Big Mac: #3

[Makosuke]

It's now official: Virginia Tech's Big Mac is the #3 supercomputer in the world:

http://www.top500.org/list/2003/11/

The Press release:

http://www.top500.org/lists/2003/11/press-release.php

It notes that the G5 is one of only three computers to top 10Tflop/s; the other two use Alpha and NEC Vector processors, respectively, and were ranked 1 - 2 six months ago, as well.

 

[themadchemist]

yep, it's incredible...even moreso when the performance/price ratio is considered.

 

[Makosuke]

I'm repeating myself from another thread I started, but if you do a quick Rmax/processor calculation, the results are interesting: The G5 scores about 18% better than the P4 3.06GHz, 5% better than the Itanium2 1.5GHz, and a whoping 63% faster than the Opteron 2.0GHz. These numbers aren't very meaningful in any other context, but interesting nonetheless.

The only processors with a better ratio are the two vector processors: whatever the Earth Simulator is using, which is about 50% faster than the G5, and whatever the Cray X1 is using, which is 150% faster and seems to be the fastest on the list by far (though the X1 machines are ranked way down because they "only" have 252 processors).

Those numbers are based on each G5 apparently coughing up 4.6Gflop/s, by the way. Those beastly X1 processors top 11Gflop/s.

Interestingly, Rpeak for the VT G5s is 8Gflop/s each, which compares relatively closely to the 7Gflops/s each of my G5 2.0s produce with the G5 optimized AltivecFractal program that was just released (link - v1.2 is optimized, and performs about 50% better than the previous version on my G5.)

 

[edesignuk]

This has got to be the best PR Apple could ever wish for, a Super Computer built for just $5.2m out of consumer available desktops can hold it's own against systems costing many, many times more.

 

[themadchemist]

Originally posted by Makosuke
I'm repeating myself from another thread I started, but if you do a quick Rmax/processor calculation, the results are interesting: The G5 scores about 18% better than the P4 3.06GHz, 5% better than the Itanium2 1.5GHz, and a whoping 63% faster than the Opteron 2.0GHz. These numbers aren't very meaningful in any other context, but interesting nonetheless.

The only processors with a better ratio are the two vector processors: whatever the Earth Simulator is using, which is about 50% faster than the G5, and whatever the Cray X1 is using, which is 150% faster and seems to be the fastest on the list by far (though the X1 machines are ranked way down because they "only" have 252 processors).

Those numbers are based on each G5 apparently coughing up 4.6Gflop/s, by the way. Those beastly X1 processors top 11Gflop/s.

Interestingly, Rpeak for the VT G5s is 8Gflop/s each, which compares relatively closely to the 7Gflops/s each of my G5 2.0s produce with the G5 optimized AltivecFractal program that was just released (link - v1.2 is optimized, and performs about 50% better than the previous version on my G5.)

nice observation...it's interesting that the VT's processors individually outperform those of your G5. I would have thought that the more processors you bring together (no matter how awesome your linking), the lower the efficiency per processor.

but it might just be something mundane like the particular benchmarking method or the amt. of RAM or some such.

 

[Makosuke]

Originally posted by themadchemist
nice observation...it's interesting that the VT's processors individually outperform those of your G5. I would have thought that the more processors you bring together (no matter how awesome your linking), the lower the efficiency per processor.

but it might just be something mundane like the particular benchmarking method or the amt. of RAM or some such.

I expect it's a combination of their benchmarking app being better optimized for the G5 than the Altivec Fractal program, less OS overhead, more RAM, and probably whatever specific operation they're doing with it as well.

Of course, that number is also an absolute theoretical peak; the maximum sustained number on VT's system is well below what Altivec Fractal can "sustain".

 

[Rower_CPU]

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47658