PARA'04 State-of-the-Art
in Scientific Computing
June 20-23, 2004 (Home page)
Updated: 20 February 2004

A numerical evaluation of sparse direct solvers for the solution of large, sparse, symmetric linear systems of equations

Jennifer A. Scott and Nicholas I. M. Gould
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK
and
Yifan Hu
Wolfram Reserach, UK

In recent years a number of solvers for the direct solution of large sparse, symmetric linear systems of equations have been developed. These include solvers that are designed for the solution of positive-definite systems as well as those that are principally intended for solving indefinite problems. The available choice can make it difficult for users to know which solver is the most appropriate for their applications. We report on using performance profiles as a tool for evaluating and comparing the performance of the serial sparse direct solvers on an extensive set of large test problems taken from a range of practical applications. Our aim is to make recommendations as to the efficacy of the various packages.

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