Category Archives: Hardware

Intel Xeon E5-4600v3 “Haswell” 4-socket CPU Review

Posted on June 1, 2015 by Brett Newman

Intel has launched new 4-socket Xeon E5-4600v3 CPUs. They are the perfect choice for “just beyond dual socket” system scaling. Leverage them for larger memory capacity, faster memory bandwidth, and higher core-count when you aren’t ready for a multi-system purchase. Here … Continue reading →

Common PCI-Express Myths for GPU Computing Users

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Brett Newman

At Microway we design a lot of GPU computing systems. One of the strengths of GPU-compute is the flexibility PCI-Express bus. Assuming the server has appropriate power and thermals, it enables us to attach GPUs with no special interface modifications. We can … Continue reading →

Introduction to RAID for HPC Customers

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Jan Smith

There is a lot of material available on RAID, describing the technologies, the options, and the pitfalls.  However, there isn’t a great deal on RAID from an HPC perspective.  We’d like to provide an introduction to RAID, clear up a … Continue reading →

Introducing the NVIDIA Tesla K80 GPU Accelerator (Kepler GK210)

Posted on November 17, 2014 by Jan Smith

NVIDIA has once again raised the bar on GPU computing with the release of the new Tesla K80 GPU accelerator.  With up to 8.74 TFLOPS of single-precision performance with GPU Boost, the Tesla K80 has massive capability and leading density. … Continue reading →

AVX2 Optimization and Haswell-EP (Xeon E5-2600v3) CPU Features

Posted on October 3, 2014 by Brett Newman

We’re very excited to be delivering systems with the new Xeon E5-2600v3 and E5-1600v3 CPUs. If you are the type who loves microarchitecture details and compiler optimization, there’s a lot to gain. If you haven’t explored the latest techniques and … Continue reading →

Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 “Haswell” Processor Review

Posted on September 8, 2014 by Brett Newman

Update: As of March 31, 2016 we recommend version four of these Intel Xeon CPUs. Please see our new post Intel Xeon E5-2600 v4 “Broadwell” Processor Review Intel has launched brand new Xeon E5-2600 v3 CPUs with groundbreaking new features. … Continue reading →

PCI-Express Root Complex Confusion?

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Eliot Eshelman

I’ve had several customers comment to me that it’s difficult to find someone that can speak with them intelligently about PCI-E root complex questions. And yet, it’s of vital importance when considering multi-CPU systems that have various PCI-Express devices (most … Continue reading →

Intel Xeon E5-4600 v2 “Ivy Bridge” Processor Review

Posted on March 4, 2014 by Jan Smith

Many within the HPC community have been eagerly awaiting the new Intel Xeon E5-4600 v2 CPUs. To those already familiar with the “Ivy Bridge” architecture in the Xeon E5-2600 v2 processors, many of the updated features of these 4-socket Xeon … Continue reading →

Workstations, Servers and Clusters – What is HPC in 2014?

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Jan Smith

The phrase “High Performance Computing” gets thrown around a lot, but HPC means different things to different people. Every group with compute needs has its own requirements and workflow. There are many groups that would never need 100+ TFLOPS compute … Continue reading →

NVIDIA Tesla K40 GPUs, the High Performance Choice for Many Applications

Posted on January 7, 2014 by Brett Newman

NVIDIA Tesla K40 is now the leading Tesla GPU for performance.  Here are some important use-cases where Tesla K40 might greatly accelerate your GPU-accelerated applications: Pick Tesla K40 for Large Data Sets GPU memory has always been at a greater … Continue reading →