Another AMD supercomputer, 13,000 quad-core

On 10 Nov 2006 08:35:53 -0800, "Robert Myers" wrote:

George Macdonald wrote:
On 31 Oct 2006 02:36:18 -0800, "David Kanter" wrote:



Their COTS cluster is not very interesting, since it's a very tough
market with competition from Dell (and that competition will look even
more attractive if they ever release 2S opteron systems) and HP that is
hard to beat. Cray has the same problem as SGI, except that their
value added (the real vector machines) are vastly less popular than the
Altix. I also don't think Cray does storage, but I may be wrong.

Dell compared with Cray? What are you smoking?

Now an Itanium cluster is compared with a HPC high-capability system? I
must get some of that stuff you have! If Cray is in trouble, SGI is in
(extended) death rattle.

SGI's real value-added seems to be their ability to run a very large
number of processors under a single system image. In my perception,
Cray vector processors definitely influenced the design of Itanium, and
Itanium shines for the same kind of problems as the classic Crays.
Whether it was actually wise for SGI to use Itanium is a separate
question entirely, but anyone who thinks that AMD is the future of
supercomputing is out of touch with reality.

That's a cheap shot Robert - taking an adverserial stance to something I
never said in the first place - strawman! The facts have already been
discussed here - the opinions differ but the fact is that an AMD, or Xeon I
suppose, cluster satisfies a largish portion of super-computing needs; that
is to say what is known as "high capacity" systems.

In the face of that, the market for "high capability" systems is now so
meagre that nobody really wants to touch it: the (potential) customers,
govt. & commercial will not commit: "oh sure, we need/want one *but* only
if the price is right". How the hell is a high capability OEM to target
this umm, market without impaling themselves on the dilemma of how to
actually survive with any reasonable expectation?

The inspiration for Itanium notwithstanding, an SGI cluster is *not* a high
capability supercomputer - just read what the customer base thinks on that
one. Now that the expected volume for Itanium is fairly well established
it becomes clear that it is not even classifiable as a merchant CPU. It's
dead!

Folding at home is reporting a 20-40x speedup using GPU's as opposed to
COTS processors. That's not a theoretical advantage. It's one
achieved actually in practice. I haven't been following the GPGPU
(General Purpose GPU) field closely, but if I had a bundle of money to
spend on R&D, that's where it would be going, not into a new high-end
processor. I do know the strengths and limitations of vector
processors very well, and the new stream processors (including Cell and
GPU's) seem like more than worthy successors--at a much lower price.

I don't know enough about folding to know where it fits in the
supercomputing spectrum between high capability/capacity. If you have
expectations of progress in GPUs, it'd be worth while to take note of
comments by the major mfrs on the future of GPUs: there isn't one -
according to their experts the wall has been hit on pixel/vertex/triangle
processing... and the future of GPUs is in more custom logic and a
progression to a more CPU-like framework. Maybe Cell is the answer but it
does not escape the programming difficulty problem and if it's going to fit
super-computing, the FPU precision performance will certainly have to be
extended.

--
Rgds, George Macdonald

George Macdonald wrote:

That's a cheap shot Robert - taking an adverserial stance to something I
never said in the first place - strawman! The facts have already been
discussed here - the opinions differ but the fact is that an AMD, or Xeon I
suppose, cluster satisfies a largish portion of super-computing needs; that
is to say what is known as "high capacity" systems.

It wasn't intended as a shot, cheap or otherwise. I was musing. AMD
has a definite advantage at the moment because of hypertransport, but
it is a temporary advantage at best. Power consumption being a
decisive consideration, the future looks to be Intel x86 chips, unless
AMD has something in the wings I don't know about.

In the face of that, the market for "high capability" systems is now so
meagre that nobody really wants to touch it: the (potential) customers,
govt. & commercial will not commit: "oh sure, we need/want one *but* only
if the price is right". How the hell is a high capability OEM to target
this umm, market without impaling themselves on the dilemma of how to
actually survive with any reasonable expectation?

I think Del's announcement on comp.arch pretty well describes the
futu pick a processor, pick an interconnect, pick a system
integrator. As Del announced on comp.arch, IBM would be pleased to be
your system integrator for just about anything you could dream up
(except Itanium).

The inspiration for Itanium notwithstanding, an SGI cluster is *not* a high
capability supercomputer - just read what the customer base thinks on that
one. Now that the expected volume for Itanium is fairly well established
it becomes clear that it is not even classifiable as a merchant CPU. It's
dead!

It's a reasonable certainty that Itanium is not going away in the
forseeable future. There isn't an RAS x86 chip to compete with it.
Intel isn't going to build one and AMD can't afford to. Eugene Miya
isn't going to explain why NASA Ames keeps buying hi-processor count
single-system image boxes, but they do. They buy them from SGI, and
those boxes contain Itanium.

