take a moment to reflect on the past year. It’s been a busy year for IT across virtually all verticals, from mobile and search to enterprise servers and cloud computing. When we attended HPC360 a few weeks ago, we had the pleasure to attend a keynote presentation by Addison Snell, CEO of Intersect Research in which he discussed the most important trends in high performance computing (HPC).
HPC is an exciting and growing industry that ICC has been moving into the past couple years. The traditional HPC space revolved around high-end research facilities particularly in science and engineering. However, with each year technological innovations and tailored systems such as our Supermicro GPU Simcluster have brought the realm of HPC closer to reality for many small/medium-sized business and organizations.
In this 2-part series we will look at the top 10 future trends in HPC from Intersect360′s research, coupled with our own analysis and thoughts. No better way for us computer nerds to close the year right? Let’s get started.
We just returned from R Systems HPC360, a conference on high performance computing down in Champaign, Illinois which brought together leading industry professionals, academics, scientists, and enthusiasts.
The conference was titled HPC360 “Innovation through Modeling and Simulation”. The event took place at the i Hotel and Conference Center in Champaign, hosted by R Systems and sponsored by a number of companies including Dell, AMD, Intel, and yours truly, ICC!
Last month we announced our new line of GPU supercomputing products powered by NVIDIA. These recent releases were only the build up to the real GPU highlight coming out – ICC NovaServ™ Tesla GPU SimCluster solutions.
Integrating cutting-edge technology from our industry-leading partners, ICC’s NovaServ™ Tesla GPU SimClusters are ready-to-deploy cluster solutions off the shelf, delivering the power of CPU-GPU parallel processing. The 1U 6016GT-T is a powerful stand-alone system. But the real power in high performance computing and GPU supercomputing comes from the ability to scale upward through computer clusters. By transforming the base 6016GT-T into such a configuration you gain an asset with incredible performance potential that draws upon the combined AND clustered power of CPU and GPU.
The AMD Opteron 6000 series continues marching forward with each new innovation building upon the capabilities and possibilities of the past. With the latest AMD Opteron 6200 processors now on the shelves, there is great hidden value to uncover. The highlight and the hype of the Opteron 6200 series has been mostly centered around the 16-core Interlagos, but there are some significant advantages in the 12-core options.
Let me illustrate.
We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We were certainly thankful to have a couple days of relaxation. November has been a big month for us. Earlier in the month we released our GPU supercomputing solutions. Now we have a new set of superserver systems powered by the recently-released AMD Opteron™ 6200-series processors.
Just a couple weeks ago I wrote about new processors from both Intel and AMD. AMD’s 6200-series includes their much-awaited 16-core processor (code-named Interlagos) and utilizes their new Bulldozer architecture. One of the most desirable aspects of these new processors is that they have far superior performance compared to the previous 6100 line, but they remain compatible with the widely-used Socket G34 motherboards. This makes them quite flexible in application.
ICC has released a number of new systems with the AMD Opteron™ 6200 processors in various configurations to meet a wide range of needs. Four of our select systems provide a great snapshot of the different types of solutions we have developed.
We’ve just launched two new GPU products, along with our new GPU supercomputing solutions section! GPU computing is the use of a graphics processing unit (GPU) in computing purposes, from general-purpose to supercomputing tasks. With a constantly increasing demand for greater computing performance across the board, supercomputing is more and more drawing upon a hybrid model which integrates the roles of GPUs and CPUs.
If you are looking to gain a performance boost in your cluster or grid computing, ICC’s GPU solutions may be the perfect fit. The scalability requirements involved especially in grid computing make GPU solutions an ideal IT asset.
At ICC, we integrate our top technology with NVIDIA’s® CUDA™ GPU architecture, the simplest way for you to purchase, utilize, and manage a GPU-based cluster. GPU supercomputing has never been easier than with ICC NovaServ™ solutions, providing optimal value by minimizing time spent dealing with the technology and allowing you to focus on what you do best.
This is a big day for the server wars. AMD finally released its new 16-core processors: code-named “Interlagos” and “Valencia.” On the same day, Intel rolled out its new Sandy Bridge-E processors and there is already lots of speculation over whether or not their extra power is worth the price.
But today the spotlight is on AMD. Its 16-core Opteron™ line is a much-anticipated release. Since as early as 2009, we have been hearing about AMD’s plans for 16-core processors. Interlagos is officially known as the Opteron™ 6200, a 12- or 16-core x86 processor that is compatible with Socket G34 motherboards (Magny-Cours & Opteron™ 6100.) Not only does the absolute number of cores enable far superior performance compared to the current Opteron™ 6100 series, but Interlagos is one of the products taking advantage of AMD’s new Bulldozer CPU.