[Beowulf] Frontier Announcement

[Janne Blomqvist]

On 07/05/2019 17.32, Prentice Bisbal via Beowulf wrote:
> ORNL's Frontier System has been announced:
> 
> https://www.hpcwire.com/2019/05/07/cray-amd-exascale-frontier-at-oak-ridge/

Here's the spec sheet:

https://www.olcf.ornl.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/frontier_specsheet.pdf

The use of AMD GPU's is interesting. AFAIU, AMD GPU's are per se roughly 
competitive with NVIDIA, but the reason why NVIDIA has a more or less 
monopoly in the GPGPU and ML markets is due to the software ecosystem.

AMD has a lot of catchup to do on the software side, but if they deliver 
customers will win big. People over here have steam coming out of their 
ears when they hear the prices for Tesla GPU's, and the recent NV data 
center licensing changes.

-- 
Janne Blomqvist, D.Sc. (Tech.), Scientific Computing Specialist
Aalto University School of Science, PHYS & NBE
+358503841576 || janne.blomqvist at aalto.fi