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Student and Professor Build Budget Supercomputer
Luke writes "This past winter Calvin College professor Joel Adams and then Calvin senior Tim Brom built Microwulf, a portable supercomputer with 26.25 gigaflops peak performance, that cost less than $2,500 to construct, becoming the most cost-efficient supercomputer anywhere that Adams knows of. "It's small enough to check on an airplane or fit next to a desk," said Brom. Instead of a bunch of researchers having to share a single Beowulf cluster supercomputer, now each researcher can have their own."
This seems pretty similar to the way google builds their racks, with just mb's and no cabinets. What would have been really cool was if someone made som e kind of network driver for a pci express slot, with them being able to use external cables, is it possible to use a dedicated pci express slot as a interface to another computer, skipping the network bottleneck ?
Doolittle :
Bomb no.20 : To explode of course.
...this is *hardly* a supercomputer. This is 152.57 times slower than entry number 500 on the Top 500 List. There isn't a nice neat definition of what a supercomputer is anymore, but "capable of running Beowulf" isn't it. Leaving aside the more custom machines that the company I work for (and a few others) build, there are plenty of Linux clusters that *do* qualify. The fastest one seems to be number 8 on the current Top 500 list (a Dell Infiniband cluster at NCSA).
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
You forgot to provide a link to that...
I see a few people making the expected "It's just four motherboards wired together with Gig E"-comments. While I won't object to that, I'd say this is not about a groundbreaking evolution in hardware, more a case of demonstrating what's possible today with COTS parts. Adding to that the compact packaging, and the ability to run off of a single power cord, it's a nice setup IMHO.
While it does not have the interconnect of "true HPC" hardware (a bit of a fleeting distinction, but bear with me) it'll surely be suitable for a lot of the simpler, yet still compute-intensive tasks out there ("simple" here meaning not needing a lot of intra-node communication).
On the flip side, it might fuel the "hell, I'll just build my own cluster"-mentality going around these days. I work in the HPC group at a university, running linux clusters, IBM "big iron" and a couple of small, old SGI installation, and we certainly see a bit of that going around. Problem is, sure, the hardware is cheap and affordable, but getting it to run in a stable and sensible manner without spending large amounts of time just keeping the thing together is a challenge, mainly due to the immature state of clustering software. As many researchers are not exactly keen on spending time solving problems outside their specific field, they're usually better off letting somebody else administer things, so they can just log on and run their stuff.
But for individuals and small groups of people who are computer savvy enough to handle it, things like these are definately a "good thing" (TM).
Look at this design: http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/cluster/. It uses DC-DC converters on each motherboards (mini-itx, so low power), a single 12V PSU and a UPS for regulation:
bundaegi is good for you
Checking something called an iRack onto a plane is just asking for a full cavity body search and possibly a nice orange jumpsuit.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
Minesweeper under Vista - No
-- Intelligence is soluble in alcohol
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ AM2 CPU $67.50 * 4 = $270
Main Memory: Kingston DDR2-667 1GByte RAM $48.49 * 8 + $4.99sh = $392.91
Power Supply: (can't beat price): $76.00
Network adapter (node to switch): (cant beat their price) $164.00
Network adapter (switch to node): (cant beat their price) $15
Switch: Trendware TEG-S80TXE 8-port Gigabit Ethernet Switch $46.99+$7.04sh = $54.03
Hard drive: Seagate 7200 250GB SATA hard drive $69.99
DVD/CD drive: (can't beat their price): $19
Cooling: (can't beat their price): $32
Fan protective grills: (can't beat their price): $10
KVM: (can't beat their price): $50 Grand total (incl. 15 in hardware): 1416.89 $1000 saved by using Newegg!
Sure. But then your cat would have to moonlight as a mouser, run errands for the neighborhood dogs, and -- worst of all -- give up catnip; all in order to pay for the project.
I would not want to live in the same house as a sleep deprived cat going through catnip withdrawl.
"Where's my other sock?" - A. Einstein
Doubt it. You think you can hook up gigabit ethernet without at least five cats eh?
Revolutionary? Everything old is new again...
http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/cluster/
http://news.taborcommunications.com/msgget.jsp?mi
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/ -- a 7U chassis that holds 14 blades, and is a bit spendy, but not completely unreasonable for some situations
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8177 -- My personal favorite, this page talks about several small portable miniclusters that have been made over the last six or seven years...
Yes, 8 cores of Athlon64 is faster than 8 cores of low power VIA CPU's from several years ago, but the concept isn't revolutionary, and there isn't a lot of headline worthy engineering that goes into a project like this... I'm sure it's a very handy tool, and I'm not suggested it shouldn't have been built, or that it was entirely trivial to build, but in the end, it's just four ordinary motherboards and ethernet.
They just linked 4 motherboards together. My cat could do that.
Would your cat be alive at the end of the process? We wouldn't be sure till we opened the case.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Discovering that you can build an even more cost effective supercomputer than these guys: priceless
which is totally what she said
Only if you don't plan on playing MP3s.