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

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the call-that-a-bargain dept.

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."

10 of 578 comments (clear)

  1. See?! by Short+Circuit · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I told you Macs were cheaper!

    Seriously, though: How?

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    1. Re:See?! by PierceLabs · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And you wouldn't get those same discounts for buying large volumes of PCs? I'm intrigued by this :)

    2. Re:See?! by sql*kitten · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I told you Macs were cheaper!

      Then I hope they're waterproof too, since the $38M also included the cost of a building to put them in...

  2. Hmmm, let's see ... by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    UT is in Austin. Dell is in Austin.

    Can you say "sweetheart deal," boys and girls? I knew you could.

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    The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  3. Yes, I didn't read the article yet by platypus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    but the numbers jumped at me:

    38E+6/6E+2 $ is about 60000 $ per machine. Seems to be a little much for a cluster of "cheap" machines, right?
    Isn't there more to it?

    Ok, off, reading the article.

  4. Re:Paying $126k for each server -- idonfinkso by EinarH · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Sure. However if one exclude support (the article contained no info about this and I'm not sure about the Apple/VT deal) it looks like UT paid far more for the interconnect and network stuff in their cluster.

    The VT use Mellanox InfiniBand (InfiniScale 96-port 10Gb/sec switches and InfiniHost dual port host channel adapters ).
    On the other hand UT probably paid many milions for the Cray solution. Faster(?) and with lower latency, but with a worse price/performance ratio.

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  5. Re:Costs by DAldredge · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How does this software work?

    If they are running the same code multiple times and comparing the results, shouldn't that be taken in to account when computing how fast it is?

  6. Not to mention ECC ram on the Dell's by lazn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It is my understanding that the G5 doesn't support ECC RAM, so how can you trust it's results? With that many machines, the statistics of a bit error in RAM gets quite high.

    So you have fast incorrect data.

    Please correct me if I am wrong.

  7. Re:Costs by Joseph+Vigneau · · Score: 2, Insightful
    You're naive if you believe apple didn't do any dirty cheap dealing with this one...


    Offering discounts in compensation for marketing isn't "dirty cheap dealing", it's good business, particularly if the value of that marketing exceeds the discount amount.. Dell could have done the same...

  8. apple delivers, finally! by kraksmoka · · Score: 2, Insightful
    first, i have never heard of a university paying anything for labor. and if i recall, the VT is a volunteer project, and i for one would spare my time to play with hardware like that.

    second, i have never heard labor factored into the cost of a machine (tho to call either of these beasts, just a machine is a shame, lol) but it would be reasonable for someon to calculate the TCO based on computing power and the cost of cooling, interconnect, etc.

    third, the macs are using SATA which is today's technology, not ancient scsi, score one for cheaper hardware.

    last, can't you just accept that apple finally hit a home run on the high end of the hardware world, for a welcome change from the stagnation of the wintel world? ? ? ?? ?

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