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First 96-Node Desktop Cluster Ships
Panaphonix writes "The Register reports that Orion Multisystems is shipping the first 96-node desktop cluster. 'With the new, larger system, customers get pretty much the most powerful computer around that can plug into a standard electrical socket.' According to the spec sheet, the DS-96 runs Fedora Core 2 and gets 110 GFlops sustained, 230 GFlops peak."
call me when they make a laptop whith this specs..
It might be useful to buy the macs if:
You didn't want one box.
Apple didn't put compulsively lie about it's performance http://www.top500.org/sublist/System.php?id=7309
If the object was to have the cheapest system, you'd be using racks of dual 1U p4, at 1.5x the performance of xserves for half the price.
Ease of use means very little when you're trying to get work distrubuted to > 1 processor effectively, it's like adding a picture to the finished product in a 300 page instruction manual.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
What do you guys do with your computer? no seriously, I mean, Linux is desktop ready, my mom could use this, a desktop cluster running fedora core... You know all those reference to the desktop usability of this and that product. I mean this thing isn't a desktop cluster, it's just a cluster that some geek decided to use at home, that don't make it a desktop cluster. 110Gflops to browse the web with lynx? Write a document in Open Office? or edit a 72dpi resolution desktop wallpaper in the Gimp?
In my country (Quebec) we have this problem, people say "I have the right to..." and put a word beside it and that should give them the right to what the word says, in their mind just because they can align some word they think it gives them the right to do anything, even if the law says they can't do it. Same goes here at an other level, you guys think that slapping the word desktop to anything make it a desktop thing, but believe me there is more to a desktop than a product name or description, even if it runs a "desktop" OS like Fedora Core (here it goes again, Fedora Core is a desktop thing just because some guys said it not because it actually can be effectively used as such, except if you are beyond dedicated...).
No offense to Linux, the desktop cluster in itself or anything, just a little thought on the usage of the word desktop...