Cray XT5 Supercomputer Uses Six-Core AMD Opteron Processor

#1 Cray XT5^TM system "Jaguar" at Oak Ridge National Lab features almost a quarter million high-performance cores and is unrivaled world-wide World's highest performing GPU-based supercomputer ever is fue

The Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM processor-based system "Jaguar" is the world's supreme supercomputer according to the TOP500 Organization, which today released its bi-annual list of the highest performing systems in the world. This mission-critical Cray XT5^TM system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) was recently upgraded from quad- to Six-Core AMD Opteron processors and delivers 2.3 petaflop/s theoretical peak performance and 1.75 petaflop/s performance on the Linpack benchmark.

• AMD continues its solid leadership in supercomputing, with 4 of the Top 5 systems depending on AMD for record-setting performance including another recently upgraded Cray XT5 system "Kraken."
• AMD is leading the way forward with ultra high performance heterogeneous systems, including
  • the #5 system "Tianhe-1" in China, which is the fastest and one of the first world-class implementations of a system architecture based on ATI Stream technology, achieving 563.1 teraflop/s performance with 5,120 ATI GPUs based on the RV770 architecture;
  • and the former #1 system "Roadrunner" based on a dual CPU architecture including the AMD Opteron processor.

• While the Six-Core AMD Opteron processor is now the industry-leading CPU for supercomputing, in the first quarter of 2010, AMD plans to deliver HPC customers the world's first 8- and 12-core x86 processors, the AMD Opteron^TM 6100 Series processor (codename "Magny-Cours") which is designed deliver up to a 100 percent increase in compute density and multi-threading capability as compared to its six-core predecessor, with 4 channels of DDR-3 memory and new power management and virtualization features.
• Beyond that, in the same infrastructure, AMD plans to deliver yet another industry-changing advancement in 2011 with the completely new "Bulldozer" architecture featuring a modular core design that is planned to dramatically increase concurrency, simultaneous commands and multi-threading capacity with up to 16 dedicated cores, all designed to significantly improve HPC performance.

"We've seen the trend in the HPC industry's move to multi-core x86-based supercomputing and it's clear that the Six-Core AMD Opteron processor is the ideal choice right now for a world-class supercomputer," said Patrick Patla, vice president and general manager, Server/Workstation and Embedded Division, AMD. "Today, AMD also powers the world's highest performing system leveraging the incredible floating point capability of AMD GPUs and bringing the vision of ATI Stream technology to life. Our OEM customers and the global institutions engaged in cutting-edge research and industrial HPC understand that a truly balanced system helps advance their work and provide an upgrade path to the future."

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