IBM to install 128 processor SP system for Dutch researchThe Hague 27 December 2000 The Free University in Amsterdam (VU) and the Foundation Dutch National Computing Facilities (NCF) have decided to install a 192 Glop/s 128-CPU IBM RS6000/SP system replacing a 76 processors system. Another 12 processors will be installed for special purposes. Hence, the system will initially have 140 processors with a peak performance of 210 Gflop/s.
The 128-CPU
system will get 128 Gbyte of memory and 800 Gbyte
of memory. The quadrupling of the computing power means that VU
and NCF will have sufficient resources in the coming years. A small
part of the system will become available to the computing centre's (SARA's) other clients.
Main applications will be scientific computation for physics, chemistry, fluid flows, global climate models et cetera. It is expected
that the new IBM SP will be installed in January 2001. The new SP will be upgraded regularly, until in 2004 it has a peak performance close to
1 Tflop/s. The
system will then consist of 6 power4 nodes with 32 processors each. The initial 128 CPU
system consists of 2 frames each containing 4 "nighthawk-2"
nodes. Each frame contains 16 processors, type power3, with a 375
MHz clock rate. Besides, each node has 16 Gbyte of memory that is
shared by the 16 processors.
The other
12 processors will be organised in 3 "winterhawk-2" nodes, each
containing 4 power3 processors (also with 375 MHz clock and 1 Gbyte
of memory per processor).
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