July 18, 2006

• We show here benchmark results of Xeon 5520 (Nehalem) of Intel Corporation. We are focussing on here one host workstation. We can see the clear advantages of Xeon 5520.

• The computer systems we used are shown below.

  CPU	Opteron 2200	Xeon 5460	Xeon 5520 (Nehalem)
  Computer System	HP BL465c	HP DL380	HP DL380
  Clock	2.8GHz	3.16GHz	2.27GHz
  Architecture	Dual core 2CPUs	Quad core 2CPUs	Quad core 2CPUs
  Memory	16GB	8GB	8GB
  OS	RHEL 4.4 WS	RHEL 4.6 WS	RHEL 5.3 WS
  Solver	4.1	4.1.3	4.1.3

• The analysis models are single component models with 2 million and 4.8 million DOFs. Though the versions and the ADVC solver are different depending on the computer systems, these defferences of the versions do not largely affect the performances of the analyses of single component models.
• 2 million DOF model.
  The calculation time and the parallel performances are shown in Fig.1 and Fig.2, respectively. We see the following points:
  • Looking at single process in Fig.1, Xeon 5520 (Nehalem) is 10% or more faster than the others.
  • In Fig.2, there are no deferences on the parallel performances for the three kinds of CPUs, but we can see Xeon 5520 (Nehalem) is 20% faster than Xeon 5460.
  • In Fig.2, with 4 core, 4 process, the higher performance of Xeon 5520 becomes clear. The absolute parallel performance 70% of Opteron 2200 could be said to be high, but the parallel performance of Xeon 5520 attains 90%.
  • In Fig.2, with 8 cores, 8 processes, the parallel performance 30% is rather low, but Xeon 5520 attains as high as 61%.

  Fig.1 Comparison of Elapsed Time (2 Million DOF Model)

  Fig.2 Comparison of Parallel Efficiency (2 Million DOF Model)

• 4.8 million DOF model.
  The calculation time and the parallel performances are shown in Fig.3 and Fig.4, respectively. We see the following points:
  • Compared to the 2 million model, the parallel performance with 2 processes are a little lower (See Fig.2 and Fig.4).
  • From Fig.2 and Fig.4, the parallel performances with 4 processes are high except for Xeon 5460.
  • With 8 processes, Xeon 5520 brings as high as 74% parallel performance.

  Fig.3 Comparison of Elapsed Time (4.8 Million DOF Model)

  Fig.4 Comparison of Parallel Efficiency (4.8 Million DOF Model)

if you have any questions.