Several aspects were taken into account when creating the final benchmark suite: PRACE investigated the actual usage of scientific applications in Europe, including their industrial usage, and the scalability and performance of the applications were tested on the PRACE prototype Tier-0 platforms.

The PRACE benchmark suite was prepared in such a way that it offers high flexibility. This includes the possibility to use a subset of the full benchmark suite for procurement of specific Tier-0 architectures. Ease of use of the benchmark suite is assured by its integration into the flexible JUBE - Jülich Benchmark Environment - framework, which includes verification procedures.

The applications selected for the PRACE application benchmark suite are:

• QCD, particle physics
• Quantum_Espresso, computational chemistry
• NAMD, computational chemistry
• CPMD, computational chemistry
• Code_Saturne, computational fluid dynamics
• GADGET, astronomy and cosmology
• TORB/EUTERPE, plasma physics
• WRF, atmospheric modelling
• NEMO, ocean modelling
• CP2K, computational chemistry
• GROMACS, computational chemistry
• NS3D, computational fluid dynamics
• AVBP, computational fluid dynamics
• HELIUM, computational physics
• TRIPOLI-4, computational engineering
• PEPC, plasma physics
• GPAW, computational chemistry
• ALYA, computational mechanics
• OCTOPUS, computational chemistry
• BSIT, computational geophysics
• ELMER, computational engineering
• SPECFEM3D, computational geophysics