• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Intel Reveals Details of Next-Generation High-Performance Computing Platforms

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
47,296 (7.53/day)
Location
Hyderabad, India
System Name RBMK-1000
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
Cooling DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory 2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X
Video Card(s) Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock
Storage Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB
Display(s) BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s) ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard Gamdias Hermes E2
Software Windows 11 Pro
At SC11, Intel Corporation revealed details about the company's next-generation Intel Xeon processor-based and Intel Many Integrated Core (Intel MIC)-based platforms designed for high-performance computing (HPC). The company also outlined new investments in research and development that will lead the industry to Exascale performance by 2018.

During his briefing at the conference, Rajeeb Hazra, general manager of Technical Computing, Intel Datacenter and Connected Systems Group, said that the Intel Xeon processor E5 family is the world's first server processor to support full integration of the PCI Express 3.0 specification**. PCIe 3.0 is estimated** to double the interconnect bandwidth over the PCIe* 2.0 specification** while enabling lower power and higher density server implementations. New fabric controllers taking advantage of the PCI Express 3.0 specification will allow more efficient scaling of performance and data transfer with the growing number of nodes in HPC supercomputers.



The early-performance benchmarks revealed that the Intel Xeon E5 delivers up to 2.1* times** more performance in raw FLOPS (Floating Point Operations Per Second as measured by Linpack*) and up to 70 percent more performance using real-HPC workloads compared to the previous generation of Intel Xeon 5600 series processors.

"Customer acceptance of the Intel Xeon E5 processor has exceeded our expectations and is driving the fastest debut on the TOP500 list of any processor in Intel's history," said Hazra. "Collecting, analyzing and sharing large amounts of information is critical to today's science activities and requires new levels of processor performance and technologies designed precisely for this purpose."

The Intel Xeon E5 processors made their way onto the TOP500 list in the year of the 40th anniversary of availability of the world's first microprocessor (the Intel 4004 processor) and on the 10th anniversary of the launch of the Intel Xeon brand. Since the introduction of Intel Xeon processors in 2001, Intel estimates that Xeon processor performance has increased by more than 130 times***.

Two months since its initial shipments to supercomputer centers, Intel Xeon E5 processors now power 10 systems on the TOP500 list. More than 20,000 of these processors are in operation, delivering a cumulative peak performance of more than 3.4 Petaflops.

As previously announced, the upcoming Intel Xeon processor E5 family will power several other future supercomputers, including the 10 PFLOPS "Stampede" at Texas Advanced Computing Center, the 1.6 PFLOPs "Yellowstone" at The National Center for Atmospheric Research, the 1.6 PFLOPS "Curie" at GENCI, the 1.3 PFLOPS system at International Fusion Energy Research Center (IFERC) and more than 1 PFLOPS "Pleiades" expansion at NASA.

Intel started shipping the Intel Xeon processor E5 family to a small number of cloud and HPC customers in September, with broad availability planned in the first half of 2012. Intel is tracking more than 400 design wins for the Intel Xeon processor E5 family, nearly double the amount at time of launch of the Xeon 5500/5600 generation. Demand for initial production units is approximately 20 times greater than for previous generations of the Intel Xeon 5500 or 5600 series processors.

During SC'11 Intel also provided details on its greatly expanded lineup of server boards and chassis, including products specifically optimized for HPC, which will be ready to support the launch of the Intel Xeon Processor E5.

First Teraflops Intel Many Integrated Core Co-Processor Showcased
Intel also reiterated its commitment to delivering the most efficient and programming-friendly platform for highly parallel applications. The benefits of the Intel MIC architecture in weather modelling, tomography, proteins folding and advanced materials simulation were shown at Intel's booth at SC'11.

The first presentation of the first silicon of "Knights Corner" co-processor showed that Intel architecture is capable of delivering more than 1 TFLOPs of double precision floating point performance (as measured by the Double-precision, General Matrix-Matrix multiplication benchmark -- DGEMM*). This was the first demonstration of a single processing chip capable of achieving such a performance level.

"Intel first demonstrated a Teraflop supercomputer utilizing 9,680 Intel Pentium Pro Processors in 1997 as part of Sandia Lab's "ASCI RED" system," Hazra said. "Having this performance now in a single chip based on Intel MIC architecture is a milestone that will once again be etched into HPC history."

"Knights Corner," the first commercial Intel MIC architecture product, will be manufactured using Intel's latest 3-D Tri-Gate 22nm transistor process and will feature more than 50 cores. When available, Intel MIC products will offer both high performance from an architecture specifically designed to process highly parallel workloads, and compatibility with existing x86 programming model and tools.

Hazra said that the "Knights Corner" co-processor is very unique as, unlike traditional accelerators, it is fully accessible and programmable like fully functional HPC compute node, visible to applications as though it was a computer that runs its own Linux*-based operating system independent of the host OS.

One of the benefits of Intel MIC architecture is the ability to run existing applications without the need to port the code to a new programming environment. This will allow scientists to use both CPU and co-processor performance simultaneously with existing x86 based applications, dramatically saving time, cost and resources that would otherwise be needed to rewrite them to alternative proprietary languages.

