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Waiting is the hardest part. In the fall of 2023, HPCwire wrote about the new diverging Xeon processor strategy from Intel. Instead of a on-size-fits all approach; Intel has opted for Xeons built with two different goals in mind. The first is Sierra Forest, based on E-cores that are enhanced to deliver density-optimized compute in the most power-efficient manner (“E” for efficiency). The second is Granite Rapids, based on P-cores optimized for performance-sensitive workloads (“P” for performance).
As per past processors (AMD Epyc 9684X), Phoronix released Linux HPC benchmarks for Granite Rapids. Specifically, the Xeon 6980P processors paired with MRDIMM 8800MT/s memory in an Intel AvenueCity reference platform. The 6980P is quite the heavyweight. Sporting 128 P-cores, a 2.0 GHz base clock, a 3.2 all-core turbo cock, 504 MB L3 cache, and a 500 W TDP, Intel has brought a howitzer to gunfight. AI and GPU performance notwithstanding, as indicated by the HPC benchmarks courtesy of Phoronix, Intel is back in the game in a big way.
A Small Taste of HPC Benchmarks
The following results are some snapshots of popular HPC benchmarks. Consult the Phoronix article for a full account of all the results and test setups. The results include the following processors:
- Xeon Platinum 8380 2P “Ice Lake”
- Xeon Platinum 8490H 2P “Sapphire Rapids”
- Xeon Max 9468 2P “Sapphire Rapids”
- Xeon Max 9480 2P “Sapphire Rapids”
- Xeon Platinum 8592+ 2P “Emerald Rapids”
- Xeon 6766E 2P “Sierra Forest”
- Xeon 6780E 2P “Sierra Forest”
- Xeon 6980P 2P “Granite Rapids”
- EPYC 9654 2P “Genoa”
- EPYC 9684X 2P “Genoa-X”
- EPYC 9754 2P “Bergamo”
All tests were done on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS using a Linux 6.10 kernel and the stock GCC 13 compiler of this Ubuntu Long-Term Support release. The HPC benchmark list includes OpenRadioss, NAMD, GPAW, LAMMPS, miniBUDE, QuantLib, HPCG, Xcompact3D, NAS Parallel Benchmarks, and others.
GROMACS
GROMACS is a molecular dynamics package mainly designed to simulate proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids. It was originally developed in the Biophysical Chemistry department of the University of Groningen and is now maintained by contributors in universities and research centers worldwide.
OpenFOAM
OpenFOAM is a C++ toolbox for developing customized numerical solvers and pre-/post-processing utilities for solving continuum mechanics problems, most prominently including computational fluid dynamics.
NAS Parallel LU
The NAS Parallel LU is a Lower-Uppersymmetric Gauss-Seidel kernel that requires a good balance of memory and compute bandwidth.
Intel is Back
Undoubtedly, there will be more benchmark results as Granite Rapids moves into the HPC market. The initial results from Phoronix indicate that Intel is back in the game in a big way.
Finally, HPCwire invites you to support Phoronix so that the vendor-neutral Open Benchmarking project that provided the results presented in this article, can continue.
Update (27-Sep)
Phoronix has now reported on the power usage (including performance-per-watt) for the Xeon 6980P Granite Rapids. The article summary states:
“Across the span of all the benchmarks carried out, the Xeon 6980P in the dual socket configuration was consuming 609 Watts on average for the two processors with a peak of 1085 Watts but 97% of the time was at 1000 Watts or less. … On average the Xeon 6980P 2P was consuming around 15% more power than the AMD EPYC 9684X Genoa-X 2P processor.”
