At the time of writing, HECToR employed both dual- and quad-core nodes. Codes compiled for the dual-core nodes can also run on the quad-core nodes, but will not exploit the benefits of the quad-core architecture, namely the new cache hierarchy and to carry out core computational work as packed SEE instructions. However, these benefits have a down side, in that codes compiled for the quad-core nodes may not work correctly on dual-core nodes.
Now, at the time of writing, all codes run serially will employ dual-core nodes, whereas all codes run in parallel will employ quad-core nodes. Further, since many of OpenFOAM's solvers can be run both in parallel and in serial, both version of OpenFOAM have been installed twice, once for dual-core nodes and once for quad-core nodes.
If you require OpenFOAM 1.6 compiled for quad-core, then please employ
the
OpenFOAM/quad-core/OpenFOAM-1.6 installation. If you
require OpenFOAM 1.5, compiled for dual-core or quad-core, then please
employ the
OpenFOAM/dual-core/OpenFOAM-1.5 and
OpenFOAM/quad-core/OpenFOAM-1.5 versions, respectively.
NB all OpenFOAM codes can be run in either serial or parallel and that codes compiled for quad-core nodes may fail when run serially, as the serial queue employs dual-core nodes only.