1,100 Connected G5's

Drool ;-)

[xcandyman]

[news.bbc.co.uk...]

The project involved placing 1,100 brand new Apple G5 towers side by side, making it the world's most powerful "homebuilt" system.

It is capable of 17.6 trillion floating point operations per second, with a combined storage capacity of 176 terabytes.

"Each individual G5 is a dual processor, 2GHZ machine with 4GB of memory. So it's extremely fast," said Pat Arvin, Project Coordinator at Virginia Tech.

Why didn't my college do this?

[Macguru]

Do you think they can live with 1,099?

[Yidaki]

How coool!

Arguably Virginia Tech has revolutionised the world of supercomputing with a simplistic setup that can be duplicated around the globe by other institutions. ... they can send off for a kit that tells them how to do it.

Did you read that GoogleGuy ...? ;)

[Strange]

GO HOKIES!

[bcolflesh]

From /.

apple.slashdot.org/apple/03/10/14/1418216.shtml?tid=126

[Travoli]

>GO HOKIES!

Rah Rah VPI!

[EliteWeb]

Powerful Machines - What a cluster of g5s :)

[Bradley]

<------- VT graduate, Dec 1997.

[jimbeetle]

I've been trying to find where the 17.6 teraflop speed of this sucker fits in what's currently out there but can't find any sort of chart that ranks supercomputers this way.

Top500.org uses values called Rmax and Rpeak. With these, the NEC Earth Simulator is #1, down to the HP Superdome 750 at #500. If the 17.6 trillion teraflops of this machine is somewhat equal to an Rmax of 17600 gigaflops it looks like the VT machine is the #2 machine. But I have no idea what I'm reading.

Any idea where this Hokie machine fits in the super scheme of things?

[Fiver]

hmmm. my school was running VMS on an old... old VAX when I left... three years ago.

sigh.

[willybfriendly]

I've been trying to find where the 17.6 teraflop speed of this sucker fits in what's currently out there but can't find any sort of chart that ranks supercomputers this way.

The world's fastest supercomputer, NEC's Earth Simulator, is made from specialised components. It is theoretically capable of 35 thousand gigaflops or 35 trillion floating point operations per second. - [newscientist.com...]

WBF

[jimbeetle]

>>The world's fastest supercomputer, NEC's Earth Simulator...

Thanks WBG. Got that part. Was wondering if VT's 17.6 teraflops actually do put it #2 on top500.org, ahead of the HP ASCI Q at 13.9 Rmax. Think the Rmax is the tested rating.

Whichever way, a new list is due out in a month. Will see how things stand then.

[xcandyman]

I'm tempted in submitting my desktop pc in the top500 supercomputers. Where do you think I will rank with a Thunderbird 1.4Ghz and 512mb memory?

;-)

[bcolflesh]

Updated stats:

slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/22/1727208

[stuntdubl]

The "Big Mac"

Too cool...

I am not a member of the Mac cult, but I do appreciate at the very least there aesthetic value and ability to crash less often. Looks like a fun project;)

[mack]

"In early September, the G5s started arriving by the lorry load"

How I would have loved to be a truck driver :-)

Mack.