By 11111 on Nov 20, 2009
A Sun Blade 6048 Modular System with 16 Sun Blade X6275 Server Modules configured with QDR InfiniBand cluster interconnect delivered outstanding performance running the FLUENT benchmark test suite truck_111m case.
- A cluster of Sun Blade X6275 server modules with 2.93 GHz Intel X5570 processors achieved leading 32-node performance for the largest truck test case, truck_111m.
- The Sun Blade X6275 cluster delivered the best performance for the 64-core/8-node, 128-core/16-node, and 256-core/32-node configurations, outperforming the SGI Altix result by as much as 8%.
- NOTE: These results are will not be published on the Fluent website as Fluent has stopped accepting results for this version.
FLUENT 12 Benchmark Test Suite - truck_111m
Results are "Ratings" (bigger is better)
Rating = No. of sequential runs of test case possible in 1 day = 86,400 sec/(Total Elapsed Run Time in seconds)
|cores||Benchmark Test Case|
|Sun Blade X6275, 32 nodes||256||240.0|
|SGI Altix ICE 8200 IP95, 32 nodes||256||238.9|
|Intel Whitebox, 32 nodes||256||219.8|
|Sun Blade X6275, 16 nodes||128||129.6|
|SGI Altix ICE 8200 IP95, 16 nodes||128||120.8|
|Intel Whitebox, 16 nodes||128||116.9|
|Sun Blade X6275, 8 nodes||64||64.6|
|SGI Altix ICE 8200 IP95, 8 nodes||64||59.8|
|Intel Whitebox, 8 nodes||64||57.4|
(1) Sun Blade X6275, X5570 QC 2.93GHz, QDR
Intel Whitebox, X5560 QC 2.8GHz, DDR
SGI Altix ICE 8200, X5570 QC 2.93GHz, DDR
Results and Configuration Summary
16 x Sun Blade X6275 Server Module ( Dual-Node Blade, 32 nodes )
each node with
2 x 2.93GHz Intel X5570 QC processors
24 GB (6 x 4GB, 1333 MHz DDR3 dimms)
On-board QDR InfiniBand Host Channel Adapters, QNEM
OS: 64-bit SUSE Linux Enterprise Server SLES 10 SP 2
Interconnect Software: OFED ver 1.4.1
Shared File System: Lustre ver 1.8.1
Application: FLUENT V12.0.16
Benchmark: FLUENT 12 Benchmark Test Suite
The benchmark test are representative of typical user large CFD models intended for execution in distributed memory processor (DMP) mode over a cluster of multi-processor platforms.
Key Points and Best Practices
Observations About the ResultsThe Sun Blade X6275 cluster delivered excellent performance on the largest Fluent benchmark problem, truck_111m.
The Intel X5570 processors include a turbo boost feature coupled with a speedstep option in the CPU section of the advanced BIOS settings. This, under specific circumstances, can provide a cpu upclocking, temporarily increasing the processor frequency from 2.93GHz to 3.2GHz.
Memory placement is a very significant factor with Nehalem processors. Current Nehalem platforms have two sockets. Each socket has three memory channels and each channel has 3 bays for DIMMs. For example if one DIMM is placed in the 1st bay of each of the 3 channels the DIMM speed will be 1333 MHz with the X5570's altering the DIMM arrangement to an off balance configuration by say adding just one more DIMM into the 2nd bay of one channel will cause the DIMM frequency to drop from 1333 MHz to 1067 MHz.
About the FLUENT 12 Benchmark Test Suite
The FLUENT application performs computational fluid dynamic analysis on a variety of different types of flow and allows for chemically reacting species. transient dynamic and can be linear or nonlinear as far
- CFD models tend to be very large where grid refinement is required to capture with accuracy conditions in the boundary layer region adjacent to the body over which flow is occurring. Fine grids are required to also determine accurate turbulence conditions. As such these models can run for many hours or even days as well using a large number of processors.
- CFD models typically scale very well and are very suited for execution on clusters. The FLUENT 12 benchmark test cases scale well.
- The memory requirements for the test cases in the FLUENT 12 benchmark test suite range from a few hundred megabytes to about 25 GB. As the job is distributed over multiple nodes the memory requirements per node correspondingly are reduced.
- The benchmark test cases for the FLUENT module do not have a substantial I/O component. component. However performance will be enhanced very substantially by using high performance interconnects such as InfiniBand for inter node cluster message passing. This nodal message passing data can be stored locally on each node or on a shared file system.
Current FLUENT 12 Benchmark:
All information on the Fluent website is Copyrighted 1995-2009 by Fluent Inc. Results from http://www.fluent.com/software/fluent/fl6bench/ as of November 12, 2009 and this presentation.