Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Supercomputer to Hit 1.6 Petaflops With 16,000 Cell Chips

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the you-do-the-math dept.

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.'"

8 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. PS3 delayed? by October_30th · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So, is this the reason why the PS3 release has been delayed?

    --
    The owls are not what they seem
  2. Flops? CPS? by Cybert4 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    For one, they gloss over whether they mean floating point operations or "calculations" per second. The article seems to equate a flop with "calculations per second". The flop, of course, came from floating point operation. Even then it's vague--is it single, double or double-extended?

    Yes, it's certainly better than the old "megahurts" races. But I think they could come up with something better.

  3. State Bird by jbeaupre · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The roadrunner is also the state bird of New Mexico, location of LANL.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadrunner_(bird)

    It was always ironic to see them running up and down the road in front of my grandparents home.

    --
    The world is made by those who show up for the job.
    1. Re:State Bird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      wait... what's ironic about the state bird of New Mexico running across your grandparent's front yard (I'm assuming they live in New Mexico)?

      If your grandfather had created a computer that accidentally turned your grandmother into a roadrunner, then the LANL decides to name a derivative of that same computer Roadrunner, then that would be ironic... no wait, that would be a tribute. Shit. maybe it is ironic.

  4. And looking back 20 years from now by syntap · · Score: 3, Insightful

    we'll laugh at such a large room full of computer equipment, the equivalent of which will be powering our mobile communications devices in a 150mm x 150mm package.

  5. Re:Billion or billion? by Jawbreaker4Fs · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Actually... the British unit makes more sense. It's consistent with the powers of ten, unlike the American billion.

  6. Re:So the price was by moogleii · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You've covered the price of one set of 16,000 chips, kinda. What about the other 16,000? And that's just the chips. There's power, cooling, the rest of the hardware, software...

  7. Re:So the price was by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Insightful
    16,000 *600$= 9.6 million. That doesn't seem like much for the biggest super computer.

    First off, I believe IBM manufactures the cell processors for Sony, so it probably didn't cost them that much for the actual processors.

    But, don't forget the $58 million in IBM consultants who built the damned thing. That's the real cost of this. ;-)

    Cheers
    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.