The usual unconfirmed and unreliable report from MacOS Rumors:
Quote:
Apple expecting major surge in cluster computing sales: According to reliable sources in Cupertino, Apple is hiring new staff to coordinate large-scale purchases of G5 systems (currently only PowerMacs of course, but soon to include Xserves and possibly the rumored Xstation) for use in clustering systems - scientific, educational, business, and governmental applications primarily.
Documents recently acquired by rumors include a memo which states that "we now expect yearly systems sales directly attributable to clustering/grid computing applications to exceed 50,000 units in 2004 and 80,000 units in 2005." The memo goes on to state that indirect sales for systems that will distribute loads across multiple computers in less formal environments could eventually double those numbers. Xgrid, Apple's distributed computing technology suite, is under heavy development and Apple is hard at work on other aspects of its hardware and software lineup to take into account rapidly growing demand for these technologies -- not just industry-wide, but also very particularly in terms of consumer interest in Apple itself, following the much-publicized Virginia Tech G5-cluster supercomputer.
I don't think they paid full price. Going to the edu section of the apple store, 1100 powermac g5's with 4 gb ram (minus modem, minus superdrive to combo drive) would cost 5.2 million and that's how much they paid for all their hardware assets (including cases, storage, cables, infrastructure). Oh, "next day" S&H is $5000.
Even Big Mac won't be able to figure out the BCS standings. However,
THIS JUST IN (Actually this may just be a report from earlier in the week. It was in a Sunday newspaper).
Quote:
Va. Tech supercomputer ranks 3rd worldwide
The Associated Press
RICHMOND, Va.
A supercomputer made from 1,100 off-the-shelf Apple Macs at Virginia Tech now ranks third among the world's 500 fastest supercomputers, many of which handle with ease 1 trillion calculations per second.
The Terascale Cluster computer, nicknamed "Big Mac" by some, conducts 9.6 trillion calculations per second, zipping along with 2,200 IBM microprocessors not unlike those found in high-end consumer desktop computers.
"These powerful new machines . . . as our team at Virginia Tech has just demonstrated, are now within reach of most major corporations," said Hassan Aref, dean of Virginia Tech's College of Engineering and a former chief scientist at the San Diego Supercomputer Center.
The Top 500 is a twice-a-year listing started in 1993 to provide a "Who's Who" of hot computers, spotting and tracking trends in high-performance computing.
The Virginia Tech-Apple effort demonstrates the power of clustering, the linking of hundreds or thousands of computers to tackle massive projects, a trend that began a few years ago, according to listmeister and timekeeper Jack J. Dongarra of the University of Tennessee.
The ranking by the Top 500 project will be formally announced Nov. 18 at the Supercomputing Conference in Phoenix.
Theoretically, Big Mac could handle a potential 17 teraflops, or 17 trillion operations per second. That still falls short of the No. 1 machine, Japan's Earth Simulator, whose 5,000-plus processors keep it on top with 35.8 teraflops, with the potential of another 5 teraflops.
A dedicated weapons computer at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the ASCI Q system, holds the current No. 2 spot.
Big Mac began taking shape this summer soon after Apple unveiled its new G5 Power Macs, a slick personal computer lauded as among the world's fastest.
The supercomputer will cost $5.2 million -- including cables -- over five years, compared to the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for other big-boy supercomputers. Japan's Earth Simulator is said to have cost at least $350 million.
Virginia Tech students and faculty began unpacking the computers in September, trying to meet the Oct. 1 deadline to create a supercomputer fit for current Top 500 consideration.
"Modern engineering and science requires high-level computing for all kinds of tasks," Aref said in describing huge, intricate chores best handled by powerful, lightning-fast computers.
Virginia Tech plans to unleash Big Mac on the school's growing research interest in such areas as nanoelectronics, aerodynamics and the molecular modeling of proteins.
Here is some interesting comments about the Varadajan'scomputer.
From wired :
Quote:
Varadarajan revealed that in addition to the G5, he'd also considered using Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron and Intel's Itanium II processors. But the Opteron was too expensive and the Itanium too slow, he said.
"Ironically, they lost the gigahertz game," he said of Intel. "(The G5) is extremely faster than the Itanium II, hands down."
Varadarajan said he received quotes from Dell and a couple of other PC manufacturers, whose prices ranged between $10 million and $12 million.
"Then Apple announced the G5," Varadarajan said.
