Another AMD supercomputer, 13,000 quad-core
 

The new computer, to be built by Sun Microsystems Inc. using 13,000
microprocessors made by Advanced Micro Devices Inc., will be more
powerful than any supercomputer currently in operation, UT says.

It will have a peak computing power of more than 400 trillion
operations per second, which makes it more than 40 percent faster than
the current supercomputing speed champ, Blue Gene/L, developed by IBM
Corp. for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

http://www.statesman.com/business/co...9computer.html

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Another AMD supercomputer, 13,000 quad-core
 

On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 15:22:41 -0500, .Some.Guy.
wrote:

The new computer, to be built by Sun Microsystems Inc. using 13,000
microprocessors made by Advanced Micro Devices Inc., will be more
powerful than any supercomputer currently in operation, UT says.

It will have a peak computing power of more than 400 trillion
operations per second, which makes it more than 40 percent faster than
the current supercomputing speed champ, Blue Gene/L, developed by IBM
Corp. for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

http://www.statesman.com/business/co...9computer.html

....which will result in a nice uptick in overall Opteron sales. Hmm,
what kind of frame rate this thing will reach in [your favorite game
here]? ;-)

NNN

Another AMD supercomputer, 13,000 quad-core
 

..Some.Guy. wrote:
The new computer, to be built by Sun Microsystems Inc. using 13,000
microprocessors made by Advanced Micro Devices Inc., will be more
powerful than any supercomputer currently in operation, UT says.

It will have a peak computing power of more than 400 trillion
operations per second, which makes it more than 40 percent faster than
the current supercomputing speed champ, Blue Gene/L, developed by IBM
Corp. for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

http://www.statesman.com/business/co...9computer.html


It seems so simple to put together a supercomputer these days. Just put
tons and tons of processors on. 10 000 here, 12 000 there, 13 000 here,
15 000 there, etc.

Yousuf Khan

Another AMD supercomputer, 13,000 quad-core
 

Yousuf Khan wrote:


It seems so simple to put together a supercomputer these days. Just put
tons and tons of processors on. 10 000 here, 12 000 there, 13 000 here,
15 000 there, etc.

Yousuf Khan

once you get over about 1000 CPUs,
you also keep adding air conditioners to keep the build cool.....

Another AMD supercomputer, 13,000 quad-core
 

ditto. the cooling on that joker fails and it would go up like the 4th
of july!

Another AMD supercomputer, 13,000 quad-core
 

Yousuf Khan wrote:

It seems so simple to put together a supercomputer these days. Just put
tons and tons of processors on. 10 000 here, 12 000 there, 13 000 here,
15 000 there, etc.


Just so, and it has been so for a long time. "Supercomputers" are now
more about real estate than about technology or cleverness. Buy
yourself a big warehouse, lots of cable, and some switches. You will
probaby also need to speak to your local electrical utility about your
needs.

The action isn't in the processors anymore. It's partly in the
interconnect, which is why Opteron is so attractive for building
supercomputers that can actually do something. It's also in power
consumption, which is why x86 clones (nor Itanium) may not be the
future of supercomputers.

RM

Another AMD supercomputer, 13,000 quad-core
 

On 25 Oct 2006 10:26:32 -0700, "Robert Myers" wrote:

Yousuf Khan wrote:

It seems so simple to put together a supercomputer these days. Just put
tons and tons of processors on. 10 000 here, 12 000 there, 13 000 here,
15 000 there, etc.


Just so, and it has been so for a long time. "Supercomputers" are now
more about real estate than about technology or cleverness. Buy
yourself a big warehouse, lots of cable, and some switches. You will
probaby also need to speak to your local electrical utility about your
needs.

The action isn't in the processors anymore. It's partly in the
interconnect, which is why Opteron is so attractive for building
supercomputers that can actually do something. It's also in power
consumption, which is why x86 clones (nor Itanium) may not be the
future of supercomputers.

Hey Robert - haven't heard from you here in a while.

Trouble is, nobody, not even the U.S. taxpayer, can afford a new custom
architecture and CPU design... which is going to be obsolete the day it
first starts "crunching". I believe that even the Japanese have finally
come to the same conclusion. Maybe the Chinese, with their uncanny ability
to hide epxense, will bite??:-)

--
Rgds, George Macdonald

Another AMD supercomputer, 13,000 quad-core
 

George Macdonald wrote:

Hey Robert - haven't heard from you here in a while.

My surplus U2 didn't come equipped with an internet connection.

Trouble is, nobody, not even the U.S. taxpayer, can afford a new custom
architecture and CPU design... which is going to be obsolete the day it
first starts "crunching". I believe that even the Japanese have finally
come to the same conclusion. Maybe the Chinese, with their uncanny ability
to hide epxense, will bite??:-)

But specialized coprocessors are not out of reach. Folding at Home is
doing great things with GPU's.

Of course, saying "oh, we'll use coprocessors" is just another version
of the interconnect problem, but it may be the only practical solution
to the power consumption problem and the only solution at all to the
class of problems that appears to concern you: problems with a long
critical path.

Robert.

Another AMD supercomputer, 13,000 quad-core
 

George Macdonald wrote:
snip

Trouble is, nobody, not even the U.S. taxpayer, can afford a new custom
architecture and CPU design... which is going to be obsolete the day it
first starts "crunching". I believe that even the Japanese have finally
come to the same conclusion. Maybe the Chinese, with their uncanny ability
to hide epxense, will bite??:-)


Sure, all kinds of people can afford such a design. What's it cost?
Couple of Billion, or half of a fab? The Government (US Government that
is) takes in about 2500 Gigabucks per year and spends somewhat more.
The feds could afford an new state of the art architecture and set of
chips and boxes with the chips without breaking a sweat. It would be
cheap compared to developing an manufacturing a new fighter plane, or a
new destroyer.

On the other hand, even the government would have to have a semi valid
reason for doing so, and it isn't clear that there is one. Although
Cray and their vector processors are an interesting data point.

--
Del Cecchi
"This post is my own and doesn’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions,
strategies or opinions.”

Another AMD supercomputer, 13,000 quad-core
 

Del Cecchi wrote:


On the other hand, even the government would have to have a semi valid
reason for doing so, and it isn't clear that there is one. Although
Cray and their vector processors are an interesting data point.

When the Cray-1 first came out, people talked overenthusiastically
about numerical wind tunnels and stunning computer animations and
graphics. The company I worked for closed a lab without a second
thought on the not entirely-incorrect theory that fluid mechanical
experiments were mostly a thing of the past. Funny thing is, most of
those predictions have come true, just not in the way or on the time
scale anyone would have expected at the time.

A similar development in biotechnology would have all the floor space
around MIT filled with computational scientists instead of wet
chemists. We're no further away from that than we were from a
numerical wind tunnel when people spoke glibly of such a thing, but
people talk much more cautiously now than they did then.

It's about vision and pizazz, not transistors, and the annual
supercomputer linpack ho-hum hasn't helped.

Robert.