As of today, there are so many benchmark to measure performance of any computers into a number for later comparison against other models. I will not talk about that it totally depends on what you want to do exactly. Generally, the performance of a computer directly depends on speeding of floating point operation so it is possible to calculate the upper bound of its performance, Theoretical Peak Performance, by an easy equation.

Rpeak = [CPUs] x [CPU Clock rate (GHz)] x [CPU floating point issue rate]

where

CPUs = [the number of processor] x [the number of cores per processors]

For floating point issue rate, you can get it from CPU vendors according to its model. For example, Xeon 50xx (Dempsey) is 2, Xeon 51xx (Woodcrest) is 4, Itanium 2 is 4 and Opteron is 2. As a result, below is an example of existing system.

• IBM System x3550

  Rpeak(Xeon 5050) = 2 x 2 x 3.0 x 2 = 24 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5080) = 2 x 2 x 3.73 x 2 = 29.84 Gflops
  

• IBM System x3650

  Rpeak(Xeon 5050) = 2 x 2 x 3.0 x 2 = 24 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5063) = 2 x 2 x 3.2 x 2 = 25.6 Gflops
  

• Dell PowerEdge 1950

  Rpeak(Xeon 5050) = 2 x 2 x 3.0 x 2 = 24 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5063) = 2 x 2 x 3.2 x 2 = 25.6 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5080) = 2 x 2 x 3.73 x 2 = 29.84 Gflops
  

• Dell PowerEdge 2950

  Rpeak(Xeon 5050) = 2 x 2 x 3.0 x 2 = 24 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5063) = 2 x 2 x 3.2 x 2 = 25.6 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5080) = 2 x 2 x 3.73 x 2 = 29.84 Gflops
  

• HP ProLiant DL140 Generation 3

  Rpeak(Xeon 5050) = 2 x 2 x 3.0 x 2 = 24 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5060) = 2 x 2 x 3.2 x 2 = 25.6 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5080) = 2 x 2 x 3.73 x 2 = 29.84 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5110) = 2 x 2 x 1.60 x 4 = 25.6 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5130) = 2 x 2 x 2.0 x 4 = 32 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5140) = 2 x 2 x 2.33 x 4 = 37.28 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5150) = 2 x 2 x 2.66 x 4 = 42.56 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5160) = 2 x 2 x 3.00 x 4 = 48 Gflops
  

• HP ProLiant DL360 Generation 5

  Rpeak(Xeon 5050) = 2 x 2 x 3.0 x 2 = 24 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5060) = 2 x 2 x 3.2 x 2 = 25.6 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5080) = 2 x 2 x 3.73 x 2 = 29.84 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5110) = 2 x 2 x 1.60 x 4 = 25.6 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5120) = 2 x 2 x 1.86 x 4 = 29.76 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5130) = 2 x 2 x 2.0 x 4 = 32 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5140) = 2 x 2 x 2.33 x 4 = 37.28 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5150) = 2 x 2 x 2.66 x 4 = 42.56 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5160) = 2 x 2 x 3.00 x 4 = 48 Gflops
  

• Fujitsu Primergy RX200 S3

  Rpeak(Xeon 5050) = 2 x 2 x 3.0 x 2 = 24 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5060) = 2 x 2 x 3.2 x 2 = 25.6 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5080) = 2 x 2 x 3.73 x 2 = 29.84 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5110) = 2 x 2 x 1.60 x 4 = 25.6 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5120) = 2 x 2 x 1.86 x 4 = 29.76 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5130) = 2 x 2 x 2.0 x 4 = 32 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5140) = 2 x 2 x 2.33 x 4 = 37.28 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5150) = 2 x 2 x 2.66 x 4 = 42.56 Gflops
  Rpeak(Xeon 5160) = 2 x 2 x 3.00 x 4 = 48 Gflops
  

• Fujitsu Primergy TX300 S2

  Rpeak(Xeon 2.80 GHZ) = 2 x 2 x 2.80 x 2 = 22.40 Gflops
  

The rest is maximum performance or Rmax. It depends on your tuning. For more information, go to http://www.top500.org/.

Tags: scientific computing, hpc, xeon, itanium, opteron, dempsey, woodcrest