Comparison of scientific computing platforms for MCNP4A Monte Carlo calculations

Journal Article · Fri Apr 01 00:00:00 EST 1994 · Nuclear Science and Engineering; (United States)

OSTI ID:7103679

Hendricks, J S; Brockhoff, R C ^[1]

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1. Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States). Applied Theoretical Physics Division

The performance of seven computer platforms is evaluated with the widely used and internationally available MCNP4A Monte Carlo radiation transport code. All results are reproducible and are presented in such a way as to enable comparison with computer platforms not in the study. The authors observed that the HP/9000-735 workstation runs MCNP 50% faster than the Cray YMP 8/64. Compared with the Cray YMP 8/64, the IBM RS/6000-560 is 68% as fast, the Sun Sparc10 is 66% as fast, the Silicon Graphics ONYX is 90% as fast, the Gateway 2000 model 4DX2-66V personal computer is 27% as fast, and the Sun Sparc2 is 24% as fast. In addition to comparing the timing performance of the seven platforms, the authors observe that changes in compilers and software over the past 2 yr have resulted in only modest performance improvements, hardware improvements have enhanced performance by less than a factor of [approximately]3, timing studies are very problem dependent, MCNP4Q runs about as fast as MCNP4.

• OSTI ID: 7103679
• Journal Information: Nuclear Science and Engineering; (United States), Vol. 116:4; ISSN 0029-5639
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
COMPUTERS
PERFORMANCE
RADIATION TRANSPORT
M CODES
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
CRAY COMPUTERS
HP COMPUTERS
IBM COMPUTERS
COMPUTER CODES
EVALUATION
663600* - Radiation Physics- (1992-)
990200 - Mathematics & Computers