Architecture for the latest MKL Version

[Mistry__Mital]

Hi,

We are planning to by a new computer system and want guidance about the architecture that we should buy. Our existing system is Itanium based and has 32 GB Memory. We want to go for the system that has at least this much memory else we will not be able to solve our problem. At present, we are using 10.2 Update 7 MKL version but we are considering for 10.3 with Update 4.

Following are the questions:
1. Architecture that supports the latest Intel MKL Version.
2. Should it be a pure 64 bit or simulated 64 bit? (Computation time is very important to us and calculations must be in double precision).

Thank you,
Mital

[TimP]

The sticky post near the top of this forum tells you about the MKL 10.3 series. I don't think you have any choice like "simulated 64-bit." All current production CPUs, even laptops, support 64-bit pointers (when running the X64 or x86_64 operating systems, referred to as Intel64 in the sticky post) and 128-bit pairs of double precision data. You may be interested in the Sandy Bridge EP servers which officially launch in 3 weeks, with dual 6 or 8 core CPUs, where 64MB would be a normal full memory complement. To take full advantage, you would want at least MKL 10.3.7. Sandy Bridge supports 256-bit groups of 4 double precision data effectively as far as the current MKL is concerned.

[Mistry__Mital]

Tim,

Thank you very much for the reply.

I do not have much idea about the servers. What my concern is that our current system is SGI with 8 processors and 32 GB of memory that is Itanium based architecture. And we want to buy a new system that has larger capacity to perform MKL Pardiso operations (Latest version). Our existing problem utilizes entire 32 GB memory. We want to increase the speed and want to go for total memory of 64GB or higher.

So what exact configuration are you suggesting? I checked Sandy Bridge servers, but frankly, I got confused what I was looking for.

I will appreciate your help.

Regards,
Mital

[TimP]

You do have a wide range of choices; many of them should be satisfactory. The one which appears in several large clusters on Top500 is the 2P server with Xeon 2670 CPU (2 8-core CPUs). If you mean that your Itanium has 8 cores (4 dual core CPUs?) this should easily out-perform it. You may want to consult the vendor of your choice, possibly after the announcement.

[Mistry__Mital]

Thank you very much Tim,

That will certainly help. At present, we have 2 processors per brick (SGI).

Regards,
Mital