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Virginia Tech Supercomputer Up To 12.25 Teraflops
gonknet writes "According to CNET news and various other news outlets, the 1150-node Hokie supercomputer rebuilt with new 2.3 GHz Xserves now runs at 12.25 Teraflops. The computer, the fastest computer owned by an academic institution, should still be in the top 5 when the new rankings come out in November."
At linpack. Of course, the Earth Sumulator wasn't built (just) to run linpack.
Also, the Earth Simulator has been around for how many years? 2? 3? Quite frankly, it would be downright embarrassing if it couldn't be toppled at a fraction of its cost by now.
are not designed for the same type of work as clusters. If a probably is not effeciently parallizable and requires shared memory then a Cray is the only feasible option A Cray is not a cluster. It's like comparing mph for a sports car and truck: the car is faster but they are meant for different types of loads.
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
Before you guys ask I RTFA. I was wondering what do they do with the old processors?
Compare it to this new Cray system. Bang for the buck would make the Apple system better.
Yup, except the Cray comes with far superior interconnect technology, a better range of hardware and software reliability features built in, software designed (by people who do nothing but supercomputers) specifically for monitoring maintaining and administrating massively parallel systems, and most importantly it all works "out of the box". You buy a cabinet, you plug it in, it goes.
Why do these Apple fans, who justifiably claim that comparing a homebuilt PC to a "take it out of the box and plug it in" Apple system is silly, want to compare a build it yourself supercomputer to one that's just plug and go?
And yes, comparing MacOS X to UNICOS for supercomputers is like comparing Linux to OS X for desktops (in fact that's very flattering to OS X as a cluster OS).
Jedidiah.
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I think the reason lies within the latter.
Think about it; how is throwing more and more hardware at it going to solve the problem? What we're lacking is the software itself needed to do this, and it's obviously not going to be an easy task to write. I see no reason why an AI as intelligent as a human couldn't be implemented on a slower system, unless "thinks as fast as a human" is among the requirements.
(disclaimer, I've never read the book, these are just my opinions)
In an object orientated system it should be a case of modelling individual neurons and their interactions, the hard part might come getting these tied into the inputs/outputs
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That's an interesting way of looking at it, but I think so far most of the commentators have failed to pick up what makes this system so incredible. Srinidhi Varadarajan, the designer of the system:
Think about that for a second. The system isn't just in the top 5 (or at least top 10), but it's the cheapest by a factor of at least 2. What's even funnier from a tech standpoint is that the creator doesn't expect it to be beaten until another Apple system is built - which puts a very interesting spin on the old "Apple's more expensive".
Anyway as to in/out of the top 5, Varadarajan reckons there's another 10-20% in optimisations left in the tank...
Data taken from the recent Wired Article on the subject.
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He is wrong. Intelligence is not about speed. I have met people who are very very smart, but they think very slowly. You ask questions, and the I too knows (ITKs) will blurt out an answer so damn fast, but mr smarty pant will think and think, and you would think they are clueless, but when they final answer, you can't tear apart their answer.
We can build a machine that has human intelligence and run it on a 2ghz process. The only issue is that instead of answering a question in a second. Perhaps it will take 1 or 2 hours to deliver an intelligence reply. But it should be able to pass a turing test with time thrown at the window.
Go read what 3D researchers said about graphics in the 70's. I bet they believed a 10ghz was good enough for real life 3D graphics.
What is hindering us is not speed, but our approach to AI research.
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
What is be really interesting is that when we get these human-brain-equivalent machines, the technology does not stop there.
So the intelligence level of this thing would prob. double in accordance to Moore's law, and in a year outclass it's master two fold. In about another year it will be four times as intelligent as any human being. And, of course, it doesn't stop there....
The implications that this would have on society would be very interesting. Would we believe everything it told us, or claimed that we know better? Would we like all the answers it gave us. Would it start deceiving us for our own good? etc.
> no, yes, maybe (tagging beta)
Of course you can't do it consciously, but that's about what you do when you catch a ball or walk down the sidewalk.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
pricing a top of the line dual 250 opteron with a mobo that has similar features to a powermac (gigabit, pci-x, 8 ram slots, firewire 400 and 800.. which no opterons offer, etc) gives you a system at rough price around $2,473.00. that doesn't include a case, powersupply, hard disk, cdrom, keyboard, or mouse like the powermac does.
what planet are you pricing yoru "similar" x86 hardware on? look, i know mac doesn't have a low end $200 pc. but their high end offerings are not only competitive, but cheap.
- tristan