We present results from a set of high ($512^3$ effective resolution), and ultra-high ($1024^3)$ SPH adiabatic cosmological simulations of cluster formation aimed at studying the internal structure of the intracluster medium (ICM). We discuss the radial structure and scaling relations expected from purely gravitational collapse, and show that the choice of a particular halo model can have important consequences on the interpretation of observational data. The validity of the approximations of hydrostatic equilibrium and a polytropic equation of state are checked against results of our simulations. We also show the first results from an unprecedented large-scale simulation of 500 $h^{-1}$ Mpc and $2\times 512^3$ gas and dark matter particles. This experiment will make possible a detailed study of the large-scale distribution of clusters as a function of their X-ray properties.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html