Japan's Petaflop Supercomputer

slashthedot writes "Japan has built the fastest supercomputer in the world. While the BlueGene/L contains 130,000 processors, Japan has managed to create the first Petaflop supercomputer, called MDGrape-3, with just 4808 chips, and it cost just $9 million to develop."

Comments

Re:machines like this

[x2A]

Having a computer do something very very fast is only of any use if you have the software to do what you want done very very fast. As far as I know, the hard part of what you suggest is writing such capable software, not running it.

9 million?

[jacklebot]

Great. 9 million dollars to build the thing, 15 million dollars to build the infastructure to power and cool it, probably.

Re:Our penis so small, your american penis so larg

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

Oh, please. This machine only uses 300kW - that's maybe the equivalent of 150 American homes. These folks are building a specialized (as in not "more of the same") machine to support a particular bit of science (molecular dynamics simulations) that isn't gonna make for flashy headlines, and I say more power to them. I'd rather there were more scientists out there doing basic research that may actually be useful, than have them chasing after stuff for headlines that will make you happy.

And if you're trolling, yeah, you got me, so congratulations.