Performance and Power Analysis of SX-ACE Using HP-X Benchmark Programs

As the SIMD width of modern microprocessors has been widening for keeping up with the computational demand for HPC systems, recently the vector architecture comes back to spotlight. Besides, a modern vector architecture that has been keeping a large SIMD width and a high B/F ratio has survived and evolved in the HPC community. In this paper, to clarify the potential of the modern vector architecture, we present the performance and power analysis of a modern vector supercomputer SX-ACE using HP-X benchmark programs (HPL, HPCG, and HPGMG). Furthermore, the implementation and optimization of these benchmarks on SX-ACE are discussed. The evaluation results show that SX-ACE achieves the highest efficiencies in the HPGMG and HPCG ranking lists. These facts clearly indicate that the powerful vector processing mechanism with a high B/F ratio is mandatory to achieve a high sustained performance in the future HPC systems.