Latest TOP500 released

Author: Gareth Halfacree
Published: 19th June 2008
Comments (19) Stumble
IBM has made a good showing in this latest list, accounting for almost half the worlds fastest computers.

IBM has made a good showing in this latest list, accounting for almost half the worlds fastest computers.

The latest TOP500 list – a collection of the fastest supercomputers in the world – has been released by its creators, and there's some big wins for certain manufacturers.

The list, published this week on the TOP500 site, gives the number one spot to IBM's Roadrunner, built for the United States Department of Energy and hitting a staggering 1.026 petaflops/s – the first supercomputer to break the petaflop milestone. According to IBM, the key to this remarkable achievement was the use of Cell Broadband Engine processors – the same chips that are used in Sony's PlayStation 3 console.

In fact, this 31st incarnation of the list has been extremely kind to Big Blue – IBM systems account for almost half the systems listed. Intel has been doing well, too: 75 percent of the systems present in the list use one or another of their processors, and systems based around quad-core processors use Intel almost exclusively.

Intel's growth has come at a cost to its main competitor, however: AMD sees its x86-64 architecture drop from 15.8 percent back in November last year to just 11 percent in this latest compilation. The company's Opteron processor, however, makes a welcome appearance in the Roadrunner system, giving IBM's winner the grunt it needs to perform rapid general-purpose computing in addition to having blistering floating-point performance.

With Intel storming the charts, and IBM's radical Cell Broadband Engine proving its mettle, it's clear that AMD is going to have to pull something pretty special out of the R&D hat if it doesn't want to concede the high-performance computing market or find itself used as an accessory to more headline-grabbing processing engines.

Any of the figures from this latest list surprise you, or are you just gagging for a play with the Roadrunner? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
Quote badders 19th June 2008, 09:26
10 years, We'll all have a Roadrunner. Except it'll be in an ATX form factor, istead of a room.

Don'tcha just love technology?
Quote Kúsař 19th June 2008, 09:47
I checked AMD website for some news and they are apparently working on that:

http://www.amd.com/gb-uk/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543~126593,00.html
---
AMD Stream Processor First to Break 1 Teraflop Barrier

—Next-generation AMD FireStream™ 9250 processor accelerates scientific and engineering calculations, efficiently delivering supercomputer performance at up to eight gigaflops-per-watt —
---
It's some kind of add-in PCI card...
It seems they also want to utilize Radeons, FireGLs with some "AMD Stream SDK".
Quote Fod 19th June 2008, 09:57
the roadrunner uses opteron processors tooooooo. it's a hybrid architecture machine, with 1 opteron (two cores) per Cell, the Opteron handling the general purpose computing stuff, acting as master to the Cell which does the heavy FLOP lifting. Without the opterons there, the roadrunner would suck, as the ONLY thing the Cell is fast with is FLOPs - GP computing is sloooow.
Quote yakyb 19th June 2008, 11:45
when cuda becomes mainstream we will not be worried about CPU performance for intensive and repetitious tasks

Nvidia will start to place itself on this list
Quote kenco_uk 19th June 2008, 11:56
I wonder when the first game for the PS3 from IBM will be?
Code:
                    ,woot
Also, UK is 18th! \o/
Quote Gareth Halfacree 19th June 2008, 12:18
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fod
Without the opterons there, the roadrunner would suck, as the ONLY thing the Cell is fast with is FLOPs - GP computing is sloooow.
True, but without the Cells there the system wouldn't be on the TOP500 list, never mind at the top.
Quote rollo 19th June 2008, 12:29
fod thats like saying core 2 duo would suck without been 2 or more cores. We currently have a cell based work station at work . For its purpose of graphics design and cad editing its about 100 * faster than anything intel or amd could make. For the cost. Would like to see intel and amd develop 8 core cpus for general public. But then again when will games use more than 2cores in the near future. And more to the point be optimised to gain the benifit from it
Quote Timmy_the_tortoise 19th June 2008, 12:37
Quote:
Originally Posted by badders
10 years, We'll all have a Roadrunner. Except it'll be in an ATX form factor, istead of a room.

Don'tcha just love technology?

Give it another 20 years, and it'll be in Mini-ITX... Then it'll be impressive.
Quote proxess 19th June 2008, 13:26
Quote:
Originally Posted by Timmy_the_tortoise
Give it another 20 years, and it'll be in Mini-ITX... Then it'll be impressive.

not really. because by then they'll have something we can't even imagine yet. like star trek.
Quote Drexial 19th June 2008, 13:36
I don't see how AMD could be too upset... there are over 5,000 AMD Opteron dual core processors in the roadrunner system. Most other articles I have read point that out. So in most cases they are getting hefty recognition (not to mention they sold over 5,000 Opterons)

