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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.'"
OS/2 compiles your homemade C code faster than you've ever seen before!
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
now we know why they cut shipments by 1 mil units. IBM wanted to build 62 supercomputers.
Just in time for the Vista RC1 release!
I guess.
IBM is also building a slightly slower computer, called "Wile E. Coyote", which is slightly slower. They are currently attempting to work out the bugs, as it keeps crashing...
Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.
So, is this the reason why the PS3 release has been delayed?
The owls are not what they seem
This was reported a couple of days ago on el reg http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/05/ibm_roadru nner_amd/
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.
Abacus to the millionth power!
has been identifed as sub-standard components delivered by a third party company called "acme".
These components had a tendency to either explode at in-opportune moments, or behave in a manner that while was true to the letter of their description was totally ineffective for the desired purpose.
At the moment each side is gathering its hoards of lawyers and all involved are jumping up and down, waving thigh-bones in the air and screaming incomprehensible abuse at each other.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
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)
.. enough for 4 interns including desks.
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
http://twitter.com/onion2k
16,000 *600$= 9.6 million. That doesn't seem like much for the biggest super computer.
God spoke to me.
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.
Interesting sidenote in the article not mentioned here:
"The laboratory is owned by the US Department of Energy (DOE). Eventually the machine could be used for a programme that ensures the US nuclear weapons stockpile remains safe and reliable, the DOE said in a statement."
Why do I get a weird feeling that I've seen this sort of thing in one too many movies?
1,000,000 - 16,000 more cells for IBM to fab by the end of the year
Change your name to Homer Junior! Your friends can call you Hoju
I've often heared that modern games have huge computing demands. But I didn't know it's that bad!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
And this is from BBC News, no less. <sigh>
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
And still it only runs F.E.A.R. at 25fps... weak...
I Like Pie...
I thought BlueGene/P was targeting a petaflop?
I don't think this Cell based thing is its replacement. If BGP is still coming, it should be coming soon:
link
Yeah, go figure. Stupid Brits can't even speak English.
My blog
I think they've switched over, from Wikipedia: "Short scale is the English translation of the French term échelle courte, which designates a system of numeric names in which the word billion means a thousand millions.
Long scale is the English translation of the French term échelle longue, which designates a system of numeric names in which the word billion means a million millions.
For most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the United Kingdom uniformly used the long scale, while the United States of America used the short scale, so the two systems were often (and accurately at that time) referred to as "British" and "American" usage, respectively. However, today the United Kingdom uses the short scale so widely that the term "British usage" is no longer an appropriate phrase."
[Z?]
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.
No, but it can crack fifteen billion iTunes files per second.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I like to think of this as at least one thing that we Americans have done to improve the English language.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
but will it play ogg files?
It would, but they haven't been able to get alsa configured correctly.
I know the cluster has ~ 2,200 4-socket dual core 2.2 ghz opteron systems (x3755) in the aggregate, each socket tied to 8GB consisting of 8 1 GB DIMMs. Each node will be connected to a blade using infinband, the blade having 2 first-gen (i.e. PS3) cell processors. I'm not sure how the second gen cell processor part will be (that's when it is supposed to get interesting for 64-bit precision operations, the only ones that count for top500). BTW the systems will also all be connected to each other by an inifinband fabric. I don't know if ultimately the cell processors add up to 16,000 chips, but I do know the number of physical AMD parts will be about 8,000 or so, though you could either say 8,000 processors or 16,000 depending on how you count dual core...
Of course, there may be other challenges top500 wise beyond the first-gen cell limitations. I know the cluster is supposed to have some bits operate on classified problems and that will begin before the entire setup is there, while other bits are to remain working on unclassified stuff. I don't know how that impacts them, someone at LANL may be able to answer as to whether they could run a big linpack run once complete across the typically distinct units of the cluster. Of course, the first gen cell blades will not deliver remotely impressive top500 numbers, only 32-bit precision operations. The 1.6 petaflops number I'm not sure is intended to be a 64-bit precision number, and therefore isn't necessarily directly comparable with the BlueGene numbers on Top500.
