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<TITLE>Seeking Advice on Small Hardware Platforms for PWscf Implementation</TITLE>
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<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">To All Forum Members:</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">I</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">’</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">m planning on building a new Linux box (or boxes)</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">to explore</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">highly correlated systems (</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">e-p coupling plus LDA+</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">U</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">),</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">and am seeking the collective experience and advice of the PWscf community</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">on</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">a</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">suitable, inexpensive (</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"><</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">2000 USD</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">, MB+CPUs+RAM, exclusive of power supp</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">lies, enclosures, and accessories</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">) hardware platform. I emphasize</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">that</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">the principal purpose of this new box</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> would be exploratory, or for development, not production</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">I</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">’</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">ve built several past platforms, both Windows and Linux based, using server boards manufact</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">ured by Supermicro and have had generally good experience and service (the factory is only 15 miles from where I live)</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">. Currently, I use two machines with dual Xeon processors (single core</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">, 32 bits)</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">, one with</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">1 G</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Hz</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> cpus, 1 GB RAM, the other 2.4 GHz</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> and 3.25 GB RAM, both with bus speeds of</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">133 MHz, the newest 3 years old. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">However, occasionally</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> I run PWscf exercises on m</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">y little Thinkpad X41 tablet (single</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">processor, 1.5 GHz,</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">1.5 GB), and the scf computation wi</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">ll</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> run 3-5 times faster</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">than on the other machines</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">!</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> I suspect this</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> rather</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">surprising result</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> is because</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> the Thinkpad has a</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">400 MHz bus clock speed.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">One option</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> I</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">’</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">m considering is</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> using</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> a</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">“</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">gaming</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">”</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> or server class motherboa</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">rd with dual</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> 2.33 GHz</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> quad-core 64-bit</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">processors</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">,</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">a 1333</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> MHz FSB, and 16 GB RAM. Having said this, I</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">’</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">m not sure PWscf (and the Fortran compilers available)</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> can handle</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">all</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">this parallelism</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">efficiently</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> on a single motherboard. I</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">’</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">ve noticed when running pw.x, the CPU activi</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">ty</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">“</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">flips</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">”</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> between processors every several seconds</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">, instead of sharing each at 90-100%</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> full time</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">On the other hand</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">, one could consider building a small MPI-connected cluster for about the same amount of money.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">When IBM announced a couple of years ago</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> the incredible performance</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> details about the Cell processor that would go into Playstation 3, I thought,</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">“</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Wow, maybe the future of computational physics</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">rests with</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> gamers.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">”</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> I</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">’</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">m</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">sure mo</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">st of you know this is</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> actually</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> beginning to happen, spurred on by the fact th</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">at the</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> PS3 is</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">“</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">open architecture</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">”</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> and</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">can run a Linux distro.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> Moreover, there apparently</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">are</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">“</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">open software</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">”</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> numerical analysis tools av</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">ailable from IBM. At least four US universities</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> are experimenting with off-the-shelf PS3 clusters</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">, perhaps one of the more interesting is at UMass,</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN><A HREF="http://gravity.phy.umassd.edu/ps3.html"><SPAN LANG="en-us"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Calibri">http://gravity.phy.umassd.edu/ps3.html</FONT></U></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri"> In the last week</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> or so</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">, Sony lowered the entry level price of the PS3 to 400 USD. So, a cluster of fo</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">ur with a cheap switch could be purchased for about the same price at the single motherboard</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> configuration I mentioned above.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">My teenage</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">r, a gamer, tells me the PS3 has problems. He says it</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">’</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">s</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">unreliable</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> and overheats and only has 2</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">56</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">MB</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">RAM on board (he owns a Wii, which outsells the PS3 in the</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">US by a factor of three</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">).</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Has anybody tried porting PWscf to a PS3?</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Any and all advice is welcome.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B><I></I></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B><I></I></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B><I></I></B></SPAN><B><I><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=4 FACE="Comic Sans MS">Paul M. Grant, PhD</FONT></SPAN></I></B><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><B><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Principal, W2AGZ Technologies</FONT></SPAN></B><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><B><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Visiting Scholar, Applied Physics, Stanford University</FONT></SPAN></B><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><B><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">EPRI Science Fellow (Retired)</FONT></SPAN></B><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><B><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">IBM Research Staff Member Emeritus</FONT></SPAN></B><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><A HREF="mailto:w2agz@pacbell.net"><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><B><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">w2agz@pacbell.net</FONT></SPAN></B><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><A HREF="http://www.w2agz.com"><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B></B></SPAN><B><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">http://www.w2agz.com</FONT></SPAN></B><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
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