Thursday, June 28, 2007
AMD Barcelona hits 2,5 Ghz on October 15th !
If TACC can get enough Barcelona chips from Advanced Microsystems by October 15, its system will land near the top of the next Top 500 Supercomputers list, Sun says.
The Inquirer reports the following Barcelona on October:
The third part of the Sun riddle is this: No, Sun Microsystems' 33.25-inch-tall Sun Blade 8000 is not too big, company executives say. (big blade for high 120W TDP)
Thus, we have double size Sun Constellation blade (compared to IBM's and HP's) and if some 13 600 2,5 Ghz Barcelonas are provided by October 15th we will get some 420 Tflops at the University of Texas.
That will immediately drive B1 Barcelona supercomputer among the world's few top fastest systems. Is anything needed to say more on Barcelona performance? But let estimates its performance. 420 Tflops divided by some 13 600 Barcelona chips gives on average 30+ Gflops per chip. Yes we have 4 cores inside, but the problem at supercomputers is in communication efficiency (up to only 25%) not in processors. Thus, still nothing spectacular. But is Sun actually waiting for the first AM3 versions so called Budapest? That would push Constellation switching system performance from 2 to 5,2 GHT. Anyway. Current implementation should enable it in a year. But, revision B2 in 45nm should run faster than 2,5Ghz and dissipate lower than 120 W. 13600 times 120W gives 1,5MW. However, you have to add at least 1,5Mw for the other system parts, so you get some 3MW overall power consumption. The system is packed with 1.7PB of disk storage, and when finalized, will have 105TB of memory.
Each Constellation configuration is centered around a design that accomdates 48 blades per rack with 16 cores per blade. Hmm, pretty similar design with Cray's. Some 72 racks conected by Infiniband switch Magnum gives overall 420Tflops. Some 6 Tflops per rack. Pretty impressive.
Oh, by the way, 2,5 Ghz Barcelona is known under the name Intel killer. What to say for B2 revision? Something deadly like B2 bomber.
Intel needs 3.2 Ghz parts or more to match Barcelona / Agena at 2.5 GHz, so 45nm manufacturing is needed to be in place or Intel's famous low power design should draw more than 120W TDP.
Sort od shoot in its own foot. Thus, lets go 45nm says Intel. We have 5 quarters advantage in 45nm. However, let calculate together, between 1Q 2008 when Intel will start to deliver 45nm and 2H2008 when AMD will, is 5 quarters? Intel is seems wrong in grammar, it should betetr use verb had advantage in 65nm. In 45nm it is less than 3 quarter, but not more than 3 quarter. Beside, Intel's investments fall year by year (just as its margins), so it is not clear how it will maintain its technology leadership in the future?
The Inquirer reports the following Barcelona on October:
2360 | 2.5GHz | 120W | TBA |
The third part of the Sun riddle is this: No, Sun Microsystems' 33.25-inch-tall Sun Blade 8000 is not too big, company executives say. (big blade for high 120W TDP)
Thus, we have double size Sun Constellation blade (compared to IBM's and HP's) and if some 13 600 2,5 Ghz Barcelonas are provided by October 15th we will get some 420 Tflops at the University of Texas.
That will immediately drive B1 Barcelona supercomputer among the world's few top fastest systems. Is anything needed to say more on Barcelona performance? But let estimates its performance. 420 Tflops divided by some 13 600 Barcelona chips gives on average 30+ Gflops per chip. Yes we have 4 cores inside, but the problem at supercomputers is in communication efficiency (up to only 25%) not in processors. Thus, still nothing spectacular. But is Sun actually waiting for the first AM3 versions so called Budapest? That would push Constellation switching system performance from 2 to 5,2 GHT. Anyway. Current implementation should enable it in a year. But, revision B2 in 45nm should run faster than 2,5Ghz and dissipate lower than 120 W. 13600 times 120W gives 1,5MW. However, you have to add at least 1,5Mw for the other system parts, so you get some 3MW overall power consumption. The system is packed with 1.7PB of disk storage, and when finalized, will have 105TB of memory.Each Constellation configuration is centered around a design that accomdates 48 blades per rack with 16 cores per blade. Hmm, pretty similar design with Cray's. Some 72 racks conected by Infiniband switch Magnum gives overall 420Tflops. Some 6 Tflops per rack. Pretty impressive.
Oh, by the way, 2,5 Ghz Barcelona is known under the name Intel killer. What to say for B2 revision? Something deadly like B2 bomber.
Intel needs 3.2 Ghz parts or more to match Barcelona / Agena at 2.5 GHz, so 45nm manufacturing is needed to be in place or Intel's famous low power design should draw more than 120W TDP.
Sort od shoot in its own foot. Thus, lets go 45nm says Intel. We have 5 quarters advantage in 45nm. However, let calculate together, between 1Q 2008 when Intel will start to deliver 45nm and 2H2008 when AMD will, is 5 quarters? Intel is seems wrong in grammar, it should betetr use verb had advantage in 65nm. In 45nm it is less than 3 quarter, but not more than 3 quarter. Beside, Intel's investments fall year by year (just as its margins), so it is not clear how it will maintain its technology leadership in the future?
THIS LINK posted by Joseph Bell : 8:45 AM