Intel Increases Investment in Exascale Computing Labs
As previously announced at the International Supercomputing Conference 2011 in Hamburg, Germany, Intel's goal is to deliver Exascale-level performance by 2018 (which is more than 100 times faster performance than is currently available) while only requiring two times the power usage of the current top supercomputer. Fundamental to achieving that goal is working closely with the HPC community, and today Hazra announced several new initiatives that will help to achieve that goal.

Intel and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) have signed a multi-year agreement to create the Exascale Laboratory in Barcelona, Intel's fourth European Exascale R&D lab that joins existing sites in Paris, Juelich (Germany) and Lueven (Belgium). This new laboratory will focus on scalability issues in the programming and runtime systems of Exascale supercomputers.

Additionally, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and Intel have signed a memorandum of understanding to develop and test technology that will be required to power the supercomputers of tomorrow. Under this initial agreement, STFC's computational scientists at its Daresbury Laboratory in England and Intel will work together to test and evaluate Intel's current and future hardware with leading software applications to ensure that scientists are ready to exploit Intel's supercomputer systems of the future.

* Other brands and names may be claimed as the property of others.

** Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. Performance tests, such as SYSmark* and MobileMark*, are measured using specific computer systems, components, software, operations and functions. Any change to any of those factors may cause the results to vary. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products.

Configurations [Intel Xeon E5 vs Intel Xeon 5600 performance claims]:
  • 2S Xeon E5 score of 342.7 based on Intel internal measurements as of 7 September 2011 using an Intel Rose City platform with two Intel Xeon processor E5, Turbo Enabled, EIST Enabled, Hyper-Threading Enabled, 64 GB memory (8 x 8GB DDR3-1600), Red Hat* Enterprise Linux Server 6.1 beta for x86_6
  • Intel Tylersburg-EP platform with two Intel Xeon Processor X5690 (6-Core, 3.46GHz, 12MB L3 cache, 6.4GT/s, B1-stepping), EIST Enabled, Turbo Boost enabled, Hyper-Threading Disabled, 48GB memory (12x 4GB DDR3-1333 REG ECC), 160GB SATA 7200RPM HDD, Red Hat* Enterprise Linux Server 5.5 for x86_64 with kernel 2.6.35.10. Source: Intel internal testing as of Apr 2011. Score : 159.40 Gflops.
*** Results have been estimated based on internal Intel analysis and are provided for informational purposes only. Any difference in system hardware or software design or configuration may affect actual performance.

In Brief:
  • Intel Xeon processor E5 family, world's first server chip to support the PCI Express* 3.0 I/O integration, debuts on TOP500 list, powering 10 supercomputers.
  • Intel's "Knights Corner" product, the first commercial co-processor based on the Intel Many Integrated Core (Intel MIC) architecture, was shown for the first time breaking the barrier of 1 TFLOPS double precision performance**.
  • Intel announced additional investments and new partner projects with R&D laboratories to pursue the goal of achieving Exascale performance by 2018.
  • Intel processors power 85 percent of all new entries to the latest TOP500 list of supercomputers, with Intel Xeon processor 5600 series being most popular selected for 223 systems.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
Joined
Mar 27, 2008
Messages
697 (0.11/day)
Location
Zagreb, Croatia
Processor C2D E8400@3.9GHz (488x8, 1.4v :( )
Motherboard Abit IP35-E
Cooling Thermaltake Sonic Tower+120mm fan
Memory 2GB kingmax ddr1066@976MHz 5-5-5-15
Video Card(s) Radeon X1800GTO @700/1400MHz with Accelero S1+Glacialtech fancard
Storage 2xSeagate Barracuda 7200.10 160GB
Display(s) Samsung SyncMaster 793s... just you laugh...
Case some Aplus case
Audio Device(s) Realtek ALC888
Power Supply Chieftec 450W
Software Win7 x64
:laugh: larrabee lives!
 
Joined
Dec 6, 2005
Messages
10,885 (1.56/day)
Location
Manchester, NH
System Name Senile
Processor I7-4790K@4.8 GHz 24/7
Motherboard MSI Z97-G45 Gaming
Cooling Be Quiet Pure Rock Air
Memory 16GB 4x4 G.Skill CAS9 2133 Sniper
Video Card(s) GIGABYTE Vega 64
Storage Samsung EVO 500GB / 8 Different WDs / QNAP TS-253 8GB NAS with 2x10Tb WD Blue
Display(s) 34" LG 34CB88-P 21:9 Curved UltraWide QHD (3440*1440) *FREE_SYNC*
Case Rosewill
Audio Device(s) Onboard + HD HDMI
Power Supply Corsair HX750
Mouse Logitech G5
Keyboard Corsair Strafe RGB & G610 Orion Red
Software Win 10
LOL @ the guy holding "Knights Corner" chip in front of a high end wine rack.
 