In the compute-intensive market, though, it's hard to imagine how
Itanium is going to keep pace as more and more power-efficient x86
cores are crammed onto a die, and I haven't heard anything from Intel
to indicate that Itanium is committed to that market, anyway.


I don't know enough about folding to know where it fits in the
supercomputing spectrum between high capability/capacity. If you have
expectations of progress in GPUs, it'd be worth while to take note of
comments by the major mfrs on the future of GPUs: there isn't one -
according to their experts the wall has been hit on pixel/vertex/triangle
processing... and the future of GPUs is in more custom logic and a
progression to a more CPU-like framework. Maybe Cell is the answer but it
does not escape the programming difficulty problem and if it's going to fit
super-computing, the FPU precision performance will certainly have to be
extended.


The future is streaming architectures for compute-intensive tasks.
Even though GPU's may have maxed out for graphics, we're a long way
from seeing the full potential of streaming architectures exploited for
number-crunching. My bet: the supercomputer of the future will be
power-efficient x86 with streaming coprocessors on the same local bus
or point-to-point interconnect.

Robert.

"Robert Myers" wrote in message
oups.com...
George Macdonald wrote:

That's a cheap shot Robert - taking an adverserial stance to something
I
never said in the first place - strawman! The facts have already been
discussed here - the opinions differ but the fact is that an AMD, or
Xeon I
suppose, cluster satisfies a largish portion of super-computing needs;
that
is to say what is known as "high capacity" systems.

It wasn't intended as a shot, cheap or otherwise. I was musing. AMD
has a definite advantage at the moment because of hypertransport, but
it is a temporary advantage at best. Power consumption being a
decisive consideration, the future looks to be Intel x86 chips, unless
AMD has something in the wings I don't know about.

In the face of that, the market for "high capability" systems is now
so
meagre that nobody really wants to touch it: the (potential)
customers,
govt. & commercial will not commit: "oh sure, we need/want one *but*
only
if the price is right". How the hell is a high capability OEM to
target
this umm, market without impaling themselves on the dilemma of how to
actually survive with any reasonable expectation?

I think Del's announcement on comp.arch pretty well describes the
futu pick a processor, pick an interconnect, pick a system
integrator. As Del announced on comp.arch, IBM would be pleased to be
your system integrator for just about anything you could dream up
(except Itanium).

The inspiration for Itanium notwithstanding, an SGI cluster is *not* a
high
capability supercomputer - just read what the customer base thinks on
that
one. Now that the expected volume for Itanium is fairly well
established
it becomes clear that it is not even classifiable as a merchant CPU.
It's
dead!

It's a reasonable certainty that Itanium is not going away in the
forseeable future. There isn't an RAS x86 chip to compete with it.
Intel isn't going to build one and AMD can't afford to. Eugene Miya
isn't going to explain why NASA Ames keeps buying hi-processor count
single-system image boxes, but they do. They buy them from SGI, and
those boxes contain Itanium.

In the compute-intensive market, though, it's hard to imagine how
Itanium is going to keep pace as more and more power-efficient x86
cores are crammed onto a die, and I haven't heard anything from Intel
to indicate that Itanium is committed to that market, anyway.


I don't know enough about folding to know where it fits in the
supercomputing spectrum between high capability/capacity. If you have
expectations of progress in GPUs, it'd be worth while to take note of
comments by the major mfrs on the future of GPUs: there isn't one -
according to their experts the wall has been hit on
pixel/vertex/triangle
processing... and the future of GPUs is in more custom logic and a
progression to a more CPU-like framework. Maybe Cell is the answer
but it
does not escape the programming difficulty problem and if it's going
to fit
super-computing, the FPU precision performance will certainly have to
be
extended.


The future is streaming architectures for compute-intensive tasks.
Even though GPU's may have maxed out for graphics, we're a long way
from seeing the full potential of streaming architectures exploited for
number-crunching. My bet: the supercomputer of the future will be
power-efficient x86 with streaming coprocessors on the same local bus
or point-to-point interconnect.

Robert.

Actually if you want Itanium IBM will do that too. It isn't a standard
offering but that isn't really a problem if (enough)money is involved.

You talk about Single System Image as if it were synonymous with NUMA,
which I don't believe to be true.

Whither Itanium is an interesting question to speculate on.

del

Del Cecchi wrote:

You talk about Single System Image as if it were synonymous with NUMA,
which I don't believe to be true.

How did I ever give that impression? Apples and oranges, of course.
George referred derisively to SGI clusters, and I responded that NASA
Ames has been buying hi-processor count single system image boxes
(which are not clusters) from SGI for a while now and that the customer
in that case isn't some clueless Federal bureaucrat. I don't know what
I'm missing.

Robert.

