AMD press release

[Donald Becker]

On Mon, 18 Nov 2002, Bob Drzyzgula wrote:

> Does anyone (Donald?) know much more, or can anyone
> say anymore, about what is discussed in the AMD
> press release found here:
> 
>   http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543~62590,00.html

This is describing a demo that combines Lane15 Infiniband, AMD Opterons
and the Scyld Beowulf system.

> But is there any work on x86-64 implementations
> of scientific libraries, e.g. BLAS?

I don't know what will be announced, but there is obviously a bunch of
work in this area.

> What is the sense of list members as to when x86-64 will be a viable
> platform for scientific computing?

The systems are usable today, with most support and applications running
in 32 bit.  Our 28Cz-5 release, first showing this evening, and the
28Dz-5 Demo Zero Install Cluster, introduced Tuesday, are 32 bit
releases that have Opteron tweaks and testing.  The x86-64 release date
has not yet been decided.

I'm not certain if we will be running a 32 or 64 bit kernel on Opterons
at SC2002, but the applications we are running on the systems are all
still in 32 bit mode.  That will change when the SC2002 pressure is
removed.

> In particular, is it
> likely to be practical anytime soon ("soon" meaning in
> the next year or so, and subject to AMD actually releasing
> the stuff when they are currently saying they will) to
> use Opteron for processes requiring > 4GB of memory?

The system software is almost ready 

> Also, I guess that I'd be interested in hearing from sites
> that are today clustering various other 64-bit architectures
> to run such processes -- what are you running, how well
> does it work, did it cost you less than what Cornell's
> Windows cluster cost Microsoft, Intel and Dell, etc...

We've had an Alpha AXP distribution out for ages, but...

-- 
Donald Becker				becker at scyld.com
Scyld Computing Corporation		http://www.scyld.com
410 Severn Ave. Suite 210		Scyld Beowulf cluster system
Annapolis MD 21403			410-990-9993