INDUSTRY

Ahead of next week’s Supercomputing 2006 show in Tampa, Fla., Intel Corporation revealed new products and technology building blocks for system manufacturers, system builders and software developers to more easily create high-performance supercomputers that run faster and save space. New Intel-based server products introduced this year are delivering breakthroughs in technical computing. As a point of reference, 10 years ago, a supercomputer with 9000 Intel Pentium Pro processors took up 1,500 square feet, delivered 1.80 teraflops of peak performance and consumed some 800,000 watts of power. Today, the same level of performance can be achieved by a server cluster with 44 Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 5300 series, codenamed “Clovertown” and due to ship shortly, while taking up just 16 square feet and consuming less than 10,000 watts. “The latest Intel technology innovations have enabled new computing models and form factors that were previously unavailable for high-performance computing which, in turn, hastens new scientific discoveries, product designs and simulations among many other discoveries around the world,” said Boyd Davis, director of marketing, Intel’s server platform group. “Over the past year we have seen the development of the first personal supercomputers, double-density rack mount servers and the increase of the industry’s largest, most scalable systems with dual-core Intel Itanium processors and Intel Xeon processors.” New Products This month, Intel will launch the first industry-standard quad-core server processor for dual processor systems, the aforementioned Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 5300 series. These processors will deliver more than six times the performance over single core Intel Xeon processors for high- performance computing applications based on the Linpack benchmark. New Software Tools for Clustering Today, Intel made available new software development tools to make it easier to create, debug and optimize parallel applications for server clusters. These new products -- Intel® Cluster Toolkit 3.0 and Intel Cluster OpenMP for Intel compilers -- are designed to satisfy developer demand for high-performance tools and to facilitate the adoption of multi-core processor server clusters. The new Intel Cluster Toolkit combines multiple products into one software bundle that includes new releases of the Intel MPI Library, Intel Math Kernel Library Cluster Edition, and Intel Trace Analyzer and Collector. The Cluster OpenMP for Intel compilers is a new offering that extends OpenMP to be applicable to distributed memory clusters, helping OpenMP become a programming method that works well for dual-core and quad-core processors as well as clusters. For more information, go to its Web site. New Building Blocks Reduce Racks and Costs Intel’s dual- and quad-core technology is making it easier for system builders to construct rack mount servers that save space in a data center and deliver high performance and better performance per watt across every price point. For applications where cost is a key consideration, Intel has developed the S3000PT -- a purpose-built, small form factor server board for high-performance and high-density computing. This powerful, energy-efficient board is based on the Dual-Core Intel Xeon processor 3000 series and is compatible with the quad-core processor, codenamed “Kentsfield.” The small 5.9”x13” form factor is well suited for personal clusters for individuals and workgroups as well as high- density datacenters such as ISPs and Web hosting. For more information go to www.intel.com/go/hpcservers. Ciara Technologies is using the S3000PT in their Nexxus 4000 personal cluster which is targeted at researchers and engineers. The cluster delivers up to 340 gigaflops of performance in the size of a desktop PC and starts at under $12,000. For more information on the Nexxus 4000 go to its Web site. Supermicro, Intel and Mellanox have developed the world's first high-volume compact server board for high-end, dual processor servers. This high-density, energy-efficient board, codenamed "Atoka," supports the Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 5300 series and the Dual-Core Intel Xeon processor 5100 series. A key advantage of this new form factor is the flexibility to configure twin boards with quad-core processors in a 1U configuration, which essentially quadruples (16 cores and 32 threads) computing density. Atoka includes InfiniBand networking and dual gigabit Ethernet to provide exceptional I/O capabilities, making it ideal for the development of workgroup, departmental and enterprise clusters targeted across a wide range of industry segments and application requirements. For more information, visit its Web site. Tyan, Intel, Mellanox and Microsoft have developed the next-generation personal supercomputer, Typhoon 600, based on the Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 5300 series. Typhoon 600 is a turnkey system that delivers 256 gigaflops of performance and only requires a 110V/15 amp standard wall outlet. The system is designed for engineers and scientists who need the computational horsepower of a supercomputer, yet in the size of a PC. The system starts at $15,000 and will generally be available early next year from Tyan. For more information go to its Web site.