Varadarajan said before the G5 cluster, he'd never touched a Mac. "They (Apple) were in a bit of a shock," he said. "They assumed I was some kind of Mac fan, but I'd never used a Mac before."
He now has two: a 17-inch PowerBook and a Power Mac G5 in his office.
People, it think it's the switch of the year. You should note that his comment about the itanium 2 is interesting : too slow.
Intel seems to be in trouble, the opteron beats out the crap of the Xeon in the X86 world, and the power PC are more powerful than the itanium 2. They lost also the game consoles market.
"Before I was a strictly Dell guy but then I got tired of it. I looked into the different offers on the marked and I was disappointed by what I found. Then I read about the G5 PowerMac and wondered if it could meet my needs. Next time I came to the mall I went inside the Apple Store and talked to the friendly people and I was sold immediatly to its stellar design and amazing speeds. I immediatly bought 1101 PowerMacs and one Powerbook and haven´t´looked back.
My name is Varadarajan and I work at the university"
"Before I was a strictly Dell guy but then I got tired of it. I looked into the different offers on the marked and I was disappointed by what I found. Then I read about the G5 PowerMac and wondered if it could meet my needs. Next time I came to the mall I went inside the Apple Store and talked to the friendly people and I was sold immediatly to its stellar design and amazing speeds. I immediatly bought 1101 PowerMacs and one Powerbook and haven´t´looked back.
My name is Varadarajan and I work at the university"
Intel is really looking bad...and the P4 Exweme edition really isn't going to save them.
If Intel is looking really bad, what about AMD? AMD's only major OEM for consumer PCs is HP. AMD has no major OEMs selling Athlon 64. AMD hasn't had any other major OEMs for 2 years.
Consider IBM, Gateway, Sony, etc. all sold Athlon boxes at some point, I think Intel is doing just fine. Intel still has a stranglehold on the PC market.
Virginia Tech didn't pay full price; they paid the regular educational price. A lot of people assumed VT paid full price since they didn't get any special deal.
Comments
Apple expecting major surge in cluster computing sales: According to reliable sources in Cupertino, Apple is hiring new staff to coordinate large-scale purchases of G5 systems (currently only PowerMacs of course, but soon to include Xserves and possibly the rumored Xstation) for use in clustering systems - scientific, educational, business, and governmental applications primarily.
Documents recently acquired by rumors include a memo which states that "we now expect yearly systems sales directly attributable to clustering/grid computing applications to exceed 50,000 units in 2004 and 80,000 units in 2005." The memo goes on to state that indirect sales for systems that will distribute loads across multiple computers in less formal environments could eventually double those numbers. Xgrid, Apple's distributed computing technology suite, is under heavy development and Apple is hard at work on other aspects of its hardware and software lineup to take into account rapidly growing demand for these technologies -- not just industry-wide, but also very particularly in terms of consumer interest in Apple itself, following the much-publicized Virginia Tech G5-cluster supercomputer.
Originally posted by uyman
I don't think they paid full price. Going to the edu section of the apple store, 1100 powermac g5's with 4 gb ram (minus modem, minus superdrive to combo drive) would cost 5.2 million and that's how much they paid for all their hardware assets (including cases, storage, cables, infrastructure). Oh, "next day" S&H is $5000.
The RAM didn't come from Apple just so you know.
Originally posted by MacsRGood4U
Did Va Tech use their new supercomputer to devise a game plan that helped them beat Miami?
They need the cluster to help calculate the BCS standings.
THIS JUST IN (Actually this may just be a report from earlier in the week. It was in a Sunday newspaper).
Va. Tech supercomputer ranks 3rd worldwide
The Associated Press
RICHMOND, Va.
A supercomputer made from 1,100 off-the-shelf Apple Macs at Virginia Tech now ranks third among the world's 500 fastest supercomputers, many of which handle with ease 1 trillion calculations per second.
The Terascale Cluster computer, nicknamed "Big Mac" by some, conducts 9.6 trillion calculations per second, zipping along with 2,200 IBM microprocessors not unlike those found in high-end consumer desktop computers.
"These powerful new machines . . . as our team at Virginia Tech has just demonstrated, are now within reach of most major corporations," said Hassan Aref, dean of Virginia Tech's College of Engineering and a former chief scientist at the San Diego Supercomputer Center.
The Top 500 is a twice-a-year listing started in 1993 to provide a "Who's Who" of hot computers, spotting and tracking trends in high-performance computing.
