TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
OpenFOAM and WRF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Supermicro A+ BigTwin: Where
Performance Meets Efficiency for Modernand Complex Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
A+ BigTwin OpenFOAM Scalability andPerformance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
A+ BigTwin WRF Scalability and
Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

SUPERMICROSupermicro (Nasdaq: SMCI), the leading
innovator in high-performance, highefficiency server and storage technology isa premier provider of advanced server
Building Block Solutions® for Enterprise
Data Center, Cloud Computing, ArtificialIntelligence, and Edge Computing Systems
worldwide. Supermicro is committed toprotecting the environment through its“We Keep IT Green®” initiative andprovides customers with the most energyefficient, environmentally-friendly
solutions available on the market.

Executive Summary
In this white paper, we discuss the performance results of OpenFOAM and WRF,
running on Supermicro's latest A+ BigTwin server with 3rd Gen AMD EPYCTM 7713
processors.
Supermicro's A+ BigTwin servers demonstrate high scalability and speed withexceptional memory bandwidth and floating-point performance, offeringorganizations the benefit of the right balance between scalability and density for
their workloads to operate these applications.

HPC Applications: OpenFOAM and WRF
OpenFOAM
OpenFOAM is a free, open-source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software package developed by OpenCFD Ltd at ESIGroup and distributed by the OpenFOAM Foundation. It has a large user base across most areas of engineering and science,from both commercial and academic organizations. OpenFOAM has an extensive range of features to solve anything fromcomplex fluid flows involving chemical reactions, turbulence, and heat transfer, to solid dynamics and electromagnetics.
Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF)
The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model is a next-generation mesoscale numerical weather prediction systemdesigned for atmospheric research and operational forecasting applications. It features two dynamical cores, a data
assimilation system, and a software architecture supporting parallel computation and system extensibility. The model servesa wide range of meteorological applications across scales from tens of meters to thousands of kilometers. WRF can produce
simulations based on actual atmospheric conditions (i.e., from observations and analyses) or idealized conditions forresearchers. WRF offers operational forecasting a flexible and computationally efficient platform while reflecting recent
advances in physics, numeric, and data assimilation contributed by developers from the expansive research community.

Supermicro A+ BigTwin: Where Performance Meets Efficiency for Modern and Complex Applications
Compute requirements are increasing, while data center space is not. Supermicro's innovative A+ BigTwin family of servers,
powered by 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors, offers incredible core density with a rich feature set. Innovative server design meets
innovative CPU architecture to drive new levels of value for the data center.
•••

Performance: Supports the high-performance AMD EPYC processors for up to 64 cores/128 threads, up to 4TB of
DDR4 memory, and six hot-swap drives (4 NVMe and 2 SATA3) per node for the most demanding workloads.
Density: Incredible high-density with up to 4 hot-swappable nodes in a 2U form factor provides flexible and robust IO
options – 1G, 10G, 25G, or 100G Ethernet or 100G InfiniBand, and up to 2 additional low-profile PCI-E 4.0 x16
expansion slots per node.
Efficiency: Designed with power and cost efficiency in mind, BigTwin reduces power consumption with sharedcooling and power design, leveraging redundant 2200W and optional 2600W Titanium level high-efficiency (96%)
power supplies (Full redundancy based on configuration and application load).

© 2021 Copyright Super Micro Computer, Inc. All rights reservedFebruary, 2022

2

AMD EPYC Processors for High Performance Computing (HPC)
A+ BIGTWIN WITH 3RD GEN AMD
EPYC PROCESSORS

Built on the x86 architecture innovations of the record setting EPYC 7002
processors, AMD EPYC™ 7003 Series Processors are the new standard for themodern data center. With higher frequencies, high core counts, high memory
bandwidth, and capacity, AMD EPYC 7003 processors enable exceptional HPC
performance across multiple industry verticals.
The new L3 Cache design can increase the cache hit to miss ratio over theprevious design. Improved cache sharing also allows larger blocks to fit directly
into the cache, whereas previously, they would fall into the main memory.
Improvements made in the cache fetching and eviction policies manage data
more efficiently. All these benefits result in an uplift in HPC workloads in addition
to the core and memory improvements.