Also, I'm not sure if the cell blade is a proven platform for IO performance (i.e. pushing the Infiniband). The blade is largely based on the PS3 reference implementation, afaik, and of course in designing that they didn't necessarily worry too much about high-speed interconnects. Of course the cell blades have no high-speed graphics to worry about, so whatever communication mechanism used for that may be redirected for inter-blade ccommunications.
Other tidbits, the x3755 is a 4U box, and they have no more than 6 per rack (to leave room for bladecenters), and this means on the order of 400 racks or so. It will be running linux (that's nearly a given in the top500 nowadays). For a cell processor to qualify to be in one of the blades, all 8 SPEs must be workable, and all 8 will be usable by developers/users, the core os generally running only on the modest PPC core, unlike the PS3 which will contain a single cell part that may contain a failed SPE, and Sony reserves the use of one of the others at all times, limiting application developers to 6 SPEs, but the Cell blade of course doesn't have anything but serial console, so no gaming on cell blades....
But it costs $600 and doesn't even come with an HDMI cable and looks like a George Foreman Grill!!!!!!one111!
Oh wait, sorry, I just saw PS3 and had a Zonk-attack, my bad.
Totally. It's a milliard times better than the crummy old British usage.
Poor Coyote, Road Runner will kick his ass as always. Is there a justice in this world?
Did the thought of this monster computer give anyone else an erection? Um...me neither...
I love Slashdot.
Though not necessarily 64-bit precision flops, as are required for top500 scores... The cell isn't impressive double-precision wise.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
This just means there will be one more annoying asshat bragging about his Counterstrike framerate.
But is it fast enough to figure out the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything?
Introducing Microsoft Vacuum 1.0 The first Microsoft product that doesn't suck.
Let's see the Xbox 360 do that...
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/cell/
The toolchain and a simulator are freely available and run on Fedora Core 5 systems. Take a look for yourself.
occupying 1,100 square metres of floorspace (that's a square about 110 feet on a side) It is not abnormal to present both english and metric units in a presentation such as this when you have a diverse audience (the source was the BBC, although it appears the article submitter did his own math to get the side length). 110-108.83 = 1.17 meters, which is 1.06% off. Which is more than acceptable when talking to the "common man" ... now when ordering the carpenting, on the other hand ...
That's the opposite of an improvement: With the "old British" system you need to learn less words for the same number range. You just have to remember that a thousand "-ions" are one "-iard".
Moreover it's simpler: From the billion on, the prefix is named after latin numer names: bi->2, tri->3 etc.
With the "old British" system, an "n-ion" is a million to the power of n. Quite simple.
With the US system, an "n-ion" is thousand to the power of (n+1). An extra complication. Not much, but still.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Actually... the British unit makes more sense. It's consistent with the powers of ten, unlike the American billion.
So says the cross-dressing pop idol from outer space :)
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
They were responsible for the development of the Cell processor alongside Sony.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Mmmm......sacrelicious.
I'll take part of the bait - anonymously anyway...
Compiz - nothing else comes close to virtual desktop in 3D, Video demonstration of Compiz on Xgl (linked at the bottom of wikipedia page direct to video)
I've been using Windows since 95 on a P1 all through 98, NT4, ME, 2000, XP, and my current XP2003 with 200 and 300 gig hdd's, Athlon 64 X2 4200, XFX GeForce 7900 GT, 4 gigs of ram, and twin/dual display 17" lcd's, - and Linux is great...
BTW: did I mention I also put Linux on my laptop (an Athlon 3200 with a gig of ram). Not everybody that runs linux cheaps out on hardware - in fact, more windows users cheap out on machines than linux - what can you say about Dell's running XP? not shit. On the other side, what do you have that can compete with supercomputers such as the one this article is supposed to be about - IBM's next 1.6 petaflop supercomputer - which will run what? LINUX!!!
It's big. It's powerful. But, in simple human talk, how much GHz does that thing have?
This article from LANL says it will run Linux. Imagine a Beowolf cluster of those...
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
*cough* XGL/Compiz *cough*
And a Google seach for 'linux games' should probably shut you up about Linux having no games; change 'no games' to 'has very few commercially developed games', and you're right. But there are many games for Linux.
