National Center for Computational Sciences

Phoenix

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Phoenix is a Cray X1E provided as a primary system in the National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS).

Phoenix has 1,024 multistreaming vector processors (MSPs), in which each MSP has 2 MB of cache and a peak computation rate of 18 GF. Four MSPs form a node with 8 Gb of shared memory. Memory bandwidth is very high, roughly half the cache bandwidth. The interconnect functions as an extension of the memory system, offering each node direct access to memory on other nodes at high bandwidth and low latency.

The Cray X1E uses custom-designed vector processors to get high performance for scientific codes. The Cray-designed processors are linked using a high-performance shared memory interconnect technology. Each of Phoenix’s 1,024 MSPs can carry out as many as 18 billion operations per second, making the performance of the total system as high as 18.5 trillion operations per second.