Traditionally supercomputing clusters were energy hogs. But with advancements in power efficiency for new generations of CPUs and GPUs, this isn’t exactly the case anymore.
At the recent SC14 high-performance computing symposium and conference New Orleans, an AMD (NYSE: AMD)-powered supercomputing cluster earned the top spot on the Green 500 List — the ranking of the world’s most energy efficient supercomputers.
The AMD FirePro S9150-powered L-CSC cluster, installed at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH research facility in Darmstadt, Germany, took home the top award. The GSI L-CSC cluster has600 AMD FirePro S9150 server GPUs coming in at 5.27 GFLOPS per watt. It’s able to deliver 20% better efficiency than the top ranked cluster on the same list from June 2014.
“Our goal in Computing and Graphics at AMD is to deliver world-class products to our customers every time,” said John Byrne, senior vice president and general manager, computing and graphics business group, AMD, in a statement. “As proven with the Green500 List ranking, our AMD FirePro lineup of professional graphics solutions delivers on this goal time and again – absolute performance leadership with outstanding energy efficiency that enables incredible solutions like the GSI L-CSC cluster.”
In addition to claiming the first place Green500 List, the specific AMD Opteron server CPU achieved the number two spot on the latest TOP500 List, a ranking of the most powerful supercomputers in the world.
