Supercomputer to Hit 1.6 Petaflops With 16,000 Cell Chips

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Supercomputer to Hit 1.6 Petaflops With 16,000 Cell Chips

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Thursday September 7, 2006 @05:50AM 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.'"

12 of 260 comments (clear)

Now... by ronadams · 2006-09-07 05:52 · Score: 5, Funny

OS/2 compiles your homemade C code faster than you've ever seen before!

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Whew, right under the wire! by BadAnalogyGuy · 2006-09-07 05:52 · Score: 5, Funny

Just in time for the Vista RC1 release!
Also building a slightly slower computer... by AceCaseOR · 2006-09-07 05:53 · Score: 4, Funny

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...

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1. Re:Also building a slightly slower computer... by steveo777 · 2006-09-07 05:57 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  They're currently thumbing through ACME cataloges for spare rockets and rollerskate. That should speed things up.
  
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PS3 delayed? by October_30th · 2006-09-07 05:53 · Score: 4, Insightful

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

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1. Re:PS3 delayed? by evanbd · 2006-09-07 05:56 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  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.
However part of the problem by OzPeter · 2006-09-07 06:00 · Score: 5, Funny

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.

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1. Re:However part of the problem by reverseengineer · 2006-09-07 06:57 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  The unique failure modes of these Acme components, however, have caused IBM researchers to stumble upon a remarkable macroscale quantum effect which may be useful in the development ofquantum computers.
  Apparently, when the Acme Rocket Sled, Acme Giant Rubber Band or the Acme Bat-Man suit reach their point of failure, every particle of the unfortunate user is compelled into a quantum superposition (known as the Chuck Jones state) where the particles of the user appear to exist outside of the normal flow of time, during which the user can apparently communicate with the outside using messages written on signs. The wavefunction collapses, however when the user realizes the peril of the current situation; the user returns to normal time and is contacted catastrophically by the approaching train/TNT detonation/boulder/ground/ground followed by a pursuant boulder.
  IBM scientists believe that useful calculations could be made nearly instantaneously from the perspective of outside observers, if only the user inside the Jones state could be induced to work complex math problems and write the answer on a picket sign, rather than simply using such signs for messages like, "Why Me?", "Not Again!", "?!?!?!?!?!" or "Ouch."
  NASA is also working with Acme to determine the physical mechanism by which the Acme Portable Hole functions.
  
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Feet/Metres/Meters by onion2k · 2006-09-07 06:03 · Score: 4, Informative

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.

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So the price was by CrazyJim1 · 2006-09-07 06:04 · Score: 4, Interesting

16,000 *600$= 9.6 million. That doesn't seem like much for the biggest super computer.

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Re:Billion or billion? by morgan_greywolf · 2006-09-07 06:11 · Score: 4, Funny

British 'billions' are American 'trillions'. So this may be running three orders of magnitude faster than you first expec

Yeah, go figure. Stupid Brits can't even speak English. ;)

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Re:Flops? CPS? by adam31 · 2006-09-07 08:29 · Score: 4, Interesting

The flop, of course, came from floating point operation. Even then it's vague--is it single, double or double-extended?

I was thinking the same thing. Running the numbers, 256 GFlop * 16,000 => 4.096 PFlop @ single precision. So if IBM means SP flops, something is slowing its theoretical max down by 2.5x. But Cell's DP perf yields 18.2 * 16,000 => .292 PFlop @ DP. So that's not it either.
It's long been rumored that a post-PS3 Cell is in development that can pipeline DP flops. Its max theoretical DP perf would still be half of SP because it's just 2 DP values per 128-bit register instead of 4. AND, if you figure they lower the GHz to 3.2 to cut the heat output in half, you arrive at the magical number... 1.638 PFlop.
So can we take this as evidence that there now exists a Cell that performs DP calculations pipelined?