1,100 Nos. G5 = VT's new Supercomputer

En_route

http://www.chaosmint.com/mac/techclusterphotos/

http://computing.vt.edu/research_computing/terascale/pressrelease.html

http://www.computing.vt.edu/research_computing/terascale/

http://don.cc.vt.edu/tcfslides.pdf

Zinx

哇，好看是好看，不知合乎成本效益吗......?

En_route

From seventh slide:
http://don.cc.vt.edu/tcfslides.pdf

"...The total cost of the asset, including systems, memory, storage, primary and secondary communications fabrics, and cables is $5.2M"

Apparently, this system could be in neigbourhood of the top 500 most powerful computers: See http://www.chinaunix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=144111

Let's wait and see its actual performance when it handles the "frontiers of science projects".

Unlike Linux clusters (Beowulf clusters), it is expected that this system may not be free because, as it is reported, it will be run under Mac OS X (not Darwin only) + BSD WITH ADAPTATIONS. Moreover, it is also reported it is a joint effort of Apple Computer, VT, network vendors and related commercial organisation -- additonal costs may be involved if other parties are using it.

In any case, it is an interesting project especially when it employs the Mach microkernel. The BSD element is expected to due with the communication infracture amongst the 1100 G5s.

En_route

Some reference on Infiniband:

http://www.chinaunix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1164826#1164826