Product Description - Silicon Graphics Origin 3900 User Manual

2: System Overview

Product Description

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The SGI Origin 3900 server is the latest model in the SGI Origin 3000 family of servers. It
can range from 4 MIPS processors and 1 GB of memory to 512 MIPS processors and 1024
GB of memory. Furthermore, the SGI Origin 3900 servers can be clustered to increase the
number of processors from 512 to thousands of processors.
Like all models of the Origin 3000 family of servers, this server is based on SGI
NUMAflex shared-memory architecture. The main differences between this server and
the other Origin 3000 series servers are as follows:
• The Origin 3900 server uses a new packaging scheme that offers four times the
processor/memory density over the other Origin 3000 series servers. The Origin
3900 can have up to 128 processors and 256 GB of memory in a single rack; thus,
enabling you to have a high-productivity supercomputer in a smaller footprint. For
example, a 512-processor Origin 3800 server requires 16 compute racks. An Origin
3900 server that has 512 processors requires only 4 compute racks and 2 router racks
(see Figure 2-1).
• The Origin 3900 server uses an enhanced system topology (also referred to as a
fat-tree topology) that provides two times the bandwidth capabilities over the
hypercube topology, which is the topology used by the other Origin 3000 series
servers.
The hardware of the Origin 3900 server is fully compatible with the existing Origin 3000
series servers; therefore, you can upgrade an existing Origin 3000 series server with the
new Origin 3900 hardware. This upgrade does require converting the existing hypercube
topology to the enhanced topology.
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