I know I'm not meant to reply to trolls, but I couldn't resist. I know that each OS has its strengths and weaknesses, and so should you. Tossers like you just piss me off. I have a dual-boot Windows XP/Ubuntu 6.06 system. I get the best of both worlds, so you can't give me shit like that and say that one is t3h suckzorz. If you want to just use Windows, go ahead. Tell everyone you like Windows in an appropriate manner. But no one cares that you hate Linux when you have are flamebait arguments to use to try and put it down. If you actually have any decent arguments, maybe someone would listen. But, at the moment, as I said: No one cares. Being good with a computer is recognising different needs/wants and being able to find and use or make programs to sort out those needs/wants. If the want is games, then Windows is probably better. If the want is a usually rock-steady, fairly secure system for everyday use, Linux could be the way to go. If you like open-source, you have one real choice. If you'd prefer closed source (for whatever reason), Windows is the way. Or have a dual boot, and your problems are sorted. Or, take an alternative route and get a Mac or use a BSD. Whatever, just recognise that different pieces of software are better at different things.
Great, maybe the beginning of a new family of
RISC-processors which could be widely used,
and much more relevant, is cheap enough to be buyable for a average/power-user for homeusage
But the real question is: Where is the Linux/UNIX-powered
CELL-Workstation, so ein can run such a elegant baby
on my desktop? It was anounced years ago.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
...that Windows has become so bloated in the previous 20 years that it still just barely crawls on our pocket supercomputers.
...we're planning on sending it to Mars .
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
I can do 1.8pflops with a #2 pencil, some scratch paper, and a few grams of peyote.
thats what really want to know, how many FPS does it give us.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Imagine a .... posting like this gets by without a single "beowulf cluster" comment. Wouldn't that be something.
I heard a rumor that this computer is being sold to Sony as a prototype for the Playstation 4. It's supposed to be totally teh r0x0rz and only cost a gabrillion dollars. Another rumor says that the PS4 prototype may be portable which could explain why Sony is receiving large orders of batteries.
In the near future, there will be an article on the PS3's hardware specs.
Then some unimaginative Slashdotter will say "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!"
Then a (slightly) more imaginative Slashdotter will direct them to this article.
Meanwhile, notice that its the smelly, cheese-eating surrender monkeys who farked the whole thing up in the first place.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Here's an explanation. Keep this in mind whenever you read PR about vapor hardware... Most likely the confusion between FLOPS and "calculations per second" is not unlike the confusion between peak PR numbers, peak Linpack results, sustained Linpack results, and sustained application FLOPS. For example, no Cell processor ever reaches the impossible speed of 360 GFLOPS on any real world scientific application because of the real world problems of a slow interface to memory, storage, network, etc. which all chips have to contend with. When numbers are being used in a press release, all vendors in the industry benefit greatly from using whichever number is the largest and most impressive to the reader, even if it is completely impractical to a supercomputer user. Also, there can only be theoretical Linpack numbers for a machine that isn't built yet, so they have a rationale to explain such behavior.
-Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither. -Ben Franklin
I think this is an admission from IBM that the Cell processor has some good ideas, but is not an ideal implementation. I bet that is why they need many other general purpose CPU's in the computer.
The one main "CPU"(PPE) in the cell processor is far too weak, I believe we will find game developers harping on that for the next few years.
Maybe the next version of the cell will have a main processor that is much wider and more robust. Maybe even two of them?
This article says that YES it does run Linux. And, it is using AMD Opteron processors (not Power 5.)
You hope... Or we could be hitching horses to a buckboard to ride into town when the cheap oil runs out and there is no good energy substitute available.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
but will is play Counter-Strike?
"One man's "magic" is another man's engineering."-- Robert A. Heinlein
YOu have a source on that flamebait?
How to use coral cache: http://slashdot.org.nyud.net:8090/~oscartheduck
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
It doesnt have to use power5, its got cell.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
Huh? A million is a thousand times a thousand. A billion is a thousand times a million. A trillion is a thousand times a billion. Continue with quadrillion, quintillion, etc. Note the prefixes here (mi is mono, bi, tri) indicate how many thousands of times larger they are than a thousand, or I suppose sets of three orders of magnitude larger if you insist (one three-digit seperator's worth). I think this is the one case where our logic is more consistant. I'm sure there's a more technical term for such a digit grouping, but each American prefix increase adds a corresponding number of digit groupings. Though it'll get interesting when the lazy number-crunchers decide to apply 'polyllion' to anything equating to a trillion or more.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Yes, it is, in fact, running Linux.
