Dell $38m Supercomputer [not] More Costly than VT's G5s

An anonymous reader writes "According to the Austin Business Journal, Dell's 3-teraflop, 600 server supercomputer cluster cost the University of Texas $38 million. As The Apple Turns has pointed out that this is 7 times the cost (and a quarter of the power) of Apple's cluster at Virginia Tech! " Update: 10/14 17:56 GMT by M : worm eater writes "The Register has posted a correction to the widely-reported story that a 3.7 terraflop Dell cluster cost the University of Texas $38 million. As it turns out, the computer cost $3 million, vs. $5.2 million for the 17.6 terraflop Mac G5 cluster at Virginia Tech."

Comments

Shocking!

[Bob9113]

So wait, let me see if I get this straight. Are they acutally implying that supercomputers built starting five years ago are actually more expensive per unit of computing power than supercomputers built today? Why, if that were true, and if the same thing applied to workstations, then you'd be able to get a 2 gigahertz machine today for what a 500 megahertz machine cost five years ago. Ludicrous I tell you. Simply ludicrous.

the extra 30 million

[Triumph The Insult C]

went towards mice with more than one key

Re:Costs

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

Imagine it, we have ASCII blue, ASCII red and ASCII white guarded by guys with guns... ...Cool.

Wanna really go for cool? Guard the Apples using girls with guns!

Re:OMFG LOL!!.. Mod parent up plz!!!.. :)

[Evil Adrian]

Not if you picture the kind of girl that would actually be guarding a supercomputer with a gun... ... beastly.

Re:Costs

[King Babar]

Wanna really go for cool? Guard the Apples using girls with guns!

And, because this is Apple we're talking about, you make a movie about it and call it Kill Bill, Volume 3.

Sorry about that.

Re:Making it even more meaningless

[wizkid]

Of course it matters! The Apple Bigots need the Apple cluster to be faster, and the Intel Bigots need the Intel cluster to be faster.

One positive note though, Both the Apple and Intel clusters will be faster then the Microsloth cluster ;)

Re:OMFG LOL!!.. Mod parent up plz!!!.. :)

[Jellybob]

Supercomputer with a gun?

What happens when it attains self-conciousness, and kills it's operators?

Re:Here's a copy of the apple turns web page

[Anonymous Coward]

600 motherboards on ebay: 30000$
2400 256 MB sdram ram chips: 240000$

The look on michael dell's face when you kick his overpriced "support" in the garbage, priceless.

There are some things money cant buy. for everything else, there is ebay.