"Robert Myers" wrote in message
oups.com...
Del Cecchi wrote:

You talk about Single System Image as if it were synonymous with NUMA,
which I don't believe to be true.

How did I ever give that impression? Apples and oranges, of course.
George referred derisively to SGI clusters, and I responded that NASA
Ames has been buying hi-processor count single system image boxes
(which are not clusters) from SGI for a while now and that the customer
in that case isn't some clueless Federal bureaucrat. I don't know what
I'm missing.

Robert.

Right, the SGI claim to fame is the NUMA box. I guess I read more into
your referring to SGI and Single System Image than you intended. Sorry.

del

On 10 Nov 2006 17:11:50 -0800, "Robert Myers" wrote:

George Macdonald wrote:

That's a cheap shot Robert - taking an adverserial stance to something I
never said in the first place - strawman! The facts have already been
discussed here - the opinions differ but the fact is that an AMD, or Xeon I
suppose, cluster satisfies a largish portion of super-computing needs; that
is to say what is known as "high capacity" systems.

It wasn't intended as a shot, cheap or otherwise. I was musing. AMD
has a definite advantage at the moment because of hypertransport, but
it is a temporary advantage at best. Power consumption being a
decisive consideration, the future looks to be Intel x86 chips, unless
AMD has something in the wings I don't know about.

Your "musing" had a barb to it... that I thought I recognized. Where do
you get the idea that Intel has a lead in power consumption?.. just tain't
so and you only need to run an AMD64 CPU to see that... however much that
might stick in the craw... and AMD is still on 90nm! AMD does *not* need
anything in the wings. AMD64 has been streets ahead of Intel for years now
on power consumption and Intel just kinda caught up and maybe took a very
slight lead with their 65nm chips... but the "future" is Intel?? You need
to get out more!

As for Hypertransport's advantage, as long as Intel keeps shying off on
CSI... self-inflicted wounds.shrug

In the face of that, the market for "high capability" systems is now so
meagre that nobody really wants to touch it: the (potential) customers,
govt. & commercial will not commit: "oh sure, we need/want one *but* only
if the price is right". How the hell is a high capability OEM to target
this umm, market without impaling themselves on the dilemma of how to
actually survive with any reasonable expectation?

I think Del's announcement on comp.arch pretty well describes the
futu pick a processor, pick an interconnect, pick a system
integrator. As Del announced on comp.arch, IBM would be pleased to be
your system integrator for just about anything you could dream up
(except Itanium).

Did you not notice "high capability"? "Pick a processor" is not going to
get you that. I haven't seen Del's announcement since I don't take
comp.arch.

The inspiration for Itanium notwithstanding, an SGI cluster is *not* a high
capability supercomputer - just read what the customer base thinks on that
one. Now that the expected volume for Itanium is fairly well established
it becomes clear that it is not even classifiable as a merchant CPU. It's
dead!

It's a reasonable certainty that Itanium is not going away in the
forseeable future. There isn't an RAS x86 chip to compete with it.
Intel isn't going to build one and AMD can't afford to. Eugene Miya
isn't going to explain why NASA Ames keeps buying hi-processor count
single-system image boxes, but they do. They buy them from SGI, and
those boxes contain Itanium.

Not going away... I suppose if Intel is content to devote fab space to a
non-mass market chip... but at wwat price to Intel *and* its OEM
customers... talking of which, what a bunch of wannabees and usetabees.

RAS can mean too many different things now but assuming you mean
Reliability, Accessability, Serviceability, I see no reason why that has to
be a feature of the CPU.

As for NASA I believe their umm, accountability is coming up for a err,
review & overhaul.;-)

In the compute-intensive market, though, it's hard to imagine how
Itanium is going to keep pace as more and more power-efficient x86
cores are crammed onto a die, and I haven't heard anything from Intel
to indicate that Itanium is committed to that market, anyway.


I don't know enough about folding to know where it fits in the
supercomputing spectrum between high capability/capacity. If you have
expectations of progress in GPUs, it'd be worth while to take note of
comments by the major mfrs on the future of GPUs: there isn't one -
according to their experts the wall has been hit on pixel/vertex/triangle
processing... and the future of GPUs is in more custom logic and a
progression to a more CPU-like framework. Maybe Cell is the answer but it
does not escape the programming difficulty problem and if it's going to fit
super-computing, the FPU precision performance will certainly have to be
extended.


The future is streaming architectures for compute-intensive tasks.
Even though GPU's may have maxed out for graphics, we're a long way
from seeing the full potential of streaming architectures exploited for
number-crunching. My bet: the supercomputer of the future will be
power-efficient x86 with streaming coprocessors on the same local bus
or point-to-point interconnect.

Ya mean like Torrenza?:-) There's still a lot of work to be done.:-) I
don't think, however, it'll hit "high capability".

