Intel eyes high-performance computing boost

IT Pro says.

The firm has yet to reveal a full list of specifications, noting only that the first generation of the Xeon Phi family, codenamed Knights Corner, will feature more than 50 cores, support more than 8GB of DDR5 memory and will be manufactured using the 22nm process.

The architecture will come in PCIe form factor and will support Intel's standard programming model and software tools.

While Intel bought Cray for its Aries interconnect, at this time all the firm would publicly say is that its Discovery cluster uses Infiniband to connect the 72 racks full of Xeon E5-2670 processors and Xeon Phi accelerators, The Inquirer notes.

Rajeeb Hazra, VP of Intel's Architecture Group, says its Discovery cluster is a prototype that still needs hardware and software tuning. Hazra says Intel is “on track to have Xeon Phi introduction on the market by end of 2012”.

For Intel, all its Xeon Phi powered Discovery cluster shows is that the firm actually has working Xeon Phi boards.

While the firm has seen Xeon Phi enter at 150 on the Top 500, it is a position that is hardly going to set the world on fire, especially as Nvidia's Tesla accelerators continue to dominate the upper echelons of the Top 500 list, despite the next-generation Tesla K20 accelerator being still a few months off.