SC06 High performance computing (HPC) geeks will be pleased to find a new set of programming tools from Intel.

The chipmaker this week announced Cluster Toolkit 3.0 and Cluster OpenMP for Intel compilers. Both products should help developers write parallel applications that can be spread across the server clusters that dominate the HPC scene. Intel's announcement comes just days before the HPC-rich Supercomputing conference kicks off in Tampa.

The Cluster Toolkit bundle ships with new releases of Intel's MPI Library, Math Kernel Library Cluster Edition and Trace Analyzer and Collector. Meanwhile, the brand new Cluster OpenMP brings OpenMP to distributed memory clusters, which should please developers working with multi-core chips.

Speaking of multi-core chips, Intel next week plans to release its four-core "Clovertown" version of Xeon. The company has also crafted the S3000PT compact server for HPC customers. The box actually runs on the four-core Kentsfield chips that's aimed more at workstation customers.

"The small 5.9 inch x13 Inch form factor is well suited for personal clusters for individuals and workgroups as well as high- density datacenters such as ISPs and Web hosting," Intel said.

You can find more information on Intel's HPC hardware here. ®