SCIENCE
31st TOP500 List of World’s Most Powerful Supercomputers
- Written by: Writer
- Category: SCIENCE
- Quad-core processor based systems have taken over the TOP500 quite rapidly. Already 283 systems are using them. Two hundred three systems are using dualcore processors, only eleven systems still use single core processors, and three systems use IBMs advanced Sony PlayStation 3 processor with 9 cores.
- The top industrial customer, at No. 10, is the French oil company: Total Exploration Production.
- IBM held on to its lead in systems with 210 systems (42 percent) over Hewlett Packard with 183 systems (36.6 percent). IBM had 232 systems (46.4 percent) six months ago, compared to HP with 166 systems (33.2 percent).
- IBM remains the clear leader in the TOP500 list in performance with 48 percent of installed total performance (up from 45), compared to HP with 22.4 percent (down from 23.9). In the system category Dell, SGI and Cray follow with 5.4 percent, 4.4 percent and 3.2 percent respectively.
- The last system on the list would have been listed at position 200 in the previous TOP500 just six months ago. This is the largest turnover rate in the 16-year history of the TOP500 project.
For the first time, the TOP500 list will also provide energy efficiency calculations for many of the computing systems and will continue tracking them in consistent manner.
- Most energy efficient supercomputers are based on
- IBM QS22 Cell processor blades (up to 488 Mflop/s/Watt),
- IBM BlueGene/P systems (up to 376 Mflop/s/Watt)
- Intel Harpertown quad-core blades are catching up fast:
- IBM BladeCenter HS21with low-power processors (up to 265 Mflop/s/Watt)
- SGI Altix ICE 8200EX Xeon quad-core nodes, (up to 240 Mflop/s/Watt),
- Hewlett-Packard Cluster Platform 3000 BL2x220 with double density blades (up to 227 Mflop/s/Watt)
- These systems are already ahead of BlueGene/L (up to 210 Mflop/s/Watt).
Rounding out the Top 10 systems are:
- The No. 6 system is the top system outside the U.S., installed in Germany at the Forschungszentrum Juelich (FZJ). It is an IBM BlueGene/P system and was measured at 180 Tflop/s.
- The No. 7 system is installed at a new center, the New Mexico Computing Applications Center (NMCAC) in Rio Rancho, NM. It is built by SGI and based on the Altix ICE 8200 model. It was measured at 133.2 Tflop/s.
- For the second time, India placed a system in the top10. The Computational Research Laboratories, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Sons Ltd. in Pune, India, installed a Hewlett-Packard Cluster Platform 3000 BL460c system. They integrated this system with their own innovative routing technology and achieved a performance of 132.8 Tflop/s which was sufficient for No. 8.
- The No. 9 system is a new BlueGene/P system installed at the Institut du Développement et des Ressources en Informatique Scientifique (IDRIS) in France, which was measured at 112.5 Tflop/s.
- The last new system in the TOP10 – at No. 10 – is also an SGI Altix ICE 8200 system. It is the biggest system installed at an industrial customer, Total Exploration Production. It was ranked based on a Linpack performance of 106.1 Tflop/s.
The U.S. is clearly the leading consumer of HPC systems with 257 of the 500 systems. The European share (184 systems – up from 149) is still rising and is again larger then the Asian share (48 – down from 58 systems). Dominant countries in Asia are Japan with 22 systems (up from 20), China with 12 systems (up from 10), India with 6 systems (down from 9), and Taiwan with 3 (down from 11). In Europe, UK remains the No. 1 with 53 systems (48 six months ago). Germany improved but is still in the No. 2 spot with 46 systems (31 six months ago). The TOP500 list is compiled by Hans Meuer of the University of Mannheim, Germany; Erich Strohmaier and Horst Simon of NERSC/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and Jack Dongarra of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.