The server is optimised for high-performance computing clusters (HPCC), a market in which Dell is a provider of Intel-based Linux technical clusters with 43.9 percent share worldwide, according to first quarter 2003 data from IDC. Corporate adoption of HPCC was a key driver in maintaining leadership.

Based on the forthcoming Intel Itanium2 processor code-named Madison, the PowerEdge 3250 server will provide the memory and performance required for compute-intensive applications, with the traditional cost-effectiveness associated with standards-based technologies. In a recent benchmark for HPCC, called Linpack, a Dell cluster based on the PowerEdge 3250 outperformed a proprietary cluster with the same number of processors at one-third of the cost.

The server has a compact 2U form factor that delivers space savings for HPCC environments, where customers may deploy hundreds to thousands of servers to act as a single, powerful computer.

Dell will offer the new systems in 8-, 16-, 32-, 64- and 128-node clusters configurations running 64-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux along with HPCC middleware to help simplify the purchase, deployment and management of Itanium-powered HPCC solutions.

Dell will continue to provide the latest 32-bit technologies with 8- to 128-node configurations of the 1U PowerEdge 1750 server with dual 3.0 GHz Intel Xeon processors running Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Several new partners have joined Dell's HPCC programme, including: Altair Engineering, Data Direct Networks, Engineered Intelligence and Qlusters.

The PowerEdge 3250 will offer dual Intel Itanium2 processors with maximum memory of 16GB, up to 292GB of internal storage and includes embedded systems management capabilities. The server will support both Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Pricing and availability for the PowerEdge 3250 and new HPCC configurations will be announced this summer.

HPCC continues to expand its presence on the Top 500 List of the world's fastest supercomputers. Clustered Intel-based systems now account for 23.8 percent of the list, with the number of Intel-based clusters more than doubling from 56 to 119 in the six months since the list was last published. Dell's 15 entries have a cumulative performance of 10.667 trillion floating point operations per second (TFLOPS), up from 5.848 TFLOPS in the previous list.

The cluster at the University at Buffalo is the highest-ranking Dell system on the list at No. 25. Other ranking Dell clusters include: Sandia National Labs (32), Compagnie Générale de Géophysique (49), Cornell Theory Center (50), Penn State University (73), Boeing (123), University of Utah (130), Dell (242), MTU Aero Engine (291), Hong Kong Baptist University (300), Core Lab (318), Stanford University (319), Swineburne University (358), a 100-node configuration of the University at Buffalo's first cluster (368), and the University of Notre Dame (445).