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Half-Petaflop Supercomputer Deployed In Austin

SethJohnson writes "Thanks to a $59 million National Science Foundation grant, there's likely to be a new king of the High Performance Computing Top 500 list. The contender is Ranger, a 15,744 Quad-Core AMD Opteron behemoth built by Sun and hosted at the University of Texas. Its peak processing power of 504 teraflops will be shared among over 500 researchers working across the even larger TeraGrid system. Although its expected lifespan is just four years, Ranger will provide 500 million processor hours to projects attempting to address societal grand challenges such as global climate change, water resource management, new energy sources, natural disasters, new materials and manufacturing processes, tissue and organ engineering, patient-specific medical therapies, and drug design."

11 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. Now We Know by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 5, Funny

    So now we know why there is such a shortage of quad-core AMD Opterons otherwise.

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    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  2. Apostrophes by gardyloo · · Score: 3, Funny

    Perhaps it can run spell- and grammar-checks on Slashdot submissions!

  3. What does a CPU and Britney Spears have in common? by Jugalator · · Score: 4, Funny

    A: The more flops, the more powerful it grows.

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    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  4. Re:The chickens come home to roost by CookieOfFortune · · Score: 3, Funny

    Doesn't like cognitive dissonance? Have you ever _BEEN_ to Austin?!

  5. Re:Imagine... by Toe,+The · · Score: 3, Funny

    (Score:0, Redundant)

    Yeah, I suppose a cluster is redundant.

  6. Global climate change, new energy sources... by Tmack · · Score: 4, Funny

    attempting to address societal grand challenges such as global climate change, water resource management, new energy sources..

    With that many cores, they will need to find new energy sources just to power it, and re-think water resource management as they redirect the river to cool the thing and to prevent it from causing global climate change itself!

    Tm

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  7. Re:4 years is it's lifecycle? SKYNET?!?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    No, it's hoped that within that time you'll learn how to correctly use the apostrophe.

  8. Re:Dell has to be fuming by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Funny

    "In their backyard, and Sun gets the job instead."

    Do you really want to have a $59M machine dependent upon Dell customer support?

  9. Re:are you serious? by chillax137 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Just grab a few and you'll be set for the next four years...

    Seriously though, this money comes from an NSF grant earmarked specifically for this project. We get these kind of complaints from other departments and especially undergrad editorials in the student newspaper. Unfortunately, the budget from the football team won't be used to renovate the social work buildings.

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    chillax137
  10. Re:I've heard this computer is so fast by grayshirtninja · · Score: 3, Funny

    Finally! A computer that can run Crysis with full graphics!

  11. Re:I've heard this computer is so fast by BosstonesOwn · · Score: 3, Funny

    Bahh Crysis is old school.

    Finally TUX RACER in FULL 3D GLORY !

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