Paper Info
Title
Evaluation of Cache-based Superscalar and Cacheless Vector Architectures for Scientific Computations
Abstract
The growing gap between sustained and peak performance for scientific applications is a well-known problem in high end computing. The recent development of parallel vector systems offers the potential to bridge this gap for many computational science codes and deliver a substantial increase in comput-ing capabilities. This paper examines the intranode performance of the NEC SX-6 vector processor and the cache-based IBM Power3/4 superscalar architectures across a number of scientific computing areas. First, we present the performance of a microbenchmark suite that examines low-level machine characteristics. Next, we study the behavior of the NAS Parallel Benchmarks. Finally, we evaluate the performance of several scientific computing codes. Results demonstrate that the SX-6 achieves high performance on a large fraction of our applications and often significantly outperforms the cache-based architectures. However, certain applications are not easily amenable to vectorization and would require extensive algorithm and implementation reengineering to utilize the SX-6 effectively.
Year
DOI
Venue
2003
10.1145/1048935.1050213
SC
Keywords
DocType
ISBN
intranode performance,nec sx-6 vector processor,scientific computations,scientific computing area,high end computing,scientific application,cache-based ibm power3,cache-based superscalar,cache-based architecture,high performance,cacheless vector architectures,scientific computing code,peak performance,engineering
Conference
1-58113-695-1
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
19
6.23
6
Authors
9
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Leonid Oliker1277.73
Andrew Canning212227.40
Jonathan Carter3196.23
John Shalf42353211.77
David Skinner541031.14
Ethier Ethier6196.23
Rupak Biswas7922109.66
Jahed Djomehri86510.68
Rob F. Van der Wijngaart937445.61