--
Rgds, George Macdonald

In article , fammacd=!
says...

RAS can mean too many different things now but assuming you mean
Reliability, Accessability, Serviceability, I see no reason why that has to
^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Availability
be a feature of the CPU.

Error checkers pretty much are a function of the CPU. There are
systems built out of COTS microprocessors that run two CPUs in
lock-step for RAS reasons and TMR is also a possibility, but RAS is
certainly part of the CPU. There is a ton of logic in the 370-
zSeries dedicated to RAS.

When I was working on the ES9000 (H2) series there was a numerical
error detected, system checkstopped, system state scanned out to
the service processor, error corrected, state scanned back in, and
system restarted. The logic error was only found because a test
engineer was pouring through the logs and saw the unexpected event.
It's pretty hard to do this sort of thing without RAS designed into
the processor.

--
Keith

George Macdonald wrote:
On 10 Nov 2006 17:11:50 -0800, "Robert Myers" wrote:


George Macdonald wrote:

That's a cheap shot Robert - taking an adverserial stance to something I
never said in the first place - strawman! The facts have already been
discussed here - the opinions differ but the fact is that an AMD, or Xeon I
suppose, cluster satisfies a largish portion of super-computing needs; that
is to say what is known as "high capacity" systems.


It wasn't intended as a shot, cheap or otherwise. I was musing. AMD
has a definite advantage at the moment because of hypertransport, but
it is a temporary advantage at best. Power consumption being a
decisive consideration, the future looks to be Intel x86 chips, unless
AMD has something in the wings I don't know about.


Your "musing" had a barb to it... that I thought I recognized. Where do
you get the idea that Intel has a lead in power consumption?.. just tain't
so and you only need to run an AMD64 CPU to see that... however much that
might stick in the craw... and AMD is still on 90nm! AMD does *not* need
anything in the wings. AMD64 has been streets ahead of Intel for years now
on power consumption and Intel just kinda caught up and maybe took a very
slight lead with their 65nm chips... but the "future" is Intel?? You need
to get out more!

As for Hypertransport's advantage, as long as Intel keeps shying off on
CSI... self-inflicted wounds.shrug

In the face of that, the market for "high capability" systems is now so
meagre that nobody really wants to touch it: the (potential) customers,
govt. & commercial will not commit: "oh sure, we need/want one *but* only
if the price is right". How the hell is a high capability OEM to target
this umm, market without impaling themselves on the dilemma of how to
actually survive with any reasonable expectation?


I think Del's announcement on comp.arch pretty well describes the
futu pick a processor, pick an interconnect, pick a system
integrator. As Del announced on comp.arch, IBM would be pleased to be
your system integrator for just about anything you could dream up
(except Itanium).


Did you not notice "high capability"? "Pick a processor" is not going to
get you that. I haven't seen Del's announcement since I don't take
comp.arch.

You could check for "IBM System Cluster 1350" on IBM's web site
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/cluste...ware/1350.html
if you are interested.

I guess I don't understand what you mean by "high capability".


Snip.




--
Del Cecchi
"This post is my own and doesn’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions,
strategies or opinions.”

On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 08:23:31 -0600, Del Cecchi
wrote:

George Macdonald wrote:
Did you not notice "high capability"? "Pick a processor" is not going to
get you that. I haven't seen Del's announcement since I don't take
comp.arch.

You could check for "IBM System Cluster 1350" on IBM's web site
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/cluste...ware/1350.html
if you are interested.

I guess I don't understand what you mean by "high capability".

Not sure where I got the "high" from:-) but "capability" and "capacity"
seem to be used to contrast the two (extreme point) types of supercomputers
in articles he http://www.hpcuserforum.com/events/.

--
Rgds, George Macdonald

"George Macdonald" wrote in
message news
On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 08:23:31 -0600, Del Cecchi

wrote:

George Macdonald wrote:
Did you not notice "high capability"? "Pick a processor" is not
going to
get you that. I haven't seen Del's announcement since I don't take
comp.arch.

You could check for "IBM System Cluster 1350" on IBM's web site
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/cluste...ware/1350.html
if you are interested.

I guess I don't understand what you mean by "high capability".

Not sure where I got the "high" from:-) but "capability" and "capacity"
seem to be used to contrast the two (extreme point) types of
supercomputers
in articles he http://www.hpcuserforum.com/events/.

--
Rgds, George Macdonald

I didn't see those terms in a quick scan but presumably capability refers
to "big uniprocessors" like cray vector machines (I know they aren't
really uniprocessors these days). I think this niche has largely been
filled by machines like Blue Gene or other clusters. Capacity machines
are just things like what google or yahoo have--a warehouse full of
servers. So infact the Cluster 1350 is a Capability machine. SETI at
home is a capacity machine.

del.