Paderborn Centre for Parallel Computing (PC2) with new Processor NodesPaderborn 16 July 2001 The well-known cluster of PC2 in Paderborn was the first and the biggest computer in Fujitsu Siemens Computers' hpcLine. It was delivered in 1999. Now the old Pentium II nodes have been exchanged by Pentium III. This is the first time, machines have been upgraded in the field. The computing power grew from 86.4 GFlop/s peak performance to 163 GFlop/s.
Fujitsu Siemens Computers delivered the cluster in Paderborn in
1999. At the moment it is the biggest installation of the
hpcLine series. At that time the system was equipped with 192
Pentium II, 450 MHz. The dual processors accessed 512 MB RAM. In
Juni 1999 the computer ran at 30.4 GFlop/s Linpack performance
(Rmax) with 86.4 GFlop/s peak performance (35% efficiency) -
rank 355 in that Top500 list. Half a year later with better
optimisation PC2 got 41.45 GFlop/s Rmax (48% efficiency) - rank
351. Then the machine left the list.
The Intel Pentium II are aged now. Thus PC2 decided to realise a
very special improvement. Often this is mentioned in proposals
but never had done. The center wanted to replace the Intel
Pentium II by Pentium III with 850 MHz. The boards in the dual
processor nodes allow such an approach. Together with ICT,
Aachen - the Unix integrator, and Fujitsu Siemens Computers the
center discussed the actions and the costs. Then the partners
dismounted 50% of the nodes the rest was still accessible by the
users. They sent them to the Siemens fab in Augsburg. There they
have been assembled. Two weeks later they installed the new
nodes and the rest went to Augsburg. After a four weeks time the
new machine ran with higher performance.
The clock speed of the new processors fitted to the Scali
network and thus it was a well balanced system as before. Scali
installed new software, to support this new configuration. In
the average the applications became 60% faster, some because of
the bigger cache more than that. The peak performance grew to
163 GFlop/s.
The German Sonderforschungsbereich 376 (massively parallelity: algorithms,
design methods, applications) in Paderborn participated
financially in this activity beteiligte. The investment of 10%
of the procurement price gave nearly a doubling of the
performance. Thus PC2 need not throw away all the electronics
but could us the main parts of the infrastructure.
Uwe Harms |
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