[Beowulf] Mont-Blanc supercomputer powered by Samsung's Exynos

[Vincent Diepeveen]

"The Mali-T604 is the first GPU based on the Midgard architecture and  
offers scalability from one to four cores."

Assuming a single core doesn't have 'minicores' of some sort i wish  
them lots of fun with this.

The Cortex A15 quadcore under full load eats 6 watts is expectation now.

That's double the power of the A9 by the way.

It's not sure at which clock the Mali T604 gpu runs. It's not  
automatically the case it runs at the same 1.0Ghz
clockrate like the ARM will.

So if we compare with an OLD GENERATION Tesla i got here lying down a  
C2075 with 448 cores @ 1.15Ghz
That gpu eats 225 watt or so.

448 / 4 = 112 CPU's.

If we just load the CPU cores we already consume 6 * 112 = 672 watt  
to cpu power.
Then you have power distribution etc. So it'll eat a 1.5 kilowatt at  
least.

You still didn't load the gpu cores then which might add another 600  
watt to this.

In meantime there is a new generation GPU's there. AMD claims to have  
something. Nvidia has K20 and Intel has Xeon Phi.

Now the cost aspect.

The previous generation ARM that is quadcore (and 32 bits) is the  
cortex A9.
You can buy it if you buy a 100 for $30 - $40 a piece. You do not  
have a soc then nor board to put it in.

But then somehow you want the cpu's to communicate. How to create 112  
ports in a dirt cheap manner?

ARM supercomputing is really the most stupid thing you can do right now.
There is 1 very simple reason why. It's having too little cores each  
ARM cpu.

A chip with just 4 cores can never compete something with 448 cores.

Note the K20 has 2496 cores roughly.



On Nov 19, 2012, at 4:52 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote:

>
> http://www.tgdaily.com/hardware-features/67548-mont-blanc- 
> supercomputer-powered-by-samsungs-exynos
>
> Mont-Blanc supercomputer powered by Samsung's Exynos
>
> Posted on November 17, 2012 - 10:00 by Trent Nouveau
>
> The European-based Mont-Blanc project has selected Samsung's  
> flagship Exynos
> platform as the building block to power its first integrated low  
> power- High
> Performance Computing (HPC) prototype.
>
> According to Alex Ramirez, coordinator of the Mont-Blanc project,  
> the goal of
> the initiative is to design a new type of computer architecture  
> capable of
> setting future global HPC standards.
>
> As we've previously discussed on TG Daily, the Samsung Exynos 5  
> Dual is built
> on 32nm low-power HKMG (High-K Metal Gate) and features a dual-core  
> 1.7GHz
> mobile CPU based on ARM Cortex-A15 architecture paired with an  
> integrated
> Mali-T604 GPU.
>
> And yes, the Samsung Exynos 5 Dual is the very same chipset that  
> powers
> Samsung's Chromebook and Google’s Nexus 10.
>
> "This will be the first use of an embedded mobile SoC in HPC, which  
> enables
> the Mont-Blanc project to explore the challenges and benefits of  
> deeply
> integrated energy-efficient processors and GPU accelerators,  
> compared to
> traditional homogeneous multicore systems, and heterogeneous CPU +  
> external
> GPU architectures," Ramirez explained.
>
> "The Exynos 5 Dual packs the most powerful ARM processors with a  
> programmable
> GPU in a low-power mobile device that would normally be in  
> someone’s pocket
> and running on a battery. Its performance density, energy  
> efficiency, and low
> market price make it an extraordinary building block for  
> prototyping a new
> generation of HPC systems."
>
> During the first year of activities, the Mont-Blanc initiative  
> focused on
> successfully deploying an HPC system software stack and full-scale  
> scientific
> applications on ARM platforms - proving that ARM-based  
> architectures are
> feasible alternatives for HPC.
>
> "Now the efforts [are shifting] towards integration of the Exynos  
> platform on
> a HPC solution, [along with] software exploitation of the embedded  
> GPU,"
> Ramirez added.
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