Today Silicon Graphics Inc. introduced a high-performance computing (HPC) server running Intel’s newest dual-core processor, the Xeon 5100. SGI claims their new Altix XE will significantly beat existing HPC cluster solutions using the competing Opteron 64-bit chip from AMD.
The SGI announcement specifically mentioned significant performance gains when running structural engineering applications. “[Strong] performance gains have been clocked in SGI tests running engineering applications on 2.4 GHz AMD Opteron versus Intel Xeon processor 5150. Among structural engineering applications, ABAQUS Standard 6-5.5 runs 29% faster on a Xeon processor, and MSC.Nastran V200 5R2 runs 18% faster. And among leading CFD applications, Fluent 6.2 runs 20% faster, and PowerFLOW 3.5c runs 30% faster.”
SGI Altix XE servers are driven by two dual-core, Intel Xeon processor 5160 CPUs, packing a total of four processor cores and supporting up to 32 GB of memory in each server. At just 65 or 80 watts per socket, the systems include an energy-efficient design that SGI says helps address power management and cooling concerns. The new systems offer 21 GB/sec memory bandwidth speed.
“Sales of all types of clusters are growing quickly in the technical computing market today, with growth close to doubling each year for the last three years. One of the primary driving factors is the low cost of HPC clusters based on standard components. IDC research studies show that end users frequently find large clusters very complex to manage and they require significant effort to setup and optimize,” said Earl Joseph, vice president for IDC’s Technical Computing Systems practice. “SGI’s approach is to integrate application-optimized clusters in the factory and to support these systems with the same team that has serviced its supercomputers and storage products.”
More details are available at SGI's Website.
--RSN
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