Cray SV1ex will have 64 Gflop/s peak performanceSeattle 04 April 2001 Cray said its Cray SV1ex enhanced product line, on schedule to begin shipping this quarter, will be substantially more powerful (2 Gflop/s per processors and provide better price/performance than previously indicated.
A 67 percent boost in processor speed (2 Gflop/s) over the current midrange Cray SV1 system,
combined with an effective doubling of sustained memory bandwidth (40
gigabytes per second) and a four-fold increase in maximum memory size
(128 gigabytes), will enable this product line to deliver high-end
supercomputer performance cost-effectively on a range of important
applications, said Gary Shorrel, Cray SV1ex engineering program
manager. "The system's improved clock speed of 500 MHz is one of the
fastest for any supercomputer."
"Each Cray SV1ex processor will have a peak performance of two
gigaflops, rather than the 1.8 Gflop/s indicated in our November
2000 product announcement," said Shorrel. "In a single-chassis system,
peak performance now tops out at 64 Gflop/s." He said Cray SV1ex
performance will be improved even further by the system's extremely
high-speed cache memory, a unique feature among vector supercomputers.
The Cray SV1ex system is at markets
such as automotive design, and burgeoning new sectors such as
bioinformatics. "For the auto industry's most demanding Noise,
Vibration and Harshness (NVH) jobs, the Cray SV1ex typically will
sustain over 500 megaflops per processor, allowing it to run virtually
any NVH job overnight instead of in several days," said Jef Dawson,
Cray SV1ex applications manager. "The system's unique architecture
should allow it to run fundamental bioinformatics problems
substantially faster than any other supercomputer available."
The Cray SV1ex system is the technological forerunner to the Cray
SV2 supercomputer, due out in the second half of 2002, and is a
binary-compatible upgrade path for Cray SV1 and Cray J90
customers. For supercomputer applications that vectorize and cache
well, the Cray SV1ex provides equivalent throughput to a full Cray
T932 system at one-thirtieth of the cost. For high-end vector
problems requiring additional capabilities, especially greater
bandwidth, Cray plans to offer the NEC SX-5 supercomputer under a
worldwide distribution agreement expected to close within 60 days.
Enhancements scheduled for availability this quarter include
improved clock speed and cache, field upgradeability for Cray SV1 and
Cray J90 systems, a new memory subsystem (approximately 40
gigabytes/second), optional 32- or 96-gigabyte solid-state storage
device (SSD), and CPU and memory field upgradeability for Cray SV1
systems.
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