The Virginia Tech-Apple effort demonstrates the power of clustering, the linking of hundreds or thousands of computers to tackle massive projects, a trend that began a few years ago, according to listmeister and timekeeper Jack J. Dongarra of the University of Tennessee.
The ranking by the Top 500 project will be formally announced Nov. 18 at the Supercomputing Conference in Phoenix.
Theoretically, Big Mac could handle a potential 17 teraflops, or 17 trillion operations per second. That still falls short of the No. 1 machine, Japan's Earth Simulator, whose 5,000-plus processors keep it on top with 35.8 teraflops, with the potential of another 5 teraflops.
A dedicated weapons computer at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the ASCI Q system, holds the current No. 2 spot.
Big Mac began taking shape this summer soon after Apple unveiled its new G5 Power Macs, a slick personal computer lauded as among the world's fastest.
The supercomputer will cost $5.2 million -- including cables -- over five years, compared to the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for other big-boy supercomputers. Japan's Earth Simulator is said to have cost at least $350 million.
Virginia Tech students and faculty began unpacking the computers in September, trying to meet the Oct. 1 deadline to create a supercomputer fit for current Top 500 consideration.
"Modern engineering and science requires high-level computing for all kinds of tasks," Aref said in describing huge, intricate chores best handled by powerful, lightning-fast computers.
Virginia Tech plans to unleash Big Mac on the school's growing research interest in such areas as nanoelectronics, aerodynamics and the molecular modeling of proteins.
Originally posted by MacsRGood4U
Even Big Mac won't be able to figure out the BCS standings. However,
THIS JUST IN (Actually this may just be a report from earlier in the week. It was in a Sunday newspaper).
Since the new list hasn't been published yet, that is pure conjecture on the part of whoever wrote that release.
Page 53. 10 teraflops and closing in on the second place computer (with 1/4 of the processors, I might add).
From wired :
Varadarajan revealed that in addition to the G5, he'd also considered using Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron and Intel's Itanium II processors. But the Opteron was too expensive and the Itanium too slow, he said.
"Ironically, they lost the gigahertz game," he said of Intel. "(The G5) is extremely faster than the Itanium II, hands down."
Varadarajan said he received quotes from Dell and a couple of other PC manufacturers, whose prices ranged between $10 million and $12 million.
"Then Apple announced the G5," Varadarajan said.
Varadarajan said before the G5 cluster, he'd never touched a Mac. "They (Apple) were in a bit of a shock," he said. "They assumed I was some kind of Mac fan, but I'd never used a Mac before."
He now has two: a 17-inch PowerBook and a Power Mac G5 in his office.
People, it think it's the switch of the year. You should note that his comment about the itanium 2 is interesting : too slow.
Intel seems to be in trouble, the opteron beats out the crap of the Xeon in the X86 world, and the power PC are more powerful than the itanium 2. They lost also the game consoles market.
My name is Varadarajan and I work at the university"
Originally posted by Anders
"Before I was a strictly Dell guy but then I got tired of it. I looked into the different offers on the marked and I was disappointed by what I found. Then I read about the G5 PowerMac and wondered if it could meet my needs. Next time I came to the mall I went inside the Apple Store and talked to the friendly people and I was sold immediatly to its stellar design and amazing speeds. I immediatly bought 1101 PowerMacs and one Powerbook and haven´t´looked back.
My name is Varadarajan and I work at the university"
The weird thing is that it's real
I wonder where it ranks in cost in comparison to the other 500?
Originally posted by alcimedes
$ per Ghz it's #1
$350mil / $5.2mil = 67 Big Macs for the cost of one Japanese Earth Simulator... Booyah.
Originally posted by alcimedes
$ per Ghz it's #1
Let's not forget the infrastructure that is required to power, cool and network the machines.
Originally posted by Placebo
Intel is really looking bad...and the P4 Exweme edition really isn't going to save them.
If Intel is looking really bad, what about AMD? AMD's only major OEM for consumer PCs is HP. AMD has no major OEMs selling Athlon 64. AMD hasn't had any other major OEMs for 2 years.
Consider IBM, Gateway, Sony, etc. all sold Athlon boxes at some point, I think Intel is doing just fine. Intel still has a stranglehold on the PC market.
Originally posted by Guartho
$350mil / $5.2mil = 67 Big Macs for the cost of one Japanese Earth Simulator... Booyah.
Someone should do that, cluster 67 Big Macs. Would make the Earth Simulator cry like a little girl.