Today, I met with Tim Denney (a summer intern here at Intel) who is working for our performance analysis team. Tim told me that he had built a tool allowing intel employees to compare performance of certain SPEC published benchmarks (www.spec.org) across a variety of processors.

Tim demonstrated this analysis tool that searches all the integer and floating point publications on www.spec.org across a range of architectures (Intel, AMD, UltraSPARC, Power). You can input different processors and then the tool returns the published results available and a simple graphical display of the best published results for the processors chosen.

After meeting with Tim, I thought about the numerous "Ask an Expert" questions I’ve received on OpenPort in the last 6-9 months where people have asked me where and how they can compare performance across a variety of processors (dual core to quad core, different speeds, 1S to 2S to 4S, etc).

In took me about a nano-second to realize that your input would be really helpful in developing an improved user interface. So here is your chance. I encourage you to try this performance comparison tool and respond back with your ideas on how we can improve the tool and user interface. I can’t guarantee that we can implement every suggestion, however, I do guarantee that we will listen.

So … How would you like your benchmark?

During my blog post last week titled "processors-cpus-cores-arent-they-all-the-same", I got a request to talk more about server terminology, going beyond the CPU. So here we go.

The processor does all your computational calculations. The chipset is attached to the processor and manages information and data flow from the processor to the other system components like memory and other I/O (input / output) devices. If the processor is the "brain", then the chipset is the "heart". Memory and I/O devices are like "arms" and "legs" - you need them all working together. The term chipset, memory controller, and memory controller hub (MCH) are often used interchangeably

At Intel, we refer to the platform as the combination of all of these devices that comprise a server. From a hardware perspective, I see the following terms used interchangeably: platform, solution, system, server, workstation, and there are probably others I'm missing. However, I have also seen platform refer to the software stack, as well as the complete hardware and software solution together.

Another term that you may also here is form factor. Form factor refers to the size and shape of the final system you would buy from a manufacturer. The most common server form factors are rack mount, pedestal, towers and blades.

Today's workstation with (2) Intel® Xeon® 5400 Series processors transforms a workstation from a simple design terminal into a powerful engineering tool that helps users potentially compress the time between an idea and a product. At Intel we call that "working differently". In the manufacturing vertical market it may also be called:

• digital prototyping,
• analysis driven design or
• simulation based product design.

No matter what you call it, these new ways of working help manufacturers virtually explore complete products before they are built-so they can create, validate, optimize, and manage designs from the conceptual design phase through the manufacturing process.

Digital prototyping processes may also require that you also rethink your workstation deployment strategy; moving from single processor workstations, to two (2) Intel Xeon 5400 processor based workstations with 8 computational cores and up to 100 peak gigaflops of floating point performance. This compute capacity coupled with the robust visualization environment enabled by two (2) PCI Gen 2 graphics adapters changes would be workstations into workstation supercomputers and enables engineers and designers to concurrently perform traditional CAD design as well moderate size analysis (e.g. over 5M degrees of freedom finite element modeling jobs or up to 10M cell fluid dynamic simulations).

This combination (CAD and Analysis) can help organization optimize CAD parts or assemblies under a wide range of physical scenarios including mechanical and thermal effects. Net result is workstation supercomputers based on Intel® Xeon® 5400 Series processor can help to bring higher quality or more innovative ideas to markets faster than ever before.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, extreme performance and extreme visualization found in today's Intel based workstations can combine to help change the way users work and can help play a significant role in a users successful use of simultaneous workflows to innovate faster.

Getting to simultaneous workflows is not easy, but the rewards can potentially be spectacular. The hard work in developing these new workflows can also be rewarding to both:

• workers , as the think out side the box on how these new simultaneous flows can reduce development time
• corporations as they potentially reduce product development time as they accelerate the move from concept, to initial design, through revision and interaction through dissemination.

Let's look at the manufacturing vertical where you hear words like design optimization, digital prototyping, or analysis driven design.

With workstation supercomputers, workers can effectively design, mesh and simulate on one platform. In fact recent test with ISV's confirm users can solve large scale problems (e.g. 5 million degree of freedom finite element models) and still maintain a rigorous interactive workload. That's right, no more dreaded hour glass, or more importantly no disengaging in creative thought as you wait and you wait. Unfortunately, that also means fewer coffee breaks.

Simultaneous workflows are not a far fetched idea. In fact today users can initiate design optimization before an FEA model is even generated. Users today can simply select which dimensions in a CAD model may need to be optimized, apply the design criterion, which may include maximum stresses, temperatures or frequencies. The analysis process appropriate for the design criteria is then performed. The results of the analysis are compared with the design criterion, and, if necessary without any human intervention, the CAD geometry is updated. Now that is cool.

Not new, but very cool and with workstation supercomputers based Intel® Xeon® processors power users can employ up to 8 computational engines and over 100 GFLOPS(1) of 64 bit computing performance in an attempt to out innovate their competition. These new workstations actually resemble yesterday's high performance supercomputers - with some very visual difference -

• they are smaller and
• have the ability to process and visualize large scale problems that not long ago demanded access to a share of high performance computer.

Today users can have supercomputer performance under their desk and if they choose to change the way they work, they can employ the available compute and visualization resources to generate new ideas, or simply refine existing products faster than ever before.

Hi all!

I'm Trevor Lawless, community manager for the Server Room, and manager of Performance Benchmarking within Intel's Server Platforms Group. Because we regularly visit with IT, I am excited to bring a Server-specific forum to Intel's communities website. My desire here is to share the expertise of some of our key team members, and make the Server Room a knowledge center for you, the IT manager.

In the first few weeks of the Server Room we will be covering a number of topics via discussions and blogs from our experts. We are starting this week with discussions around Intel's new 45nm Hi-k metal gate processor-based platforms, and why we think they are "Optimized for you". You will see Intel experts sharing their opinions on Platform performance, power benefits, and our push to be Eco-friendly. Check out Shannon Poulin's blog here. In addition, on the schedule in the coming weeks are additional topics such as "Optimized for HPC": Intel's next generation CPU and chipset combination; "Optimized for Datacenter": Future Datacenter, Power benefits at datacenter scale; Virtualization "Where Silicon and Software Meet"; "Performance Optimized for Workstations", the future workstation.

I look forward to these discussions, and your comments, in the coming weeks. Happy blogging!

-Trevor