Supercomputer to Hit 1.6 Petaflops With 16,000 Cell Chips

tygerstripes writes, "IBM has announced that they are gearing up to build the world's fastest supercomputer, more than four times faster than the reigning champ, IBM's BlueGene/L. Nicknamed 'Roadrunner,' the new machine will be a hybrid of off-the-shelf CPUs and Cell chips designed for the PS3. Roadrunner is to be installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, occupying 1,100 square metres of floorspace (that's a square about 110 feet on a side). According to the BBC: 'The computer will contain 16,000 standard processors working alongside 16,000 Cell processors... each Cell is capable of 256 billion calculations per second.'"

Comments

Re:PS3 delayed?

[evanbd]

No. Sony said it was due to shortages of the blue laser diode in the Blu-ray drives. Also, you'll note they're short a couple million PS3s, not a measley 16000.

Feet/Metres/Meters

[onion2k]

Roadrunner is to be installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, occupying 1,100 square metres of floorspace (that's a square about 110 feet on a side)
Why mix the units like that? It's either 33 meters a side, or its 12,100 square feet. Mixing units is the sort of thing that can only lead to errors.

And for the record, sqrt(1100m2) = 33.17 meters = 108.83 feet a side. 110 feet per side gets you an extra 24.13 square meters .. enough for 4 interns including desks.