Joined
Aug 5, 2008
Messages
557 (0.09/day)
Location
Hampshire, UK
System Name If you name your systems, get a boy/girlfriend...
Processor i7 4770k
Motherboard Asus Maximus VI Formula
Cooling Custom waterloop around Black Ice GTX 360
Memory 16GB DDR3
Video Card(s) GTX 1080 FE
Storage Samsung 850 Pro 1TB
Case HAF 932
Audio Device(s) Onboard
Power Supply Corsair HX750
Software Windows 10 x64
Nice* press** release***
 
Joined
Nov 7, 2009
Messages
4,513 (0.82/day)
Location
Denmark
System Name The work PC /2700x/5950x
Processor 3900X stock/ 2700x stock/ 5950x 4200 MHz fixed @ 1,056-1,08V
Motherboard Gigabyte AORUS Master X570/2xMSI X470 M7 AC
Cooling Custom WC XSPC RX480, Laing DDC, XSPC Laing DDC Top V3 and EK Velocity/NH15/NH-U12S SE
Memory 32 GB Viper 3600/14 /16 GB Trident Z F4-4000C18D-16GTZSW 3600 /32 GB G Skill Flare CL14 3400
Video Card(s) 2070 Super X MSI/GTX 970 MSI/ GTX 970 MSI
Storage 1 TB SSD+500 GB NVMe / 500 GB SSD/ 2 TB 990 Pro
Display(s) Dell UltraSharp U2518D/2408WFP
Case Corsair 800D / Lian test bench/NZXT 500
Power Supply AX 850 Titanium/AX 860i/AX 760
Software Dual boot/Win 10 / Linux / Win 10+Linux
Wow, so many details
 
Joined
Mar 27, 2008
Messages
697 (0.11/day)
Location
Zagreb, Croatia
Processor C2D E8400@3.9GHz (488x8, 1.4v :( )
Motherboard Abit IP35-E
Cooling Thermaltake Sonic Tower+120mm fan
Memory 2GB kingmax ddr1066@976MHz 5-5-5-15
Video Card(s) Radeon X1800GTO @700/1400MHz with Accelero S1+Glacialtech fancard
Storage 2xSeagate Barracuda 7200.10 160GB
Display(s) Samsung SyncMaster 793s... just you laugh...
Case some Aplus case
Audio Device(s) Realtek ALC888
Power Supply Chieftec 450W
Software Win7 x64
now your folding badge reminded me - i wonder how crazy ppd numbers could one of these fold?
 
Joined
Mar 6, 2008
Messages
2,750 (0.45/day)
Location
Minnesota
So let me get this straight. Supercomputing companies get access to Sandy Bridge two months before the public and are guaranteed PCIE 3.0?

Is Knight's Corner still using the same updated P54C cores that Knight's Ferry used?

Anyone notice that in the comparison in which E5 was 2.1x faster than 5600 the 5600 platform had HyperThreading off?
 

WarraWarra

New Member
Joined
Nov 23, 2010
Messages
268 (0.05/day)
72 cabinets into 1 cpu since 1997.
Intel first demonstrated a Teraflop supercomputer utilizing 9,680 Intel Pentium Pro Processors in 1997 as part of Sandia Lab's 'ASCI RED' system



http://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-knights-corner-mic-co-processor,14002.html
 
Joined
Sep 1, 2010
Messages
7,023 (1.34/day)
50 cores? Nice. I wonder about time where one core could do more than 50 do.
 
Joined
May 4, 2009
Messages
1,972 (0.35/day)
Location
Bulgaria
System Name penguin
Processor R7 5700G
Motherboard Asrock B450M Pro4
Cooling Some CM tower cooler that will fit my case
Memory 4 x 8GB Kingston HyperX Fury 2666MHz
Video Card(s) IGP
Storage ADATA SU800 512GB
Display(s) 27' LG
Case Zalman
Audio Device(s) stock
Power Supply Seasonic SS-620GM
Software win10
Supports x86? Great! But does it support sse2,3,4,AVX, AES-NI, etc? If not, then it will be another Itanium and people might as well write their code for cuda/stream and use AMD and Nvidia's graphics solutions which provide much greater performance per density.
 
Joined
Nov 16, 2007
Messages
1,209 (0.19/day)
Location
Hampton Roads
Processor Xeon x5650
Motherboard SABERTOOTH X58
Cooling Fans
Memory 24 GB Kingston HyperX 1600
Video Card(s) GTX 1060 3GB
Storage small ssd
Display(s) Dell 2001F, BenQ short throw
Case Lian Li
Audio Device(s) onboard
Power Supply X750
Software Mint 19.3, Win 10
Benchmark Scores not so fast...
Supports x86? Great! But does it support sse2,3,4,AVX, AES-NI, etc? If not, then it will be another Itanium and people might as well write their code for cuda/stream and use AMD and Nvidia's graphics solutions which provide much greater performance per density.

The whole chip is programmable. Create your own instruction set from scratch (possible, not probable). This sounds like a perfect match to OpenACC
 
Top