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More Details Of IBM's Blue Gene/L

Posted by timothy on from the not-yet-for-common-folk dept.

Bob Plankers writes "By now we've all heard about IBM's Blue Gene/L, LLNL's remarkable new supercomputer which is intended to be the fastest supercomputer on Earth when done (360 TeraFLOPS). IBM has released some new photos of the prototype, and renditions of the final cluster. Note that the racks are angled in order to permit hot air to escape vertically and reduce the need for powered cooling. The machine uses custom CPUs with dual PowerPC 440 processing cores, four FPUs (two per core), five network controllers, 4 MB of DRAM, and a memory controller onboard. The prototype has 512 CPUs running at 700 MHz, and when finished the entire machine will have 65536 dual-core CPUs running at 1 GHz or more. Stephen Shankland's ZDnet article also mentions that the system runs Linux, but not on everything: 'Linux actually resides on only a comparatively small number of processors; the bulk of the chips run a stripped-down operating system that lets it carry out the instructions of the Linux nodes.'"

19 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Doom3? by arcanumas · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, it may be able to play Doom3 when it is released.

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    Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
  2. Infinite by Raynach · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm really impressed with this computer. I think it's going to be the first computer that can finish an infinite loop in under an hour.

    --
    - A
    1. Re:Infinite by Bronster · · Score: 5, Funny

      If an infinite loop is infinite, how can it be finished?

      That would be the sound of the joke wooshing around, and around, and around, and ... your head.

  3. Travelling salesmen. by Manywele · · Score: 5, Funny

    This will be sure to boost the effeciency of travelling salesmen everywhere.

    1. Re:Travelling salesmen. by Vegard · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually, we better let the salesmen travel. It's a little known secret that the reason computers are so bad at solving the travelling salesmen problem is that those who design computers are technicians, and everyone knows that tech people hates salesmen, so the longer they spend travelling, the better for the techs.

  4. "4MB of DRAM" by vogon+jeltz · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... those were the times. Ahhh, memories!

  5. Re:it's all cool and everything... by krumms · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...but can this computer actually run:

    10 LET x = 1
    20 LET y = 2
    30 PRINT x + y

    This seems to be a "does it run Linux?" joke gone horribly wrong.

    Or is that kernel code you're posting? :P

  6. 4 MB DRAM by Sensei_knight · · Score: 3, Funny

    Holly shit where do I buy on of thoes!

  7. Re:it's all cool and everything... by Uerige · · Score: 0, Funny

    Or is that kernel code you're posting? :P
    I sure hope he's paid the royalties to SCO, then.

  8. Subjective... by Decameron81 · · Score: 5, Funny
    "The prototype has 512 CPUs running at 700 MHz, and when finished the entire machine will have 65536 dual-core CPUs running at 1 GHz or more."


    Woah, this is the first time I think a box with 512 CPUs at 700 Mhz each one is crap.

    Diego Rey
    --
    diegoT
  9. It's gorgeous... by mOoZik · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think I wet my pants.

    --
    A blog like any other.
  10. I'm surprised! by Epsillon · · Score: 4, Funny

    The standard of trolling has certainly fallen recently. Where's the SCO licence fee estimate for the finished 65536 processor SMP unit? You got a better class of idiot in those days... ;o)

    --
    Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
    1. Re:I'm surprised! by Ianoo · · Score: 4, Funny

      IBM better not forget to pay SCO their $45,809,664!!

  11. Re:it's all cool and everything... by gazbo · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yes. The thought of a creature with two X chromosomes is horrifying.

  12. See for yourself by mangu · · Score: 4, Funny
    save this as "test.c":
    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <stdlib.h>
    #include <time.h>
    #include <sys/time.h>
    #include <unistd.h>

    #define N 1000

    struct timeval tv;
    struct timezone tz;
    long bu, bs, du, ds;

    int main()
    {
    int i;
    double t;

    printf("Infinite loop test\n");

    gettimeofday(&tv, &tz);
    bs = tv.tv_sec;
    bu = tv.tv_usec;

    for (i = 0; i > -1; i++)
    ;

    gettimeofday(&tv, &tz);
    du = tv.tv_usec - bu;
    ds = tv.tv_sec - bs;
    t = (double)ds + (double)du / 1e6;
    printf("executed in %13.6f seconds\n", t);
    }


    compile and link with:

    gcc -g -o test test.c

    run:

    Infinite loop test
    executed in 3.888419 seconds
    1. Re:See for yourself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      That's pretty funny, in a geek sort of way. Shit .. that means I'm a geek. Shit.

    2. Re:See for yourself by uid8472 · · Score: 3, Funny

      My computer has 64-bit ints, you insensitive clod!

  13. Re:it's all cool and everything... by 42forty-two42 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Don't be silly, kernel code would be:

    #include &ltlinux/config.h>
    #include &ltlinux/module.h>
    #include &ltlinux/kernel.h>
    #include &ltlinux/types.h>

    MODULE_LICENCE("GPL");

    __asmlinkage inline unsigned int add_x_plus_y(unsigned int x, unsigned int y){
    unsigned int ret;
    spin_lock_irq(&current->arith->lock);
    current->arith->accum = x;
    current->arith->oprand = y;
    __perform_add(&current->arith);
    ret = current->arith->accum;
    spin_unlock_irq(&current->arith->lock);
    return ret;
    }

  14. Re:Dumpsterdiving seems a waste of time at IBM by treat · · Score: 2, Funny

    In that picture you can also see sprinklers! Oh my.