Accelerating High-Performance Computing with Dell PowerEdge XE9680: A Look at HPL Performance
Download PDFTue, 28 Mar 2023 23:05:16 -0000
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Executive Summary
The Dell PowerEdge XE9680 is a high-performance server designed and optimized to enable uncompromising performance for artificial intelligence, machine learning, and high-performance computing workloads. Dell PowerEdge is launching our innovative 8-way GPU platform with advanced features and capabilities.
- 8x NVIDIA H100 80GB 700W SXM GPUs or 8x NVIDIA A100 80GB 500W SXM GPUs
- 2x Fourth Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors
- 32x DDR5 DIMMs at 4800MT/s
- 10x PCIe Gen 5 x16 FH Slots
- 8x SAS/NVMe SSD Slots (U.2) and BOSS-N1 with NVMe RAID
This Direct from Development (DfD) tech note offers valuable performance insights for High-Performance Linpack (HPL), a widely accepted benchmark for measuring HPC system performance.
Testing
The TOP500 list frequently relies on HPL to assess and rank supercomputer performance. Utilizing the Linpack library, HPL measures FLOPS (floating-point operations per second) by creating and solving linear equations, making it a reliable benchmark for evaluating HPC system efficiency.
The Dell HPC & AI Innovation Lab used HPL to compare the performance of the PowerEdge XE9680 to our last generation PowerEdge XE8545. There are two key differentiators between the servers that affect HPL performance here: the quantity and model of GPUs supported by each platform.
Regarding GPU configuration, the PowerEdge XE9680 was equipped with 8x H100 80GB SXM GPUs, while the PowerEdge XE9680 was outfitted with 4x A100 80GB SXM GPUs.
Performance
In the HPL benchmark, the PowerEdge XE9680 equipped with NVIDIA's latest H100 80GB SXM GPU outperforms the PowerEdge XE8545 by an impressive 543% more TeraFLOPS!1
The PowerEdge XE9680, with the latest NVIDIA H100 SXM GPU, advances HPC performance. With exceptional HPL performance, the PowerEdge XE9680 sets a high benchmark for today’s and tomorrow's HPC demands. Contact your account executive or visit www.dell.com to learn more.
Table 1. Server configuration
- Testing conducted by Dell in March of 2023. Performed on PowerEdge XE9680 with 8x NVIDIA H100 SXM5-80GB and PowerEdge XE8545 with 4x NVIDIA A100-SXM-80GB. Actual results will vary.