The Green500 List - November 2012
Heterogeneous Systems Re-Claim Green500 List Dominance
SALT LAKE CITY, UT - November 14, 2012 - The latest Green500 List was released today (http://www.green500.org/lists/green201211) and the top spots on the list have been taken over by machines that combine commodity processors with coprocessors or graphics processing units (GPUs) to form heterogeneous high-performance computing systems.
With all eyes on the new TOP500 number one system, Oak Ridge National Labs' Titan, it was a system belonging to a neighbor at the University of Tennessee that debuted at the top of the November Green500 List. The National Institute for Computational Sciences' Beacon system has set the new energy efficiency bar at nearly two-and-a-half billion floating-point operations per second (gigaflops) per watt. Employing Intel's Sandy Bridge series of Xeon central processing units (CPUs) and four of Intel's Xeon Phi coprocessors per node Beacon achieved a peak 112,200 gigaflops of performance running the LINPACK benchmark while consuming only 44.89 kW of power.
The Intel Xeon Phi--"Knights Corner"-- is a 22nm multicore coprocessor featuring the world's first 3D Tri-Gate transistors. Like its GPU counterparts, the Intel Xeon Phi resides on a PCI Express board that plugs into a machine's expansion slots.
Rounding out the top five systems are three other machines using GPU accelerators combined with traditional AMD or Intel CPUs. "Metaphorically, think of CPU-GPU systems operating like the human brain, where the CPU could be viewed as the left brain and the GPU as the right brain," says Dr. Wu Feng, founder of the Green500 List. "Each side of the brain is suited to process different types of tasks." In second place is the SANAM system from the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, an Intel CPU system that uses AMD's new FirePro S10000 GPU accelerators, and in third and fourth are the Titan and Todi systems by Cray that employ AMD Opteron CPUs and nVIDIA Tesla K20 GPU accelerators. In number five is the previous Green500 List number one system, IBM's Blue Gene/Q that uses PowerPC BQC CPUs. All of these systems are over two gigaflops per watt.
Overall, the performance of machines in the Green500 List has increased at a higher rate compared to power consumption. "That's why the machines' efficiencies are going up," says Feng. "We are more performance for the same amount of power." For machines based on commodity components--machines built with off-the-shelf components-- coprocessors and GPUs are attributing a great deal to the efficiency gains. So much so that they are keeping pace and in the latest list even outpacing purpose built systems like IBM's Blue Gene/Q. "Power consumption is still going up," says Wu, and that is still a concern.
The Green500 List has provided a ranking of the most energy-efficient supercomputers in the world since November 2007. For decades, the notion of "performance" has been synonymous with "speed" as measured in FLOPS. This particular focus has led to the emergence of supercomputers that consume egregious amounts of electrical power and produce so much heat that extravagant cooling facilities must be constructed to ensure proper operation. In addition, the emphasis on speed as the ultimate metric has caused other metrics such as reliability, availability, and usability to be largely ignored. As a result, there has been an extraordinary increase in the total cost of ownership (TCO) of a supercomputer.
The Green500 List
Listed below are the November 2012 The Green500's energy-efficient supercomputers ranked from 301 to 400.
Green500 Rank | MFLOPS/W | Site* | Computer* | Total Power (kW) |
301 | 188.91 | IT Service Provider | Cluster Platform 3000 BL460c Gen8, Xeon E5-2670 8C 2.60GHz, 10G Ethernet | 903.60 |
302 | 188.91 | IT Service Provider | Cluster Platform 3000 BL460c Gen8, Xeon E5-2670 8C 2.60GHz, 10G Ethernet | 903.60 |
303 | 188.08 | Cambridge University | Darwin - Dell PowerEdge C6220, Xeon E5-2670 8C 2.600GHz, Infiniband FDR | 975.00 |
304 | 186.20 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M2 Cluster, Xeon QC E55xx 2.53 Ghz, GigE | 526.10 |
305 | 186.20 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M2 Cluster, Xeon QC E55xx 2.53 Ghz, GigE | 526.10 |
306 | 185.87 | NOAA/Oak Ridge National Laboratory | Gaea C1 - Cray XE6, Opteron 6276 16C 2.30GHz, Cray Gemini interconnect | 1,592.48 |
307 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 648.28 |
308 | 185.77 | Service Provider | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 432.43 |
309 | 185.77 | Service Provider | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 432.43 |
310 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 612.61 |
311 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 612.61 |
312 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 707.25 |
313 | 185.77 | Banking (M) | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 480.48 |
314 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 500.50 |
315 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 500.50 |
316 | 185.77 | Service Provider | xSeries x3550M3 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 583.49 |
