Abstract
We present a performance evaluation of Pleiades based on the Intel Xeon E5-2670 processor, a fourth-generation eight-core Sandy Bridge architecture, and compare it with the previous third generation Nehalem architecture. Several architectural features have been incorporated in Sandy Bridge: (a) four memory channels as opposed to three in Nehalem; (b) memory speed increased from 1333 MHz to 1600 MHz; (c) ring to connect on-chip L3 cache with cores, system agent, memory controller, and QPI agent and I/O controller to increase the scalability; (d) new AVX unit with wider vector registers of 256 bit; (e) integration of PCI-Express 3.0 controllers into the I/O subsystem on chip; (f) new Turbo Boost version 2.0 where base frequency of processor increased from 2.6 to 3.2 GHz; and (g) QPI link rate from 6.4 to 8 GT/s and two QPI links to second socket. We critically evaluate these new features using several low-level benchmarks, and four full-scale scientific and engineering applications.
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Saini, S., Chang, J., Jin, H. (2014). Performance Evaluation of the Intel Sandy Bridge Based NASA Pleiades Using Scientific and Engineering Applications. In: Jarvis, S., Wright, S., Hammond, S. (eds) High Performance Computing Systems. Performance Modeling, Benchmarking and Simulation. PMBS 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8551. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10214-6_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10214-6_2
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