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*****For immediate use December 21, 2004
NEC's SX-7 Supercomputer installed in Tohoku University's Achieves the World's Fastest Record on HPC Challenge Benchmark
NEC announced that NEC's supercomputer SX-7 installed in Tohoku University has achieved the world's fastest record in 16 benchmarks among 28 on the new benchmark test in HPC (high performance computing), "HPC Challenge Benchmark (http://icl.cs.utk.edu/hpcc/)". The system was installed at the Tohoku University Synergy Center which started operation in January 2003.
The "HPC Challenge Benchmark", financed by the U.S. government, was created by a team of authorities in HPC from the USA and Japan, led by Dr. Jack Dongarra of the University of Tennessee. This benchmark is to complement Linpack (multiequation calculation), which has been utilized as a performance measure to rank TOP500 high-performance computers, and to evaluate their performances from various aspects.
It is composed of several performance tests for total evaluation of HPC systems, such as memory access, communication of parallel processing library, MPI (Message Passing Interface), as well as computing performance.
For this benchmark, scalar supercomputers based on general-purpose processors were registered (*), as well as those of vector supercomputers' such as NEC's SX Series and we believe the "HPC Challenge Benchmark" to enter the mainstream of HPC benchmark tests for years to come.
HPC Challenge Benchmark consists of seven categories and 28 benchmarks including Linpack. The single-node SX-7 installed in Tohoku University achieved the world's top record in 16 benchmarks among the 28.
8benchmarks on memory performance (STREAM) in single environment and multiplexing load,
4 on data transfer performance (Bandwidth) between processors
2 on processing performance in multiply matrices (DGEMM) in single environment and multiplexing load
2 on FFT processing performance.
Along with Linpack, the HPC Challenge evaluates the broad range of aspects of performance, such as basic performance of memory bandwidth and network, and performance of multiply matrices and FFT that are heavily utilized in application software as basic operations. From the results we acquired on these, the SX-7 has been proved to be the well-balanced system with high sustained performance.
NEC will seek the top in more benchmarks in the "HPC Challenge benchmark", a multidisciplinary benchmark to supplement Linpack, to provide supercomputers with high sustained performance.
About NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation (NASDAQ: NIPNY) (FTSE: 6701q.l) is one of the world's leading providers of Internet, broadband network and enterprise business solutions dedicated to meeting the specialized needs of its diverse and global base of customers. Ranked as one of the world's top patent-producing companies, NEC delivers tailored solutions in the key fields of computer, networking and electron devices, by integrating its technical strengths in IT and Networks, and by providing advanced semiconductor solutions through NEC Electronics Corporation. The NEC Group employs more than 140,000 people worldwide and had net sales of 4,906 billion yen (approx. $47 billion) in the fiscal year ended March 2004. For additional information, please visit the NEC home page at: http://www.nec.com.
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49 cases, 15 systems are registered as of Dec. 13, 2004. |
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