Monte Cimone v3: Where RISC-V Stands in High-Performance Computing

2026-04-22

AI Summary

This study addresses the empirical research gap in high-performance computing (HPC) on the RISC-V architecture by constructing and evaluating MCv3, an HPC cluster based on the SOPHGO SG2044 processor. Through HPL and STREAM benchmarking combined with power measurements, the work provides the first real-world HPC validation of SG2044’s substantial improvements over its predecessor SG2042 in both single-core performance and scalability. Normalized comparisons against Intel Sapphire Rapids and NVIDIA Grace CPU Superchip reveal that MCv3 achieves an energy efficiency of 3.08 GFLOPs/W—ten times higher than MCv1—and delivers 46% and 91% of the performance of Sapphire Rapids and Grace, respectively, in a 16-core configuration. Its energy efficiency approaches that of mainstream x86-64 and Arm server platforms.

Abstract

The Monte Cimone project provides a RISC-V testbed for High-Performacne Computing cluster. This paper presents Monte Cimone v3 (MCv3), the third iteration of the Monte Cimone RISC-V HPC cluster, integrating the SOPHGO Sophon SG2044 processor, an evolution of the SG2042 used in MCv2. We characterize MCv3 using HPL and STREAM benchmarks coupled with power measurements, and compare it against two reference platforms: the Intel Xeon Platinum 8480+(Sapphire Rapids) and the NVIDIA Grace CPU Superchip. Our results show that the SG2044 more than doubles single-core performance and improves scalability compared to SG2042. MCv3 achieves an energy efficiency of 3.08GFLOPs/W which improves of 10x w.r.t. MCv1 and is in the range of x86-64 and Arm servers. On pure performance when normalized on the SIMD/Vector length MCv3 on its peak efficiency point (16 cores) achieves 46% performance of Intel Sapphire Rapids server and 91% performance of NVIDIA Grace CPU superchip.

Problem

• RISC-V
• High-Performance Computing
• Energy Efficiency
• Performance Evaluation
• HPC Cluster

Innovation

• RISC-V
• High-Performance Computing
• Energy Efficiency
• SG2044 Processor
• Benchmarking