New 324-Node Mac Pro Cluster In The Works At Va Tech

[localoid]

I'd hate to see that electric bill

Not a problem. Utilities @ Virginia Tech

"Few universities serve the electrical needs of their surrounding communities; none to the extent of Virginia Tech and the Virginia Tech Electric Service. And, no other University supplies part of the community requirements from a University owned cogeneration plant."

 

[macduke]

I remember reading about that System X cluster in high school. That was when we got our G5's for video production. That is also about the same time I first used a mac, besides the beige Apple II's when I was in elementary school. I wish I had only one 8-core MP with Snow Leopard and dual Nvidia Geforce 9800's. Can you imagine how the GPGPU's and 8 cores would fly if they were full optimized and put to use in software? Thats a supercomputer right there IMO.

 

[longofest]

I read the article, and neither OS X, XGrid, or FB-DIMMS are mentioned at all.

Steve

Not saying that they are specifically mentioned, but this paragraph in particular caught my eye. Plus, I know in general what the needs are of those kinds of systems, and you can't just build one using systems with celerons (exaggeration to make a point).

Varadarajan and his team chose Mac Pros for a few reasons. For one, Xserves are power dense, which requires a lot of cooling to prevent thermal hot spots. "System X has a hybrid liquid-air cooling system in a dedicated facility, which enables significantly better cooling without hot spots. This machine is however, housed in a conventional air cooled room," Varadarajan told us. Also, the Mac Pro has a large number of power and temperature sensors built in, which is necessary for the power/performance research and tuning, as well as an additional full-height PCI Express 2.0 slot for use in other research projects. And, despite common wisdom to the contrary, the Mac Pros beat other systems on price. "The Mac Pros are highly competitive even against building a white box off the cheapest prices," he added.

 

[JackAxe]

Ahhhh, what a nice setup for rendering. It would only cost about $100k for the additional node licenses.

<]=)

 

[twoodcc]

wow, now this is awesome. i enjoyed the video on youtube about the one in 2003. i look forward to hearing more information about this one

 

[blackpond]

hmf

It's useless unless it has 3G connectivity. I'll wait for the next revision.

 

[sushi]

yeah baby, my alma mater

Not a problem. Utilities @ Virginia Tech

Cool.

wow, now this is awesome. i enjoyed the video on youtube about the one in 2003. i look forward to hearing more information about this one

Likewise. It should be interesting.

 

[localoid]

System X

1,100 Apple PowerMac G5 computers, 12.25 Teraflops, (20.24 peak), running Apple Mac OS X 10.3.9 ("Panther")

 

[dante@sisna.com]

Space, the final frontier.

 

[theblotted]

pic's?

 

[sushi]

Space, the final frontier.

pic's?

Yes, please post pics.

 

[doctajay]

It's useless unless it has 3G connectivity. I'll wait for the next revision.

lol, I know. And can we please get a better camera?

 

[icemanjc]

pic's?

"pics"


First Build.
Upgrade.

 

[jayhawk11]

Can the Mac Pro super-computer max out Crysis? That's the question.

No, it can't. Nor can it play Doom. Nor will it blend.

It will, however, run an algorithm that determines how to open the gates of hell...allowing you to participate in your own real-life version of Doom.

And it will run it "snappily".

 

[coolant113]

That is aewsome!!! i just do not see a use for such a complex computer

 

[fleshman03]

The system was upgraded to 2.3 GHz Xserve G5s approximately a year later. Ars notes that if System X were to be upgraded to current generation Xserves, the result would be a "8800-core monster that could push as much as 100 Tflops—at least in theory— coming close to Top 10 territory."
Article Link

Yes, but can it run vista properly?

LMAO.

Disclaimer: Why would you want to put such amazing computing power the the hands of the "sleeping giant?"

 

[Daim]

So the 10 TFLop system is 3rd place and the 100TFlop system will come close to the top20? article sux

 

[uber_nerd]

Its called "progress"

So the 10 TFLop system is 3rd place and the 100TFlop system will come close to the top20? article sux

There is nothing wrong with the article, 2003 is ancient history in computer terms. What was fast then, is slow now. In 2003 10 TFlop had you cracking the top 10, in 2008 you need a lot more.

That is aewsome!!! i just do not see a use for such a complex computer

I do. Many fields of research use computer simulation to derive solutions. For example, when there is no way to obtain a closed form solution for a mathematical problem, we can numerically derive a fairly precise approximation using Monte Carlo techniques.

As such, big problems require big computers.

To give one quick example, a small project I am working on had 140 PowerMac G5's working 24x7 for about a month. I would love to halve or quarter that time as it impedes my research and slows my publication rate. I am also one in a group of researchers, who all need computer time.

While personal computers have gotten sufficiently fast it seems (although the HD crowd may disagree) in terms of research, we still have a long way to go until we are have sufficiently fast research machines.

 

[sushi]

There is nothing wrong with the article, 2003 is ancient history in computer terms. What was fast then, is slow now. In 2003 10 TFlop had you cracking the top 10, in 2008 you need a lot more.

Funny how technology changes!

 

[fleshman03]

There is nothing wrong with the article, 2003 is ancient history in computer terms. What was fast then, is slow now. In 2003 10 TFlop had you cracking the top 10, in 2008 you need a lot more.

Reminds me a little thing called Moore's Law nd something about 5 years

 

[Full of Win]

Yes, but can it run vista properly?

No, because its a G5, and can't run squat very well (or even at all)

 

[Hattig]

Why use 329 Mac Pros when you could use 30 AMD Radeon HD4700s installed in 15 computers to get that same figure?

 

[fleshman03]

No, because its a G5, and can't run squat very well (or even at all)

I'm just happy someone caught the joke.

 

[Mord]

Christ. The levels of depressing stupidity in this thread....

 

[DoFoT9]

Why use 329 Mac Pros when you could use 30 AMD Radeon HD4700s installed in 15 computers to get that same figure?

somehow i dont think that the GPU's would be able to manage ALL of the calculations that need to be performed. it would require alot of reprogramming anyways wouldnt it?? CPU's would be much easier, plus think of all the extra space/RAM they would get.