Performance analysis of Intel multiprocessors using astrophysics simulations

Abstract

This paper provides a performance evaluation and investigation of the astrophysics code FLASH for a variety of Intel multiprocessors. This work was performed at the NASA Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) on behalf of the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW) as a study preliminary to the acquisition of a high-performance computing (HPC) system at the CIW and for the NCCS itself to measure the relative performance of a recently acquired Intel Nehalem-based system against previously installed multicore HPC resources. A brief overview of computer performance evaluation is provided, followed by a description of the systems under test, a description of the FLASH test problem, and the test results. Additionally, the paper characterizes some of the effects of load imbalance imposed by adaptive mesh refinement. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.