Performance evaluation of the SX-6 vector architecture forscientific computations
The growing gap between sustained and peak performance for scientific applications is a well-known problem in high performance computing. The recent development of parallel vector systems offers the potential to reduce this gap for many computational science codes and deliver a substantial increase in computing capabilities. This paper examines the intranode performance of the NEC SX-6 vector processor, and compares it against the cache-based IBMPower3 and Power4 superscalar architectures, across a number of key scientific computing areas. First, we present the performance of a microbenchmark suite that examines many low-level machine characteristics. Next, we study the behavior of the NAS Parallel Benchmarks. Finally, we evaluate the performance of several scientific computing codes. Overall results demonstrate that the SX-6 achieves high performance on a large fraction of our application suite and often significantly outperforms the cache-based architectures. However, certain classes of applications are not easily amenable to vectorization and would require extensive algorithm and implementation reengineering to utilize the SX-6 effectively.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Director. Office of Science. Advanced ScientificComputing Research
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- OSTI ID:
- 924831
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL-54904-Journal; R&D Project: K11121; BnR: KJ0101030; TRN: US200809%%585
- Journal Information:
- Concurrency and Computation; Practice andExperience, Vol. 17, Issue 1; Related Information: Journal Publication Date: 2005
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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