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Cray's CX1 Desktop Supercomputer, Now For Sale

ocularb0b writes "Cray has announced the CX1 desktop supercomputer. Cray teamed with Microsoft and Intel to build the new machine that supports up to 8 nodes, a total of 64 cores and 64Gb of memory per node. CX1 can be ordered online with starting prices of $25K, and a choice of Linux or Windows HPC. This should be a pretty big deal for smaller schools and scientists waiting in line for time on the world's big computing centers, as well as 3D and VFX shops."

19 of 294 comments (clear)

  1. Nice Specs by mythandros · · Score: 5, Funny

    Will it get Crysis up over 15 fps?

  2. You'll need one hell of a desk by thered2001 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    35 inches deep and weighing in at 136 lbs. fully loaded. My desktop would not be able to sustain that!

    --

    If your only tool is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.

    1. Re:You'll need one hell of a desk by GAB_cyclist · · Score: 5, Funny

      Buy two, get a desk-on-top

    2. Re:You'll need one hell of a desk by Hatta · · Score: 5, Funny

      My girlfriend weighs that much, so I'm pretty sure my desk can handle it.

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      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    3. Re:You'll need one hell of a desk by snspdaarf · · Score: 5, Funny

      And, the computer won't be on a desk in reverse cowboy. Plus, it's a static load.

      --
      Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
    4. Re:You'll need one hell of a desk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      you're not supposed to inflate her with water

  3. Desktop? Where's the notebook? by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 5, Funny

    When they package this as a notebook or netbook (at an attractive price), I'll be interested.

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
    1. Re:Desktop? Where's the notebook? by rbanffy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well... My netbook has 2 GB of memory, 160 GB of storage, gigabit networking and thinks it has two 32 bit cores. It's a veritable late 80's, early 90's supercomputer that fits in my backpack. And I bought it cheap.

    2. Re:Desktop? Where's the notebook? by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well... My netbook has 2 GB of memory, 160 GB of storage, gigabit networking and thinks it has two 32 bit cores. It's a veritable late 80's, early 90's supercomputer that fits in my backpack.

      Even in the mid 90's, GHz processors, and gigs of RAM/hard disk were still largely uncommon. I think you're talking late 90's before that started to become relatively common.

      I continue to be stunned at what you can buy as an entry level box nowadays for a really cheap dollar amount. My local "white box" PC store will sell you a dual-core 5GHz (or whatever) 64-bit AMD machine for under $300 -- add a little RAM and disk space and you've got a helluva system for not very much money.

      How many home PCs nowadays have TB's of storage? I know several people who do -- I remember when home users didn't have gigabytes, terabytes would have been unimaginable.

      Cheers

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  4. Re:Yes, but only for a short time by v1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    it says it runs windows. that's just what the herders need, a few crays in their herd.

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    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  5. Re:Yet... by Big+Nothing · · Score: 4, Funny

    No, but at least it can run Vista with most of the bells and whistles turned on.

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    SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
  6. More like Apple by ehaggis · · Score: 4, Funny

    Perhaps to enhance their marketing, they can offer the computer in CrayOn colors (like Apple's iMac colors). Cray Gray, Big Iron Gray, Super Computing Gray, Gray, Gray Passion, etc..

    Remember, you can order any color - as long as it is gray.

    --
    One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
  7. Re:Horsepower by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Well, with all the sloppy inefficient programming, feature bloat, and generally craptastic work that goes into the ongoing, illogical, disuseful, nightmare that is MS Word, you will need one of these puppies just to run Word and Windows 7 anyway.

    Vista's MINIMUM memory requirement is 512 megs.

    Windows 2000's recommended minimum was 64 megs.

    Personally, I don't find Vista any more useful than Win2k. More stable, yes, but I don't see how upping the RAM req by an order of magnitude was required to make Win2k more stable. All it needed was better programming and better testing.

    I think what we have going now is the kind of thing that happened when gas was cheap: SUVs. When gas is expensive (viz Europe and Japan) the average car gets Really Small and Efficient. When RAM was really expensive, programming was tight and efficient. Now that RAM is measured in gigs and drives in terabytes, there is no incentive to do efficient programming or wrangle in feature creep and bloatware.

    Eventually we will hit some physical / cost limit on RAM, and then good programming will become a requirement. OF course, by then, there won't be anyone left who knows how to do that...

    RS

    --
    Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
  8. How well would for example... by rzei · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For example Blender's renderer's scale on a system like this? Of course something like MentalRay might scale easily but has anyone any hands on experience?

    One might argue if you are throwing away $25,000 on a system like that you might use software that costs, but then again, Blender has made tremendous progress these last years..

  9. for the rest of the world by spectrokid · · Score: 4, Informative

    that is 62 kg

    --

    10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then

  10. Re:Yes, but only for a short time by KillerBob · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I know you're being facetious, but the limiting factor in the output of a bot on a botnet is its connection speed, not its processing power. A '486 can saturate a 10mbit connection without taking a severe performance hit. Seeing as most of us don't quite have gigabit internet connections at home, this thing wouldn't be any more valuable to a herder than your neighbour's $500 laptop.

    --
    If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
  11. for Britian by TubeSteak · · Score: 4, Informative

    That's 9 stone 8 lbs

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    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
    1. Re:for Britian by frieko · · Score: 4, Informative

      (12.22 in) * (17.5 in) * (35.5 in) = 0.521657047 hogsheads

  12. Re:Yes, but only for a short time by somersault · · Score: 4, Insightful

    He could use it to crack passwords or something.. lots of processors and memory is pretty handy for that

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    which is totally what she said