The new AMD stream processors should also be something to look out for, especially given its incredibly low power requirements.
Quote Panos 19th June 2008, 14:48
The report and chart is about servers. Neither HP or Dell make CPUs.
Now if we see what sort of systems are they, the majority of IBM servers are using Opterons either alone or with Cell combined.
And a bit part of the HP server market is using Opterons too.
Quote Gareth Halfacree 19th June 2008, 15:01
Quote:
Originally Posted by Panos
The report and chart is about servers. Neither HP or Dell make CPUs.
Now if we see what sort of systems are they, the majority of IBM servers are using Opterons either alone or with Cell combined.
And a bit part of the HP server market is using Opterons too.
I'm not sure who you're replying to, but the report shows AMD x86_64 accounting for 11% of the TOP500 list compared to 71.2% running Intel EMT64T and a handful running IA-64 and IA-32 if we're talking architecture. Which puts AMD's baby quite some way down the list compared to Intel's preferred 64-bit architecture.
Quote SpeeDj 19th June 2008, 15:51
"Made from Commercial Parts. In total, Roadrunner connects 6,562 dual-core AMD Opteron® chips as well as 12,240 Cell chips (on IBM Model QS22 blade servers). The Roadrunner system has 98 terabytes of memory, and is housed in 278 refrigerator-sized, IBM BladeCenter® racks occupying 5,200 square feet. Its 10,000 connections – both Infiniband and Gigabit Ethernet -- require 55 miles of fiber optic cable. Roadrunner weighs 500,000 lbs. Companies that contributed components and technology include; Emcore, Flextronics, Mellanox and Voltaire."

...looks like AMD has a home in the worlds fastest supercomputer, don't know why they wouldn't be happy. http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/24405.wss
Quote cpemma 19th June 2008, 16:21
Makes my 460Mflops/sec look a bit pissy. Though I blame Firefox 3.
Quote Drexial 19th June 2008, 16:38
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpeeDj
"Made from Commercial Parts. In total, Roadrunner connects 6,562 dual-core AMD Opteron® chips as well as 12,240 Cell chips (on IBM Model QS22 blade servers). The Roadrunner system has 98 terabytes of memory, and is housed in 278 refrigerator-sized, IBM BladeCenter® racks occupying 5,200 square feet. Its 10,000 connections – both Infiniband and Gigabit Ethernet -- require 55 miles of fiber optic cable. Roadrunner weighs 500,000 lbs. Companies that contributed components and technology include; Emcore, Flextronics, Mellanox and Voltaire."

...looks like AMD has a home in the worlds fastest supercomputer, don't know why they wouldn't be happy. http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/24405.wss

thanks for getting the exact numbers.
Quote -EVRE- 19th June 2008, 16:46
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpeeDj
"Made from Commercial Parts. In total, Roadrunner connects 6,562 dual-core AMD Opteron® chips as well as 12,240 Cell chips (on IBM Model QS22 blade servers). The Roadrunner system has 98 terabytes of memory, and is housed in 278 refrigerator-sized, IBM BladeCenter® racks occupying 5,200 square feet. Its 10,000 connections – both Infiniband and Gigabit Ethernet -- require 55 miles of fiber optic cable. Roadrunner weighs 500,000 lbs. Companies that contributed components and technology include; Emcore, Flextronics, Mellanox and Voltaire."

...looks like AMD has a home in the worlds fastest supercomputer, don't know why they wouldn't be happy. http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/24405.wss


**Bit, please give AMD the credit it deserves in the article.
Quote Gareth Halfacree 19th June 2008, 16:57
Quote:
Originally Posted by -EVRE-
**Bit, please give AMD the credit it deserves in the article.
Article updated.
Quote SpeeDj 19th June 2008, 17:18
Closer look under the hood of the Top 10 out of 500, AMD 3, Intel 3, Power PC 4. Pretty equal when you take a glance at those figures :)

1: Roadrunner IBM (PowerXCell 8i 3.2 Ghz / Opteron DC 1.8 GHz)
2: BlueGene/L IBM (PowerPC 440 700 MHz (2.8 GFlops))
3: BlueGene/P IBM (PowerPC 450 850 MHz (3.4 GFlops))
4: Ranger Sun (AMD x86_64 Opteron Quad Core 2000 MHz (8 GFlops))
5: Jaguar Cray (AMD x86_64 Opteron Quad Core 2100 MHz (8.4 GFlops))
6: Jugene IBM (PowerPC 450 850 MHz (3.4 GFlops))
7: Encanto SGI (Intel EM64T Xeon 53xx (Clovertown) 3000 MHz (12 GFlops))
8: EKA HP (Intel EM64T Xeon 53xx (Clovertown) 3000 MHz (12 GFlops))
9: BlueGene/P IBM (PowerPC 450 850 MHz (3.4 GFlops))
10: SGI Altix ICE 8200 SGI (Intel EM64T Xeon E54xx (Harpertown) 3000 MHz (12 GFlops))
Quote HourBeforeDawn 19th June 2008, 20:45
why do u say AMD look out when its running AMD Cpus in the road runner a long with the cell cpus???

ya SpeeDj exactly what I was thinking, they might want to revise their sub header lol.
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