One of the posts with first or second hand information said VT went to Dell and HP with a deadline and they could not meet it. Apple could. This seems like a rational explanation to me, as school does start on a date specific and whatever taks the farm is being built for, is obviously for students to work with to some degree.
I initially assumed the farm would be disparate desktops linked by a network. I was wrong about that. They are putting these CPU's in a rack or series of racks as it turns out, possibly to reduce latency issues.
I suppose students could log onto particular CPU's remotely
What is NOT confusing to me aout this is:
1. G5 2x2 desktop CPU's are here today, not later.
2. Even if an x-serve G5 were to be released in say only 3 months, the school year would be 1/3 over by then and the release would likely have some other cripple due to temperature or density or some such and for a cluster, not offer a whole lot more functionality. I think we can assume an Apple sales rep actually gave them a realistic alternative timeframe if not specific details of the coming x-serve before this purchase decsion was made.
3. There are reasons to believe an Apple purchase was potentially a better short term choice for purely performance reasons. The speed specs are better than most current wintel alternatives, and at less electrical and temperature concerns, which were clearly large budget items for this cluster farm.
4. Once the software is written and compiled for G5 and to some extent for altivec, Apple and IBM (IBM adds tremendous credibility and lowers purchase risk) have clearly shown a roadmap to significantly faster and more capable broadband CPU's in the IMMEDIATE future, something no wintel processor can even begin to do.
5. Thus the processor vendor has legs, is more immediately available, uses less support resources, is likely as fast or faster, and offers lower purchase risk. Am I actually talking about Apple Computer, Inc here?
What's wrong with this picture? Apple stock up again today.
Rocketman
