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

but...

[Anonymous Coward]

but will it run Linux?

or...

but will it play ogg files?

1.6 Petaflops... Really?

[Piranhaa]

Notice is says " Supercomputer to Hit 1.6 Petaflops With 16,000 Cell Chips" ... "To Hit" meaning, "Up to"? There's no way that all 8 cores in those 16,000 chips are going to be working 100%... Are they accounting for this factor?

Does it run...

[RAMMS EIN]

I can't believe the scope failed to mention if it will run Linux. I can't believe I haven't seen any posts asking that question, either. Nor have I seen anyone imagining Beowulf clusters of these. What's happened to /.?!?!

PS3 Shortage

[pkulak]

So this is where all the chips are going.

Re:That's sort of fast.

[ystar]

Yeah it's fairly fast...but imagine a Beowulf cluster of those guys!

Now We Know...

[Nom du Keyboard]

Now we know why the PS3 is going to be late. Component shortages, according to Sony. 16,000 working Cell processors for this, and I'll bet it doesn't even play Halo!