317 | 185.77 | Banking (M) | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 492.13 |
318 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 441.53 |
319 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 522.34 |
320 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 522.34 |
321 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 522.34 |
322 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 522.34 |
323 | 185.77 | Electronics | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 416.42 |
324 | 185.77 | Electronics | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 416.42 |
325 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 496.50 |
326 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 496.50 |
327 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 496.50 |
328 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 496.50 |
329 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 496.50 |
330 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 496.50 |
331 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 496.50 |
332 | 185.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 496.50 |
333 | 185.71 | University of Chicago | Cray XE6 12-core 2.1 GHz | 677.40 |
334 | 184.86 | Korea Meteorological Administration | Haeon - Cray XE6 12-core 2.1 GHz | 1,711.60 |
335 | 184.86 | Korea Meteorological Administration | Haedam - Cray XE6 12-core 2.1 GHz | 1,711.60 |
336 | 181.78 | Financial Institution | xSeries x3650M3, Xeon X56xx 2.66 GHz, GigE | 690.43 |
337 | 181.77 | Service Provider | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.660GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 626.08 |
338 | 181.77 | Service Provider | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.660GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 626.08 |
339 | 181.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.66 GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 421.48 |
340 | 181.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.66 GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 421.48 |
341 | 181.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.66 GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 421.48 |
342 | 181.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.66 GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 421.48 |
343 | 181.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.66 GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 421.48 |
344 | 181.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.66 GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 421.48 |
345 | 181.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.66 GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 421.48 |
346 | 181.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.66 GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 421.48 |
347 | 181.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.66 GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 421.48 |
348 | 181.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.66 GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 421.48 |
349 | 181.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.66 GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 421.48 |
350 | 181.77 | Internet Service | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.66 GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 421.48 |
351 | 181.77 | Engineering Company | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.660GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 440.45 |
352 | 181.77 | Engineering Company | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.660GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 440.45 |
353 | 181.77 | Engineering Company | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.660GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 440.45 |
354 | 181.77 | Engineering Company | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.660GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 440.45 |
355 | 181.77 | Engineering Company | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.660GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 440.45 |
356 | 181.77 | Engineering Company | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5650 6C 2.660GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 440.45 |
357 | 180.60 | Shanghai Supercomputer Center | Magic Cube - Dawning 5000A, QC Opteron 1.9 Ghz, Infiniband, Windows HPC 2008 | 1,000.00 |
358 | 178.23 | Financial Institution (P) | BladeCenter HS22 Cluster, Xeon E5540 4C 2.53 GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 497.76 |
359 | 178.23 | Telecommunication Company | BladeCenter HS22 Cluster, Xeon QC GT 2.53 GHz, GigEthernet | 490.18 |
360 | 177.40 | Forschungszentrum Juelich (FZJ) | JUROPA - Sun Constellation, NovaScale R422-E2, Intel Xeon X5570, 2.93 GHz, Sun M9/Mellanox QDR Infiniband/Partec Parastation | 1,549.00 |
361 | 177.02 | Government | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon X5670 6C 2.93 GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 546.26 |
