NovaGlobal, one of Singapore’s leading independent platform providers of high-performance, technical and scientific computing solutions for the academic community, is integrating the systems for NUS as a customized design to meet its requirements in the realms of both 32-bit and 64-bit computing. Currently, 12 fully operational systems have been deployed.

“AMD is very excited to see our technology paving great inroads and gaining acceptance in the academic community in Singapore. The adoption of our multiprocessing technology by the Department of Computational Science at the NUS is an important milestone in our outreach to the computational intensive market,” said Wee Yep Yin, Product Marketing Manager, South Asia Pacific for AMD. “The AMD Athlon MP platform features innovative technology that offers performance, compatibility and stability, and we are confident that this solution will be able to meet the most rigorous demands in computational science and technical applications, even for large problems and data sets.”

“The Department of Computational Science chose AMD’s superior technology because it has the right combination of performance and price to meet our requirements and specifications. Our department is at the forefront of new-generation computing platform implementations at NUS, and as such, relies on the highest performance computing engines available at the time. The AMD Athlon MP processor-based platform offers the high performance required for our department’s computational intensive courses and excellent future upgradeability and scalability,” said Yung Shing Gene, Senior Systems Engineer, Department of Computational Science, National University of Singapore. “We envisage that it will be smooth-going if we decide to upgrade these systems to dual-CPU configurations in the future.”

“NovaGlobal is very pleased to work with AMD in creating Singapore's first AMD Athlon MP processor-based large high-end workstation installation at a premier academic site. With our microprocessor and systems analysis expertise, we concluded quickly that the AMD Athlon MP processor-platform best meets the NUS department’s needs in terms of both sheer performance and price. It is clearly the highest-performance dual-CPU PC platform at this price level,” said Nebojsa Novakovic, Managing Director, NovaGlobal Pte. Ltd. The workstations will be installed with the latest Linux releases and accompanying compilers, thereby enabling students to create programs and solutions for handling high-end scientific and technical applications efficiently, even for large problems and data sets.

The new systems are equipped with 1 GB RAM pre-installed, 10,000 rpm Ultra160 SCSI IBM hard disks, dual network connections for both internetworking and clustering, and the newest Linux release using the 2.4.X kernel. The setup can be quickly and easily reconfigured to act as a clustered ‘virtual supercomputer’ to suit the department’s needs.

About the AMD Athlon™ MP Processor
The AMD Athlon MP processor is a seventh-generation x86 processor designed for high- performance multiprocessing servers and workstations. It provides up to a 38 percent increase over widely available x86 multiprocessor-based systems on benchmarks such as WebBench, ServerBench and 3D Studio Max.

A key advantage of AMD’s multiprocessing platform is Smart MP technology, which greatly enhances overall platform performance by increasing data movement between the two CPUs, chipset and memory system. Smart MP technology features dual point-to-point, high-speed 266MHz system buses with Error Correcting Code (ECC) support designed to provide up to 2.1GB per second per CPU of bus bandwidth in a dual-processor system. Smart MP technology also has an optimized Modified Owner Exclusive Shared Invalid (MOESI) cache coherency protocol that manages data and memory traffic in a multiprocessing environment.

The AMD Athlon MP processor, with stable Socket A infrastructure and support for DDR memory technology, has a high performance full-speed cache with hardware data pre-fetch, a fully pipelined superscalar floating point engine, and an exclusive L2 Translation Look-aside Buffer (TLB). It also incorporates 3DNow!ä Professional technology, which has 52 new instructions that extend AMD’s 3DNow! technology, enabling smoother, richer and more lifelike images, more precise digital audio and an enriched Internet experience.

AMD Athlon MP processors are manufactured using AMD’s 0.18-micron copper process technology at Fab 30 in Dresden, Germany.

About the AMD-760™ MP Chipset
The AMD-760 MP chipset, the world’s first AMD Athlon multiprocessor chipset to support DDR memory technology, is AMD’s high performance two-way multiprocessor core logic solution for the AMD Athlon MP processor. It consists of two chips—the AMD-762™ system controller (northbridge), and the AMD-766™ peripheral bus controller (southbridge). The AMD-760 MP chipset unleashes the power of DDR memory technology, which combines with other sophisticated core logic in data, memory and I/O control as well as system and power management to provide a powerful solution for server and workstation platforms. The AMD-760 MP chipset supports up to two AMD Athlon MP processors with independent 266MHz front side buses, as well as PC2100 DDR memory and AGP 4x graphics.

About AMD
AMD is a global supplier of integrated circuits for the personal and networked computer and communications markets with manufacturing facilities in the United States, Europe, Japan, and Asia. AMD, a Fortune 500 and Standard & Poor’s 500 company, produces microprocessors, flash memory devices, and support circuitry for communications and networking applications. Founded in 1969 and based in Sunnyvale, California, AMD had revenues of $4.6 billion in 2000. (NYSE: AMD).

About NovaGlobal
Based in Singapore, NovaGlobal is a specialized high-performance computer system solutions provider. Since 1998, it focuses on high-end 64-bit and 32-bit UNIX and Linux solutions for scientific, technical and engineering customers, with a strong presence in Government-linked institutional sites.