Hewlett-Packard Company
3000 Hanover Street
Mail Stop 20BJ
Palo Alto, CA 94304
www.hp.com
Author:
Troy Heber, HP
Technical Consulting Lab
troy_heber@hp.com
“The Harder You Work, the Better we
“The Harder You Work, the Better we
“The Harder You Work, the Better we“The Harder You Work, the Better we
Perform” : ANSYS
Perform” : ANSYS
Perform” : ANSYSPerform” : ANSYS
As the complexity of the problem increases, so
does the performance of HP Visualize
Workstations utilizing PA-RISC architecture.
Introduction:
Introduction:
Introduction:Introduction:
You already know that Hewlett Packard Visualize Workstations are
performance leaders in the industry, an d have be e n sin ce the ir introduction.
What you may not know is that Visualize Workstations perform bette r than
our competition on the toughest problems. As the complexity of the
problem increases, so does the performance of HP Visualize Workstations
utilizing PA-RISC architecture. The concept “the harder you work the better
we perform” can be demonstrated with ANSYS Multiphysics.
With a long-standing global partnership, HP and ANSYS continue to offer a
total collaborative engineering solution to customers -- providing the right
tool for the right job. ANSYS offers a wide range of solutions beginning
with the CAD integrated DesignSpace product to the mid-range, easy-to-use
ANSYS/Professional product to full ANSYS/Multiphysics. No matter what
the ANSYS application, HP has the platform of choice , from NT and UN IX
workstations to high-end scalable UNIX servers.
ANSYS and HP provide ongoing support for joint customers. Benc hm arks
are performed to show that ANSYS code is continually being optimize d to
take advantage of new architectures. One of the fac t ors that enabl es
ANSYS users to solve larger problems faster and cheaper is the non-stop
improvement in computational power driving the high-tech industry. HewlettPackard's 64-bit Precision Architecture RISC microprocessors (PA-8x00)
achieved leadership performance for ANSYS 5. 5 with the in troduc tion of
the PA-8500 chip in 1999. The UNIX and NT workstations and servers
introduced in 2000, along with ANSYS 5.6.1 extend the benefits of the
HP/ANSYS solution to even higher levels by increased optimizations .
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Description of the Data:
Description of the Data:
Description of the Data:Description of the Data:
The graph below depicts the data from four differe nt machines. This
competitive data is taken from the public ben chmarks posted on the ANSYS
1
website
. These workloads are designed by ANSYS to gauge hardware
performance. Because these benchmarks are designed and publishe d by
ANSYS they are hardware vendor independent. The hp visualize j6000
data is taken from a benchmark performed by the HP Techn ic al Con sulting
2
Lab; and is also available on the ANSYS website
. In our comparison, twoway dual-processor machines were chosen bec ause of increase d sc al ability
via thread based parallelism.
As the degrees of freedom in the benchmark increase, the complexity of the
model increases. Therefore, for the purpose of this paper, an increase in the
degrees of freedom equals an increase in complexity and more closely
represents the type of problems being solved today by l arge custome r s.
Looking at the difference between the machines at e ach se parate de gree of
freedom shows the relative performance of the competitor’s machines
directly compared to that of the visualize j6000. It is important to note that
each data point should only be compared with other data points at the
same degrees of freedom, there is no relation between the j6000 at
23,658 degrees of freedom and the j6000 at 71,472 degrees of freedom.
The total elapsed time is normalized into a relative performance number by
dividing each time into the time for a reference system, in this case the hp
visualize j6000.
HP J6000 550Mhz 2-Way
Compaq Alpha 667MHz 2-Way
IBM RS6000 375MHz 2-Way
Sun U80 450MHz 2-Way
0.4
0.2
236587147273575
Degrees of Fredom
This graph was generated by taking the total elapsed time from three
different benchmark tests (models), each at different degrees of freedom
and normalizing the data. The workloads se le c t e d for this ch art are from
the ANSYS 5.6 public benchmarks: sms-bls (23,658 DF) , sms-blm (71,472
DF), and smb-blm (73,575 DF). Each of these workloads is a structural
modal shell.
This graph shows that the Compaq Alpha 667 has a .057x perform anc e
advantage to the j6000 on sms-bls. However, the j6000 is 1.40x faster
than the IBM and 1.628x faster than the Sun. This workload, with only
23658 degrees of freedom, is considered to have low complexity.
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As the complexity increases on sms-blm, the j6000 offers a 1.063x
performance advantage over the Co m paq system and continues to increase
on the IBM to a 1.423x lead and a 1.793x advantage over the Sun
systems.
Again, as the complexity increases on smb-blm , so does the performance
advantage of the j6000. The j6000 is 1.097x faster than the Compaq
system, 1.566x faster tan the IBM, and 1.817x faster than the Sun system.
Similar results have been seen on other combinations of workload.
Summary:
Summary:
Summary:Summary:
This data suggests that as the complexity of the workload increases so doe s
the relative performance of the PA-RISC architecture.
We attribute this trend to the PA-RISC’s excellent floating point ability.
Additionally, HP engine ers in th e Technical Server Applications
Development team have been working ve ry c losel y with ANSYS to optimize
this application on the PA-RISC platform for over five years.
As the complexity increases so does the number of floating point operations
required to solve the model. The efficient execution of floating point
operations is one of the greatest strengths of the PA-RISC processor. This
leads to the increased performanc e as th e complexity increases. The
harder you work the better we perform.
About HP
About HP
About HPAbout HP
Hewlett-Packard Company -- a leading global provider of computing and
imaging solutions and services -- is focused on makin g technology and its
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benefits accessible to individuals and busin e sse s through simple appliances,
useful e-services and an Internet infrastructure that’ s al way s on.
HP has 86,000 employees worldwide and had total revenue from
continuing operations of $42.4 billion in its 1999 fiscal year. Information
about HP and its products can be found on the World Wide Web at
http://www.hp.com.
UNIX is a registered trademark of the Open Group
RAW Data:
RAW Data:
RAW Data:RAW Data:
The competitive data was taken from the ANSYS website August 2000: