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Drooling Over VA Tech's 1100-Node G5 Cluster

Posted by pudge on from the more-pics-wanted dept.

Mr. Slurpee writes "Virginia Tech's 1100-node dual 2 GHz Apple G5 Terascale Cluster is getting racked up and ready to roar. If you're a penniless geek like me, at least there's some tech pr0n for us to drool over. There's 1100 of them ... think they could part with one?" Update: 09/22 02:55 GMT by T : Matt submits a link to this full mirror of the photos, writing "The page owner's comment on the original mirror being taken down due to bandwidth? 'Bring it on!'"

11 of 441 comments (clear)

  1. Why G5s? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Why are they using G5s? These Macs are for looking good, for style & class, for home or office, not for getting jammed into racks as in the pics.

    What's the point? Do they actually offer anything over a similar PC? Do VA's apps only run on PPC? Surely it's a pretty expensive option, and all those good looks wasted... :)

    1. Re:Why G5s? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      "IBM/AMD (opteron) - required twice the number of processors"

      Is that why the Opteron_246 beats the Dual_2GHz_G5 in SPECint2000, SPECfp2000, SPECint_rate2000 and SPECfp_rate2000?

      It has already been shown that the only reason they chose the G5 was because they received an 'anonymous' grant that required it. I have a feeling that $5million from Apple's PR budget might somehow be involved.

    2. Re:Why G5s? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      "IBM/AMD (opteron) - required twice the number of processors and was twice the price in the desired configuration; had no chassis available."

      Sucker. I rewmember years ago when Apple used to advertise Apples as twice as fast as pcs because of one benchmark they found where it was true. Apple spins benchmarks worse than Al Franken, Michael Moore, and Pat Robertson spin the news combined. The AMD Opteron is neither slower nor more expensive than the IBM chip.

  2. World's Fastest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    This G5 cluster will undoubtedly be the world's faster cluster for integer and single-precision floating point operations on vectors, possibly even beating the Earth Simulator because of Altivec.

    Just think of the RC5 score this cluster could achieve.

  3. Why expect reason in this case? by mao+che+minh · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    They built a 1000-node cluster out of expensive and yet-to-be-proven G5 systems. I wouldn't expect much rationality out of such a camp, even when it comes to website design.

    1. Re:Why expect reason in this case? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Because they didn't have to pay for it. VATech received the grant from an 'anonymous donor' for the project. 10 to 1 the money came directly from Jobs. I guess when he saw that all the real clusters were being built with Opterons he needed to show a G5 cluster could compete. Unfortunately for him this market is more concerned with price/performance than pretty cases.

  4. Mod Parent Up by Stigmata669 · · Score: -1, Flamebait
    This is not flamebait, it is a legit question. Why didn't they use rack mount computers?

    The parent isn't saying hey G5s are barbie computers you have no penises. Get with it, moderators.

    --
    Yawn.
  5. Ordering through iTunes by AllMightyPaul · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Though those of you who aren't at VT can't see this image, it's still quite hilarious.

    Apparently Tech ordered the G5s through iTunes: http://computing.vt.edu/research_computing/terasca le/images/g5ordering/IMG_0099.JPG

  6. Nope, read the stories by FredFnord · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    The boxes were purchased at the standard academic discount price from Apple. Not even a volume discount. It's said so in at least two of the articles I read about this story.

    But the truth usually doesn't stand very well against the 'obviously true', does it?

    -fred

    --
    Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
  7. Re:Apple Drooling over GNAA Members Cocks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Did anyone else notice that there's a black guy stealing some those computers in the first picture there?

  8. malice and ignorance by jefu · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    The old saying goes "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

    But when it comes to web designers these days, I suspect they've either got major stock in adobe (pdf), in microsoft (IE specific code) or in macromedia (flash).

    So I'd be tempted to rewrite it as "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stock ownership."

    Though, I do know enough web designers that I suspect few own stock and I know just how lazy and incapable many of them are. So, more sensibly it should be written as "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by a complete inability to learn anything more difficult than 'Dick and Jane do Power Point'."

    And the fact that so many of our educational institutions are on all fours for the convenience of Microsoft and other corporations helps not a whit to alleviate the general witlessness.