Kestrel Versus Eagle Supercomputer Stack-Up

Compare NREL's latest high-performance computing system—Kestrel—with its predecessor—Eagle—and see how its advanced supercomputer capabilities stack-up to real-world examples.

Subway icon

Peak Performance

Side by side on the subway tracks, Kestrel will travel 5.5 times faster than Eagle.

Eagle bird icon Eagle
8
petaflops
2,114
CPU nodes
76,104
CPU cores
Kestrel bird icon Kestrel
44
petaflops
2,324
CPU nodes + 132 graphics processing unit nodes
258,592
CPU cores
U.S. map

Random Access Memory

Kestrel can quickly recall the details of every bus route in the United States.

Eagle bird icon Eagle
296
terabytes total memory
Kestrel bird icon Kestrel
604
terabytes total memory
Three smartphones lined up

High-Speed Data Storage

It would take more than 65 miles of end-to-end smartphones to store as much data as Kestrel.

Eagle bird icon Eagle
14
petabytes of data storage
Kestrel bird icon Kestrel
95
petabytes of data storage
Vehicle icons in three traffic lanes

Network Speed

Kestrel's network "highway" has twice as many lanes as Eagle's. Vehicles (or data) travel twice as fast, simultaneously, and—like Kestrel's compute nodes—all communicating with one another at the same time.

Eagle bird icon Eagle
100
gigabits per second
Kestrel bird icon Kestrel
200
gigabits per second
Car and car battery icon

Energy-per-Computation
Efficiency

Kestrel can do 2.2 times more calculations per watt of energy than Eagle. That’s like traveling more than twice as far on a single charge.

Eagle bird icon Eagle
4.7
gigaflops per watt
Kestrel bird icon Kestrel
10.4
gigaflops per watt

Computing Speed Unit Definitions
Gigaflop — billion calculations per second
Petabytes — 14 million gigabytes
Petaflop — million-billion calculations per second


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