Supercomputer Doubles Own Record

[PlaceofDis]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4386404.stm



very interesting

 

[homerjward]

imagine the frame rates that gets in doom 3...

 

[TheMonarch]

Interesting... Imagine coding for 131K+ processors

imagine the frame rates that gets in doom 3...

I knew someone would say that. But doom (or any game for that matter) isn't made with 131 thousand processors in mind... It probably wouldn't be that great...

 

[jsw]

Interesting... Imagine coding for 131K+ processors

Honestly? It's no harder than coding for 100K processors, believe it or not.

Very impressive specs. Hopefully, the new Macintel PBs will come close....

 

[Deepdale]

very interesting

From the linked article: "It reached 280.6 teraflops - that is 280.6 trillion calculations a second. ... Each person in the world with a handheld calculator would still take decades to do the same calculations Blue Gene is now able to do every second."

Those numbers are beyond mind-boggling. What will the stunning accomplishments be in another 10 years?

 

[PlaceofDis]

From the linked article: "It reached 280.6 teraflops - that is 280.6 trillion calculations a second. ... Each person in the world with a handheld calculator would still take decades to do the same calculations Blue Gene is now able to do every second."

Those numbers are beyond mind-boggling. What will the stunning accomplishments be in another 10 years?

exactly. the future implications of what we might be possible to do in the years to come are amazing

 

[JW8725]

Doesnt this use Power PC processors??

 

[katie ta achoo]

Ah, but if I got one, all I would do is use Adium and post on MR.



/wants one
//needs more RAM!

 

[Lacero]

Yet with 260 Tflops of computing power, it can't still match the computing power of a mosquito's brain. We'll get there one day.

 

[whocares]

Yet with 260 Tflops of computing power, it can't still match the computing power of a mosquito's brain. We'll get there one day.

Mosquitos don't have brains, merely several neurone nodes along the length of its body.

I do agree however that even at 200+ TFlops, Blue is still incredibly dumb and can only do what it's told

Think they might consider joining the MR folding team?

 

[dubbz]

Doesnt this use Power PC processors??

Yes, PowerPC 440 @ 700MHz, running Linux, according to top500.org.

Wonder how many WU/day this thing could do for Folding@Home... (team 3446 ) (if they'd port the client, that is)

 

[jhu]

imagine that. put a bunch of embedded processors together and you get a supercomputer.

 

[OutThere]

Think they might consider joining the MR folding team?

Oh man...if we could even just get 1 second of processor time from that thing we'd be set...

 

[revisionA]

Yet with 260 Tflops of computing power, it can't still match the computing power of a mosquito's brain. We'll get there one day.

I just hope it doesnt think its a mosquito when it becomes self aware, and swats us with our own nukes that it knows inside and out.

$

 

[Melkor]

I always found the whole DNA simulation thing really interesting.


I wonder how big it is though? They should have someone standing next to it in the picture.

 

[wordmunger]

Yes, PowerPC 440 @ 700MHz, running Linux, according to top500.org.

Wonder how many WU/day this thing could do for Folding@Home... (team 3446 ) (if they'd port the client, that is)

Only 700 MHz? Clearly it's a lame computer then

Seriously, if this isn't an excellent illustration of the megahertz myth, I don't know what is.

 

[combatcolin]

imagine the frame rates that gets in doom 3...

Bets on favourite that this new Big Blue comes with a bog standard video card...

 

[jhu]

Only 700 MHz? Clearly it's a lame computer then

Seriously, if this isn't an excellent illustration of the megahertz myth, I don't know what is.

if you put enough processors together, the speed of each may not matter as much. hell, if you put a million 486-like processors together, it'd probably be much faster. the top computer has 65k processors vesus #3 with 10k processors.

 

[Dane D.]

Wow

According to my calculations, it would process a SETI workunit in 0.0085531005 seconds. (2,400,000,000,000 divided by 280,600,000,000,000) 2.4 trillion is what SETI says is the minimum calculations needed to process a workunit.

 

[Platform]

Now apples switches to Intel

 

[greatdevourer]

Now apples switches to Intel

Have you seen the PC equivilent of the new G5? summat stupid like a 10Ghz P4

 

[jhu]

Have you seen the PC equivilent of the new G5? summat stupid like a 10Ghz P4

i think you a 1.8ghz opteron

 

[greatdevourer]

i think you a 1.8ghz opteron

Quad Core 2.8Ghz Xeon, with a 2.4Ghz dual core Opteron lagging someway behind (partly because no-ones tested a quad core 2.4 Opteron on this site)

 

[Apple Hobo]

I always found the whole DNA simulation thing really interesting.


I wonder how big it is though? They should have someone standing next to it in the picture.

Each computer cabinet is about the size of a large refrigerator, so the whole system is pretty large.

pics

 

[jhu]

Quad Core 2.8Ghz Xeon, with a 2.4Ghz dual core Opteron lagging someway behind (partly because no-ones tested a quad core 2.4 Opteron on this site)

i see. that makes your previous post rather misleading. as far as i know, there is no quad core xeon currently. you're probably talking about dual dual-core systems. in which case, i'd be surprised if a 2.4ghz dual dual-core system doesn't outpace its peers (mainly xeon and ppc970)