362 | 175.78 | System Integrator | BladeCenter HS22 Cluster (WM), Xeon L5639 6C 2.130GHz, Infiniband | 698.10 |
363 | 171.88 | KTH - Royal Institute of Technology | Lindgren - Cray XE6, Opteron 12 Core 2.10 GHz, Custom | 1,380.07 |
364 | 171.17 | Government | Cray XE6 12-core 2.2 GHz | 1,726.32 |
365 | 170.15 | University of North Carolina | KillDevil - PowerEdge C6100 Cluster, Xeon X56xx (Westmere-EP) 2.93 GHz, Infiniband QDR | 469.00 |
366 | 168.96 | Computational Research Laboratories, TATA SONS | EKA - Cluster Platform 3000 BL460c, Xeon X5365 4C 3.000GHz, Infiniband DDR | 786.00 |
367 | 166.74 | University of Colorado | MRI - PowerEdge C6100 Cluster, Xeon X5660 2.8 Ghz, Infiniband | 912.80 |
368 | 166.13 | Semiconductor Company (C) | BladeCenter HS22 Cluster, Xeon QC GT 2.93 GHz, GigEthernet | 486.00 |
369 | 164.37 | Science and Technology Facilities Council - Rutherford Appleton Laboratory | EMERALD - Cluster Platform SL390s G7, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Infiniband QDR, NVIDIA 2090 | 696.00 |
370 | 163.95 | Naval Oceanographic Office - NAVO DSRC | Cray XT5 QC 2.4 GHz | 588.90 |
371 | 163.11 | Electrionic Industry | Cluster Platform 3000 BL460c Gen8, Xeon E5-2660 8C 2.200GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 610.20 |
372 | 161.98 | Bull | Layon - Bull bullx super-node S6010/S6030 | 540.00 |
373 | 158.61 | IT Services Provider | Cluster Platform 3000 BL460c Gen8, Xeon E5-2660 8C 2.200GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 1,014.30 |
374 | 154.70 | New Mexico Computing Applications Center (NMCAC) | Encanto - SGI Altix ICE 8200, Xeon quad core 3.0 GHz | 861.00 |
375 | 151.70 | Universitaet Aachen/RWTH | RWTH Compute Cluster (RCC) - Bullx B500 Cluster, Xeon X56xx 3.06Ghz, QDR Infiniband | 1,449.12 |
376 | 150.71 | Texas Advanced Computing Center/Univ. of Texas | Lonestar 4 - Dell PowerEdge M610 Cluster, Xeon 5680 3.3Ghz, Infiniband QDR | 1,670.78 |
377 | 148.48 | INPE (National Institute for Space Research) | Tup - Cray XE6, Opteron 6172 12C 2.10GHz, Cray Gemini interconnect | 1,442.64 |
378 | 147.13 | CSC (Center for Scientific Computing) | Cray XT5/XT4 QC 2.3 GHz | 520.00 |
379 | 146.12 | IT Provider (P) | Cluster Platform SL230s Gen8, Xeon E5-2670 8C 2.60GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 604.80 |
380 | 146.12 | IT Provider (P) | Cluster Platform SL230s Gen8, Xeon E5-2670 8C 2.60GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 604.80 |
381 | 144.98 | Web Content Provider | HP DL160 Cluster G6, Xeon E5640 4C 2.67 GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 600.75 |
382 | 143.44 | Numazu Complex, Fujitsu Limited | PRIMEHPC FX10, SPARC64 IXfx 16C 1.848GHz, Tofu interconnect | 588.40 |
383 | 142.43 | IT Services Provider | Cluster Platform SL230s Gen8, Xeon E5-2670 8C 2.600GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 1,104.00 |
384 | 142.43 | IT Services Provider | Cluster Platform SL230s Gen8, Xeon E5-2670 8C 2.600GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 1,104.00 |
385 | 134.42 | Airbus | HP POD - Cluster Platform 3000 BL260c G6, X5675 3.06 GHz, Infiniband | 1,814.40 |
386 | 131.63 | Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory | Hera - Appro Xtreme-X3 Server - Quad Opteron Quad Core 2.3 GHz, Infiniband | 776.42 |
387 | 130.16 | Web Company (C) | Cluster Platform 4000 BL685c G7, Opteron 6136 8C 2.40 GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 648.00 |
388 | 128.45 | Service Provider | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 716.50 |
389 | 128.45 | Service Provider | xSeries x3650M3 Cluster, Xeon E5649 6C 2.530GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 716.50 |
390 | 124.90 | IT Service Provider (D) | Cluster Platform 4000 BL465c G7, Opteron 6176 12C 2.30 GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 635.40 |
391 | 124.86 | California institute of Technology | Cluster Platform SL390s G7, Xeon X5650 6C 2.66GHz, Infiniband QDR, NVIDIA 2090 | 666.00 |
392 | 124.19 | Manufacturing Company | Cluster Platform 3000 BL280c G6, Xeon X5675 6C 3.06GHz, Infiniband QDR | 1,046.67 |
393 | 122.59 | Software Company | Cluster Platform SL230s Gen8, Xeon E5-2667 6C 2.900GHz, Gigabit Ethernet | 730.80 |
394 | 122.43 | Information Technology Center, The University of Tokyo | T2K Open Supercomputer (Todai Combined Cluster) - Hitachi opteron QC 2.3 GHz Myrinet 10G | 831.00 |
395 | 121.11 | iVEC | HP Pod BL2x220, X5660 2.8 Ghz, Infiniband QDR | 720.00 |
396 | 118.69 | Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory | Graph - Appro Xtreme-X3 Opteron 2.0GHz, Infiniband DDR | 700.00 |
397 | 118.63 | Maui High-Performance Computing Center (MHPCC) | Mana - Dell PowerEdge M610 Cluster, Nehalem-EP 2.8Ghz, Infiniband | 679.24 |
398 | 117.52 | HLRN at Universitaet Hannover / RRZN | SGI Altix ICE 8200EX, Xeon QC E5472 3.0 GHz/X5570 2.93 GHz | 911.36 |
399 | 117.52 | HLRN at ZIB/Konrad Zuse-Zentrum fuer Informationstechnik | SGI Altix ICE 8200EX, Xeon QC E5472 3.0 GHz/X5570 2.93 GHz | 911.36 |
400 | 115.54 | Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory | Juno - Appro XtremeServer 1143H, Opteron QC 2.2Ghz, Infiniband | 1,139.00 |
* Performance data obtained from publicly available sources including TOP500