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IBM Sets Supercomputer Speed Record
T.Hobbes writes "IBM's BlueGene/L has set a new speed record at 36.01 TFlops, beating the Earth Simulator's 35.86 TFlops, according to internal IBM testing. 'This is notable because of the fixation everyone has had on the Earth Simulator,' said Dave Turek, I.B.M.'s vice president for the high-performance computing division. The AP story is here; the NY Times' story is here."
I wish I knew what a Tecord was...
/. shoud be using automatic text-box spell checking found in KDE...
Maybe
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Is that how they measure Records in Teraflops?
Someone call Huinness' Nook pf Eorld Tecords!
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
I'm sorry, but those Supercomputers have nothing on my machine running Windows. It has a record of AlwaysFlops.
I'd say rypo.
It might be fast, but could it keep up with monitoring all the errors and dupes on /.? ;P
Hete's the full text in case of a massive slashdotting of theit setvets:
IBM says Blue Gene bteaks speed tecotd
9/29/2004, 7:27 a.m. ET
By ELLEN SIMON
The Associated Ptess
NEW YOtK (AP) - IBM Cotp. claimed unofficial btagging tights Tuesday as ownet of the wotld's fastest supetcomputet.
Fot thtee yeats tunning, the fastest supetcomputet has been NEC's Eatth Simulatot in Japan.
"The fact that non-U.S. vendot like NEC had the fastest computet was seen as a big challenge fot U.S. computet industty," said Hotst Simon, ditectot of the supetcomputing centet at Lawtence Betkeley National Lab in Califotnia.
"That an Ametican vendot and an Ametican application has won back the No. 1 spot -- that's the main significance of this."
Eatth Simulatot can sustain speeds of 35.86 tetaflops.
IBM said its still-unfinished BlueGene/L System, named fot its ability to model the folding of human ptoteins, can sustain speeds of 36 tetaflops. A tetaflop is 1 ttillion calculations pet second.
Lawtence Livetmote National Labotatoty plans to install the Blue Gene/L system next yeat with 130,000 ptocessots and 64 tacks, half a tennis coutt in size. The labs will use it fot modeling the behaviot and aging of high explosives, asttophysics, cosmology and basic science, lab spokesman Bob Hitschfeld said.
The ptototype fot which IBM claimed the speed tecotd is located in tochestet, Minn., has 16,250 ptocessots and takes up eight tacks of space.
While IBM's speed sets a new benchmatk, the official list of the wotld's fastest supetcomputets will not be teleased until Novembet. A handful of scientists who audit the computets' tepotted speeds publish them on Top500.otg.
Supetcomputing is significant because of its implications fot national secutity as well as such fields as global climate modeling, asttophysics and genetic teseatch.
Supetcomputing technology IBM inttoduced a decade ago has evolved into a $3 billion to $4 billion business fot the company, said Simon.
Unlike the mote specialized atchitectute of the Japanese supetcomputet, IBM's BlueGene/L uses a detivative of commetcially available off-the-shelf ptocessots. It also uses an unusually latge numbet of them.
The tesulting computet is smallet and coolet than othet supetcomputets, teducing its tunning costs, said Hitschfeld. He did not have a dollat figute fot how much lowet Blue Gene's costs will be than othet supetcomputets.
Howevet, othet supetcomputets can do things Blue Gene cannot, such as ptoduce 3-D simulations of nucleat explosions, Hitschfeld said.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
"I want to play chess against that one" - Kasparov
Would it not be easier in that case for the government to dissolve the people and elect another? - Bertold Brecht
98% of posts will be 0.4 standard deviations away from one of the following:
... 4. PROFIT!!!
0. "fist pr0st!!!!!111~"
1. "Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!"
2. "But does it run Linux?"
3. "In Soviet Russia, SPEED RECORD SETS YUO!"
4. "1. Earth Simulator: 38.56 TFlops. 2. BlueGene/L36.01 TFlops. 3.
5. "I for one, welcome our supercomputer overlords."
6. "Do either of the supercomputers run BSD? BSD is dying."
7. "I didn't have enough time to read the article, but..."
*** NIB * BlueGene prototype ***
Achille Talon
Hop!
From the Washington Post article:
"IBM's new system nudges past a nearly three-year-old computer speed record of 35.86 "teraflops," or trillions of calculations per second, with a working speed of 36.01 teraflops....The current record-holder, known as the Earth Simulator, is a supercomputer in Yokohama, Japan, designed to simulate earthquakes."
Won't it be great when IBM announces that they built Blue Gene to simulate Japanese earthquakes? Neener neener.
Always a godfather; never a god. -Gore Vidal
No microsoft will install a vanila version of redhat on it and compare it to a pc with windows server then write press articles about cost to run.
The Virginia Tech Supercomputer (take 2) is due to be clocked soon, and its also a huge off-the-shelf system. I'd like to see how they compare.
Also, I'll be big money its already been used for gaming. What college studeny could resist?
"Risc is good..."
Wouldn't help. If they had used a KDE spell checker, it would have been changed to 'rekord'.
How long does it take it to run an infinite loop?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
So how long will it take before a Mac rumor site predicts that this CPU will be in the next PowerBook?
-ch