According to today's Austin American Statesman article , the other 16,000+ CPUs in this machine will be AMD Opterons.
And, the article also confirms that the machine will indeed be running Linux.
You forgot "This poor sucker must run Gentoo"
Worst. Signature. Ever.
Does it run Windows for Supercomputers?
My new blog
Glad to be of service. Thank you, come again!
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
No - I've been around a few years and was never taught "billion = million million" at school (and I do remember changing from pounds, shillings and pence, so that should help you put a date on it).
w ww.translatorscafe.com/cafe/MegaBBS/thread-view.as p%3Fthreadid%3D6977%26posts%3D18+billion+million+b ritish+treasury+%22million+million%22&hl=en&gl=uk& ct=clnk&cd=11&client=firefox-a
I think that the "official" changeover (as far as the treasury was concerned) was late 60s / early 70s. A quick google can't find a cite for it but a post here mentions "the official announcement some three decades ago":
http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:O4P5O5xh-6sJ:
You must be new here...
Picks up phone ... NOW.
For a good laugh call (202) 456-1414
dials (202) 456-1414
click,
In the voice of an announcer selling something on a infomercial,
WELCOME TO THE "insert your favorite perversion here" TALK LINE
Your phone bill will reflect a $99.99 charge. 3 2 1
Thanks for calling...
Dial tone........
Funny...
With all that speed, I can just imagine what a gamer would do with it. Probably feint at first, get up, and feint again....
_____
"Well Mr. Smarty Pants if that was so easy, then why did it take you 5 hours to figure it out?!"
"I hope you'll be happy when you run Linux and its cli interface"
Yeah, why do they use all those buttons in planes and stuff!!!?!?!! It would surely be a lot more efficient if they just used a one button mouse to fly them? In fact, get rid of the buttons altogether!! Evil!
which is totally what she said
That's a complete non-argument: The reason the system changed in GB is probably being flooded with "US-billions", and the absolute worst thing is if you never know if the "billion" you read is 10^9 or 10^12. And the fact that you never heared "milliard" may simply be due to not being old enough.
Also note that in France the "-ion/-iard" scheme was the successful one, despite both being used there fore some time, too. Indeed, according to Wikipedia, most European countries use the "-ion/-iard" scheme, so probably your argument could be turned quite away
I agree that the "N+1" argument is a weak one, too. However, due to several re-edits I managed it to come through differently than originally intended: I never intended it to imply that the "N" vs. "N+1" makes it simpler for the average person (who normally won't get past the 10^12 anyway). Basically the "simple" here was not so much meant as "simple to use", but "simple" as in mathematical elegance.
But yes, I consider it easier to think about "-ion/-iard". But given that you've grown up with the "billion" and I grew up with the "milliard", that's no surprise. After all, if someone had grown up with a base 12 number system, he probably wouldn't consider the decimal system particularly easy either.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Indeed.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
PowerPC or x86 or something else?
What... Vista?
Meta will eat itself
Like this...?
Meta will eat itself
Yeah, like that, but much more intuitive! Input is formed from a simple, easy to learn set of 102 mouse gestures!!
which is totally what she said
I love the /. main page right now: IBM announce a 1.6Pflop supercomputer with 32,000 chips. Meanwhile, over here, a team of volunteers have recreated part of the Enigma-cracking Bombe !!!
Eat our high-tech dust yankees !
Mark, from somewhere in the UK
Ehrm, look at these value series for million, billion, trillion, and quadrillion:
American:
10^6, 10^9, 10^12, 10^15
Brittish:
10^6, 10^12, 10^18, 10^24
Now tell me the American way is "more logical", 'cause it seems less so from where I sit at my keyboard.
-
Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
As the CEC (Chief Operating Coyote) and primary beta tester for ACME (A Company Making Everything) I will soon have in my possession a clone of the hardware which I intend to XOC while loaded with Vista RC1. Beep beep my ass, Roadrunner will finally be mine, mine I say, all mine, hehehehe !!!!!
/. OOPS! /.
wilec (super genius)
.
.
ACME is a wholely owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corp.
God... raytracing 3D animations used to really suck on my old abacus.