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Description & Topology

The Dalek cluster is composed of:

  • A frontend node named "front" (front.dalek.proj.lip6.fr).
  • 4 compute partitions detailed below.

Info

Here is the LIP6 Mattermost channel dedicated to the news about Dalek. Don't hesitate to join.

Frontend

The frontend is a Minisforum MS-01 Work Station. It comes with the main following services:

  • Gateway of the compute nodes (NAT).
  • Local DNS server (ex.: [node_name].dalek).
  • DHCP for automatic IP addresses attribution over the computes nodes.
  • NFS server for shared user accounts.
  • PXE server to boot Linux kernel on the compute nodes.
  • SLURM as the job scheduler over the partitions described below.

Partitions

Here are the four partitions of the cluster:

  • Partition 1: az4-n4090
    • 4 nodes with an AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX CPU (16x Zen 4 cores) and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU
  • Partition 2: az4-a7900
    • 4 nodes with an AAMD Ryzen 9 7945HX CPU (16x Zen 4 cores) and an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPU
  • Partition 3: iml-ia770
    • 4 nodes with an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H CPU (16x Meteor Lake-H cores) and an Intel Arc A770 GPU
  • Partition 4: az5-a890m
    • 4 nodes with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 CPU (12x Zen 5 cores) and an AMD Radeon 890M integrated GPU

The naming convention follows these rules:

  • The first three characters give insights about the CPU architecture
    • a = AMD vendor
    • i = Intel vendor
    • z4 = Zen 4
    • z5 = Zen 5
    • ml = Meteor Lake
  • The last five characters give insights about the GPU architecture
    • n = Nvidia vendor
    • a = AMD vendor
    • i = Intel vendor
    • 4090 = GeForce RTX 4090 (Ada Lovelace)
    • 7900 = Radeon RX 7900 RTX (RDNA 3)
    • a770 = Arc A770 (Alchemist)
    • 890m = Radeon 890M (RDNA 3.5)

Info

A fifth logical partition has been added: az4-mixed. It is the union of the az4-n4090 and the az4-a7900 partitions. az4-mixed is relevant when using only the CPU part of the nodes to get more nodes of the same type (here 8).

Summary Table

Here is a table that summarizes the different partitions available in the cluster:

SLURM Partition Frontend Partition 1 (az4-n4090) Partition 2 (az4-a7900) Partition 3 (iml-ia770) Partition 4 (az5-a890m)
System Name MS-01 Work Station BD790i BD790i AtomMan X7 Ti EliteMini AI370
Vendor Minisforum Minisforum Minisforum Minisforum Minisforum
Release Date Dec'23 Feb'24 Feb'24 May'24 Oct'24
Number of nodes 1 4 4 4 4
CPU Intel Core i9-13900H AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX Intel Core Ultra 9 185H AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370
iGPU Intel Iris Xe Graphics 96EU Mobile AMD Radeon 610M AMD Radeon 610M Intel Arc Graphics 128EU Mobile AMD Radeon 890M
GPU (or eGPU) - Gainward GeForce RTX 4090 Phantom GS 24 GB (PCIe 4) Sapphire PULSE AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24 GB (PCIe 4) ASRock Intel Arc A770 Challenger 16 GB OC (Oculink) -
RAM Corsair Vengeance SO-DIMM 96 GB (2 x 48 GB) DDR5 5200 MT/s CL44 Corsair Vengeance SO-DIMM 96 GB (2 x 48 GB) DDR5 5200 MT/s CL44 Corsair Vengeance SO-DIMM 96 GB (2 x 48 GB) DDR5 5200 MT/s CL44 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5 5600 MT/s 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) LPDDR5x 7500 MT/s
Drive 3 x Samsung SSD 990 PRO M.2 PCIe NVMe 4 TB Samsung SSD 990 PRO M.2 PCIe NVMe 4 TB Samsung SSD 990 PRO M.2 PCIe NVMe 4 TB Kingston SSD OM8PGP41024Q-A0 M.2 PCIe NVMe 1 TB Crucial SSD P3 Plus CT1000P3PSSD8 M.2 PCIe NVMe 1 TB
Wired Network Interface 2 x Intel X710 (10 GbE) + 1 x Intel I226-V (2.5 GbE) + 1 x Intel I226-LM (2.5 GbE) 1 x Realtek RTL8125 (2.5 GbE) 1 x Realtek RTL8125 (2.5 GbE) 2 x Realtek RTL8157 (5 GbE) 2 x 2.5 GbE
Wireless Network Interface 1 x Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6E AX1675x (2.4 Gbps) 1 x Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210 (2.4 Gbps) 1 x Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210 (2.4 Gbps) Intel Wi-Fi 7 BE200 (5.8 Gbps) Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6E AX1675x (2.4 Gbps)
Idle Power 15 W 53 W ??? W ??? W ??? W
OS Linux Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS (noble)
Kernel Version 6.08.000

Tips

Drivers, bios, and more for the Minisforum products can be found here: https://www.minisforum.com/new/support?lang=en#/

