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New SGI Altix 3000

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the heavy-metal dept.

dlloyd writes "SGI has just publicly announced the Altix 3000 series of computers that can scale from 4 to hundreds of processors, with up to 64 processors per single system image. Processors each come in a C brick that has 4 CPUs. I/O is done though IX and PX bricks (12 PCI slots per brick, IX bricks have a base I/O controler and two ultra 160 disks inside), just like on the Origin 3900 series. Anything more than 8 CPUs (2 C bricks) is connected by R bricks, which route the NumaLink packets between nodes. The NumaLink network is good for an aggregate 6.4 gigabytes/sec to *each* node. That scales as you add more C and R bricks. Basically, you can think of this as SGI's origin 3000 series, except that it runs Linux and has Itanium2 processors. The performance and scalability is like nothing that has ever run Linux and is *far* ahead of the competition. For those of you who wonder why anyone would need a 64 processor Linux machine, many scientific and technical customers prefer running their code on large, single system image machines. Large single system image machines are also less labor intensive to maintain and admin, plus they work much better on code that needs to share memory and pass messages between threads (even myrinet and mpi is glacial compared to the SGI numalink network and running code multithreaded)."

6 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Another Slashvertisement! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Don't believe me? Why don't you look at dlloyd's posting history. There is none!

  2. Sgi gets employee to market product, film at 11 by Flamesplash · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    From davelloyd.com the story posters website

    Work: Field Technical Analyst, SGI

    Now don't everyone go submitting their products at once. ;)

    --
    "Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
  3. Congratulations by I+Am+The+Owl · · Score: 2, Offtopic

    I just got my copy of Linux Journal, what, a week ago, and you guys are just now reporting on this? You didn't even steal your "news" from the right source!

    --

    --sdem
  4. Itaniums? by zaqattack911 · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Could someone shoot me some info in-regards to when Itaniums will be available in stores?

    If I understand correctly.. the new AMD hammer (x86-64) will be marketed towards regular consumers. Is the same not being done with Itaniums?

  5. Re:in SOVIET RUSSIA by larien · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    OK, this has been bugging me for a while now; where did this in-joke of "in Soviet Russia" start, anyway?

    Yes, I may well be unhip and "not with it"; heck it took me about a fortnight to find something which told where the "all your base" came from...

  6. Re:in SOVIET RUSSIA by Squid_Law · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    It was from a joke Yakov Smirnoff (comedian) made. The original joke was "In Soviet Russia ... Television watches YOU !"