help with eMac cluster.
My school just got about 80 new iMac intel core 2 duos to replace the old eMacs. They were about to recycle them when I offered to take them. I already have an iMac intel core duo in my room. Is there any way to link up 3? 5? 10? eMacs to my iMac or something to make a cluster supercomputer. Is it just a matter of a few firewire cables...or rewiring the computers and linking them. Many thanks to ANYONE who has an idea!
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My school just got about 80 new iMac intel core 2 duos to replace the old eMacs. They were about to recycle them when I offered to take them. I already have an iMac intel core duo in my room. Is there any way to link up 3? 5? 10? eMacs to my iMac or something to make a cluster supercomputer. Is it just a matter of a few firewire cables...or rewiring the computers and linking them. Many thanks to ANYONE who has an idea!
Given that these things are G4s around the 1GHz or less, your intel iMac is worth about 5 of those machines. So if you have 10, you've at the very most tripled your processing power while multiplying your power consumption by way more than 11 because of all the CRTs you'll be running.
What I would do is sell these machines on ebay for £100 or so each. If you sell about 10, then you've made enough to get another new Mac. You might even make enough to get a nice Macbook Pro.
As for hooking up multiple machines, you can do it via ethernet (if you get a MBP for example, GB ethernet is faster than FW). I haven't heard about it done with firewire but I guess it's possible. The G5 supercomputer that was built used the PCI express slot for the connection I think.