CPUs Specs

Product Name Release Date Architecture SIMD ISA Process # p-cores Base Clock p-cores Boost Clock p-cores # e-cores Base Clock e-cores Boost Clock e-cores # LP e-cores Base Clock LP e-cores Boost Clock LP e-cores iGPU Memory Type Memory Freq. Memory Bus Channels Memory Bus Width Memory Channels Memory Channel Width Memory Size Memory Bandwidth Memory Latency TDP (including iGPU)
AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX Q1'23 Zen 4 (Dragon Range) AVX-512 5/6 nm (TSMC FinFET) 16C/32T 2.50 GHz 5.40 GHz - - - - - - AMD Radeon 610M DDR5 5200 MT/s 2600 MHz 2 64 bits 4* 32 bits 96 GB 83.2 GB/s 12.31 ns 75 W
Intel Core i9-13900H Q1'23 Raptor Lake-H AVX2 10 nm (Intel 7) 6C/12T 2.60 GHz 5.40 GHz 8C/8T 1.90 GHz 4.10 GHz - - - Intel Iris Xe Graphics 96EU Mobile DDR5 5200 MT/s 2600 MHz 2 64 bits 4* 32 bits 96 GB 83.2 GB/s 12.31 ns 115 W
Intel Core Ultra 9 185H Q4'23 Meteor Lake-H AVX2 7 nm (Intel 4) 6C/12T 2.30 GHz 5.10 GHz 8C/8T 1.80 GHz 3.80 GHz 2C/2T 1.00 GHz 2.50 GHz Intel Arc Graphics 128EU Mobile DDR5 5600 MT/s 2800 MHz 2 64 bits 4* 32 bits 32 GB 89.6 GB/s 11.42 ns 115 W
AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 Q3'24 Zen 5 / Zen 5c (Strix Point) AVX-512 4 nm (TSMC FinFET) 4C/8T 2.00 GHz 5.10 GHz 8C/16T 2.00 GHz 3.30 GHz - - - AMD Radeon 890M LPDDR5x 7500 MT/s 3750 MHz 4 32 bits 8* 16 bits 32 GB 120.0 GB/s 8.53 ns 54 W

* the number of memory channels is doubled with DDR5 compared to DDR4: indeed a single DIMM has two channels. Consequently, a traditional double channel memory bus exposes in fact four memory channels: 2 (from a single DIMM) x 2 (from dual channel bus) = 4.

Tips

Super cool website to help in computing memory latency and bandwidth: https://edu.finlaydag33k.nl/calculating ram bandwidth/.

GPUs Specs

Product Name Chip Release Date Architecture Process Cores (SMX equivalent) Shading Units (CUDA cores equivalent) Base Clock Boost Clock iGPU Memory Type Memory Freq. Memory Bus Channels Memory Bus Width Memory Size Memory Bandwidth TDP
AMD Radeon 610M Mendocino Sep'22 RDNA 2.0 6 nm (TSMC) 2 128 1500 MHz 1900 MHz Yes DDR5 5200 MT/s 2600 MHz 2 64 bits 96 GB 83.2 GB/s 15 W
Intel Iris Xe Graphics 96EU Mobile Raptor Lake GT1 Jan'23 Generation 12.2 10 nm (Intel) 96 768 300 MHz 1500 MHs Yes DDR5 5200 MT/s 2600 MHz 2 64 bits 96 GB 83.3 GB/s 15 W
Intel Arc Graphics 128EU Mobile Meteor Lake GT1 Dec'23 Xe-LPG 10 nm (Intel) 128 1024 300 MHz 2250 MHz Yes DDR5 5600 MT/s 2800 MHz 2 64 bits 32 GB 89.6 GB/s 28 W
AMD Radeon 890M Strix Point Jul'24 RDNA 3.5 4 nm (TSMC) 16 1024 400 MHz 2900 MHz Yes LPDDR5x 7500 MT/s 3750 MHz 4 32 bits 32 GB 120.0 GB/s 15 W
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 AD102 Sep'22 Ada Lovelace 5 nm (TSMC) 128 16384 2235 MHz 2520 MHz No GDDR6x 1313 MHz 4* 384 bits 24 GB 1001.0 GB/s 450 W
Intel Arc A770 DG2-512 Oct'22 Generation 12.7 (Alchemist) 6 nm (TSMC) 512 4096 2100 MHz 2400 MHz No GDDR6 2000 MHz 2* 256 bits 24 GB 512.0 GB/s 225 W
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Navi 31 Nov'22 RDNA 3.0 5 nm (TSMC) 96 6144 1929 MHz 2365 MHz No GDDR6 2500 MHz 2* 384 bits 24 GB 960.0 GB/s 355 W

* the number of channels have been inferred from the bus width, the memory frequency and bandwidth.

Network Controllers Specs

Product Name Release Date Protocol (Standard) Theoretical Throughput Connector Best mode
Realtek RTL8125 Q3'19 Ethernet (802.3bz) 2.5 Gbps RJ45 2500baseT/Full
Intel I226-V Q2'22 Ethernet (802.3bz) 2.5 Gbps RJ45 2500baseT/Full
Intel I226-LM Q2'22 Ethernet (802.3bz) 2.5 Gbps RJ45 2500baseT/Full
Realtek RTL8157 Q4'23 Ethernet (802.3bz) 5.0 Gbps RJ45 5000baseT/Full
Intel X710 Q3'19 Ethernet (802.3aq) 10.0 Gbps SFP+ 10000baseLR/Full
Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210 Q4'20 WiFi 6E (802.11ax) 2.4 Gbps Wireless 2x2 TX/RX
Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6E AX1675x Q4'20 WiFi 6E (802.11ax) 2.4 Gbps Wireless 2x2 TX/RX
Intel Wi-Fi 7 BE200 Q3'23 WiFi 7 (802.11be) 5.8 Gbps Wireless 2x2 TX/RX