High Core and Density, 512 Cores and 1024 Threads in 2U for HPC
The Dual AMD EPYC 7713 processors used for each Supermicro A+ BigTwin systemnode have 64 cores with 128 threads per socket. It can clock up to 3.675GHz with225W TDP and boasts 256MB of L3 cache with the 3rd Gen AMD EPYC (Milan)
architecture. In addition, Supermicro’s A+ BigTwin features four dual socket
nodes in a 2U form factor, resulting in 512 cores and 1024 threads in one system.

CPU Model Cores7713© 2021 Copyright Super Micro Computer, Inc. All rights reserved64

Base Freq

Boost Freq3Cache(GHz)(Up to GHz)(MB)

2.0 GHz

3.675 GHz256February, 2022

3

A+ BigTwin OpenFOAM Scalability and Performance
Building on dominant performances at a single node, Figure 1 demonstrates how the AMD EPYC 7713 CPUs efficiently scale up
through 8 nodes. This scaling is efficient and shows a much higher performance curve than the linear line for the OpenFOAM
benchmark. AMD EPYC 7713 CPUs deliver up to ~144% scaling efficiency at eight nodes.

OpenFOAM Scaling with
A+ BigTwin and AMD EPYC 7713
Relative Node Perofmance

1412108
DrivAer 32M
6

DrivAer 64M

4Linear2012345678Node CountFigure 1

OpenFOAM Perfomance Comparison: DrivAer 64M andDrivAer 32M with A+ BigTwin and AMD EPYC 7713

Node Count8-node

4-nodeDrivAer 64M
2-nodeDrivAer 32M

1-node012345678910111213

Relative Node Perofmance
Figure 2© 2021 Copyright Super Micro Computer, Inc. All rights reservedFebruary, 2022

4A+ BigTwin WRF Scalability and PerformanceWith leadership architecture, 3rd Gen AMD EPYC Series Processors demonstrate very high scalability for HPC applications bysupporting eight channels of memory per processor and PCI-E 4.0. Building on dominant performances at a single node,
Figure 3 demonstrates how the 3rd Gen AMD EPYC 7713 CPUs efficiently scale through 8 nodes. 3rd Gen AMD EPYC 7713 CPUsdeliver more than ~94% scaling efficiency between 1 to 8 nodes.
3rd Gen AMD EPYC Processors are the right choice for maximizing both overall performance and performance per core.

Relative Node Performance

WRF Perfromance Scaling with A+ BigTwin andAMD EPYC 7713
98765432
10Conus 2.5km

Linear12345678Node Count
Figure 3

WRF Perfomance Comparison by Node Count:Conus 2.5km with A+ BigTwin and AMD EPYC 7713

Node Count

8-node4-node2-nodeConus 2.5km

1-node02468

Relative Node Performance
Figure 4© 2021 Copyright Super Micro Computer, Inc. All rights reservedFebruary, 2022

5Conclusion
Modern modeling, analytics, and mathematical software require demanding workloads with balanced memory bandwidth,
floating-point performance, and network I/O. Supermicro's A+ BigTwin servers, powered by 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors,
provide exceptional memory bandwidth and floating-point performance, offering organizations the benefit of the rightbalance between scalability and density for their workloads.

Get more info about AMD EPYC Processors• 3rd Gen AMD EPYC Processors https://www.amd.com/en/products/epycserver• AMD EPYC Family of Processors for HPC https://www.amd.com/hpc
Get started with OpenFOAM and WRF with
Supermicro A+ and AMD EPYC Processors today• OpenFOAM - https://www.openfoam.com/• WRF - https://www.mmm.ucar.edu/weatherresearch-and-forecasting-model

DISCLAIMER
Testing performed by AMD Internal labs as of 03/01/2021. Results shown are averages of multiple runs and individual results may vary.
AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, EPYC, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Linux is the registered trademark of Linus
Torvalds in the US and other countries.

© 2021 Copyright Super Micro Computer, Inc. All rights reserved

February, 2022

6