A Look Inside Virginia Tech's New Super Computer

Mr Bob "The original" bougert brings us "...a video of the Virginia Tech super computer centre. How many people think that super computer centres like this, with their reasonably cheap cost should be created in more places? This video of the infamous super computer should be interesting to some and pretty to look for others." It views like an ad for Apple, but Virginia Tech has scored quite an achievement with this milestone, and this should serve as a decent introduction for those unfamiliar with the project.

Comments

Imagine...

[Zelet]

...what they could do now for the same cost using the new Xserve dual 2 Ghz G5.

Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5
512K L2 cache/processor
1GHz system bus/processor
512B DDR400 ECC SDRAM
80GB Serial ATA drive
Dual Gigabit Ethernet

All for only $3000. They could really built a small, inexpensive cluster with a couple thousand of those.

Re:Imagine...

[bedmison]

The rumor here on campus is that Apple is going to let them trade the G5 towers for G5 XServes, 1:1. So if you are wondering where the first 1100 XServes are going, look no further than Blacksburg.

There is some question as to whether they are going install more nodes than the 1100 they have. Given that there are 96 52-U racks currently housing the 1100 towers, they will have plenty of space for more XServes. We did get an email saying the info systems building will be without power over the coming weekend as new power lines are installed...Coincidence? I think not.

The most telling statistic for me

[dgrgich]

I was amazed at the cost/performance ratio that they were able to achieve with Big Mac. Over at Barefeats.com, they point out that a Dual 2ghz G5 is roughly 17% faster AND more expensive than a Dual 1.8 G5 - keeping the cost/performance ratio fairly equal. Taking this out to supercomputer levels, the #1 supercomputer is three and a half times faster than Big Mac but cost 60x as much money!!! Amazing.

Pricing

[TechnoWeeniePas]

The video states that the top two cost in the hundreds of millions to build...but never says how long ago. Dont get me wrong the Mac cluster is quite impressive and inexpensive but the price to power ratio has been changing quite rapidly just in the last few months! So if you rebuilt the top two today how would they rank pricewise?

Re:Pricing

[lquam]

The Earth Simulator (#1) and Asci Q (#2) were both completed in 2002, although I know planning on the Earth Simulator goes back to the mid-90s. No idea on when Asci Q was planned, but it's 8192 1.25GHz Alphas (SC45 servers) which is current technology for the Alpha line. But with TES you're talking about something that's nearly two orders of magnitude more expensive than VT's X. If you could build it today for the same price or perhaps 75-80% and get another 10-20% performance out of it it would still be way more expensive on a $ per GFlop basis.

More interestingly, #4 on the list in the NCSA's Tungsten with 2500 3Ghz P4s. It's about 15% slower with 300 more desktop procs than X and was also made operational in '03. I suppose if they were to run around plugging 3.2 GHz processors into their 1250 Dell boxes one could perhaps sneek up on X, but you'd likely have to wait for the 4 GHz P4e to actually steam past it.

Basically, the supercomputers which were completed most recently ARE the ones at the top of the list. X just happens to be insanely cheap compared to the ones above it.

Len Quam

PCs to Crays

[fdicostanzo]

Does anyone know the relative speeds of todays PCs vs. an old super computer from the 80s?

UMass had one of those Connection Machines with the 65k processes and the blinking lights sitting unused in the basement for awhile and I was always curious to know whether it was any faster than what could be done serially with a 3GHz PC.

Re:PCs to Crays

[flaming-opus]

The connection machines never were real speed deamons in their day. They were built to be used for AI codes (lots of one-bit integer ALU's), but AI groups don't have any money so they re-tooled it to do floating-point math, but they really only sold them with the help of DARPA subsidies.

http://www.cray.com/company/history.html

As for the old crays, you probably don't want any of those from the 80's. Even the New cray X1 processor's have a theoretical peak of 12.8 Ghz, a little less than twice the G5. But it's important to remember that this doesn't tell the whole story. The X1 has 34 GBps/CPU memory bandwidth and 77 GBps/CPU to cache. It also has a 400GBps of interconnect bandwidth for a single cabinet. It's always been cheaper per flop to buy small computers and gang them together. It's not ALWAYS the best solution.

What the big mac performs really well on are hugely parallel computations with few dependancies between each piece of the computation. (like Linpak for example.) When there is a lot of dependancies between peices of the computation, large shared-memory machines work much more efficiently. Thus a bunch of DOD and DOE labs (plus meteorological sites and boeing) are still interested in paying the premium for custom vector supercomputers.

Re:Virginia Tech purchased those Macs at full pric

[Wesley Felter]

OS X server comes with an unlimited client license and you can put it on as many computers as you please.

Nope. Unlimited clients mean that unlimited clients can connect to the server. You still have to have separate OS licenses for your client machines. But this has nothing to do with clusters that run regular OS X.

Why trade 'em back to Apple

[amichalo]

My first thought when I heard about the 1100 VT deal was that when g5 xServes are available, VT will replace the PowerMac cluster and distribute the 1100 over the campus.

Any rumor of that?

Re:Apple Hardware?

[JeffTL]

Apple builds outside, but they seem to do most of their R&D in America. Dell, in my experience, does just the opposite excepting their apparent comparatively low amount of R&D: they do their construction in Round Rock, but more or less stick together the innovations of others. The last thing Dell actually invented that I can recall is their business model. And new ways (e.g. flaps) for a computer to collect dust bunnies unbeknownst to the owner.

Re:Virginia Tech purchased those Macs at full pric

[Vaystrem]

"Apple doesn't place a giant markup on its products. They put a lot of money into product and industrial design. Therefore, Apple computer's cost more."
Wrong. Anyone who has sold computers or has industry experience will probably let you in on a little secret: there is a tiny markup in computers. Period. Money is made in accessories and service plans.

And for (hopefully the last time)Macintoshes are not more expensive! This point has been made many many times on Slashdot. But to make it one more time (IANAMU [I am not a Mac User]):

$6,174.00
Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5
4GB DDR400 SDRAM (PC3200) - 4x1GB
2x250GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
56k V.92 internal modem
SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
Apple Keyboard & Apple Mouse - U.S. English
Mac OS X - U.S. English

$6,634
Dell Precision Workstation 650
2 xIntel(R) Xeon(TM) Processor,3.06GHz,512K Cache
Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Professional
Hyper-Threading feature preset to "ON."
Memory: 4GB,DDR266 SDRAM Memory,NECC
Keyboard: Entry Level, PS/2, No Hot Keys
Mouse: PS/2,Dell, 2 button w/no scroll
Monitor: No Monitor Option
Graphics Cards: nVidia, Quadro NVS 280, 64MB, dual monitor VGA capable
Speakers: Internal Chassis Speaker
Productivity Software: Dell Precision Workstation
4X DVD+RW/+R AND 16XDVD-ROM,DVD Decode/Sonic SE(for Professional Authoring) DRWDV4X
2x250GB SATA, 7200 RPM Hard Drive with DataBurst Cache(TM) SARC RAID
Floppy Drive: 3.5 inch 1.44MB Floppy Drive

So what was that about macintoshes being more expensive?

(Note I had to reformat the Dell Quote so that it would look ok)