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   COLLOQUIUM OF THE LABORATORY FOR COMPUTER DESIGN OF MATERIALS
                   School of Computational Sciences
                           (CSI 898-Sec 001)
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        Application performance of state of the art processors

                             Gerhard Wellein
        Regional Research Center, HPC Beratung, Erlagen, Germany

In the past five years the supercomputing community encountered some  
fundamental changes. Some processor manufacturers announced the 
discontinuation of their processor series; others have launched a 
completely new architecture. The review architectural features and 
theoretical performance numbers of important processor series (IBM 
Power4 and NEC SX6) for contemporary supercomputers as well as one 
of their upcoming competitors (Intel Itanium series) are introduced.
The performance characteristics of these systems are discussed using 
a variety of application programs, ranging serial codes in quantum 
physics and quantum chemistry to parallel CFD application. With a 
focus on the CFD applications the question is discussed, how  many  
microprocessor CPUs are required to achieve the performance of the  
latest NEC SX6 vector processor. Furthermore it is demostrated, that 
Intel Itanium2 has become a competitive architectures that is ready 
to rival the IBM Power4-series.

                         Monday , September 22, 2003
                                  4:30 pm
                         Room 206, Science & Tech. I

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 PM.
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Find the schedule at http://www.scs.gmu.edu/lcdm/seminar/schedule.html