That's simply not true in science. The scientific community *is* the exception par excellance. Einstien *was* wrong... he admited so himself. He saw his theory as incomplete because it did not mesh with Quantum Mechanics, and he did not like the way QM explained things. So he set to work to come up with a grander theory which would explain the very small and the very big, but he never finished it. Sure after x number of years and a theory still holds up it gets enshrined and people get used to it. But everyone knows that it will eventually be superceded by something which is even more correct. This is the business of science.
Today there are many people saying Einstein was 'wrong'. He was 'wrong' just like Newton was. Which is to say that neither were the last word, and science marches on.
Yes there's some truth to that. One thing SGI has been guilty of is bad management and wishy-washiness. But it should be pointed out that SGI has been a supporter of OSS for a very very long time and has a been an important contributor not only to the Linux kernel but has also open sourced a lot of their own software. Heck they gave the world XFS for free!
Good job NASA? Yeah I'd agree. But what about good job SGI? Why does SGI always seem to have bad marketing and not get the press/praise they deserve?
This is an SGI system. SGI has laid out plans for terascale computing (stupid marketing speak for huge ccNUMA systems) a while ago. I'm sure NASA and SGI worked together but this is essentialy an 'Extreme' version of an off-the-shelf SGI system.
Who goes through Slashdot all day and anonymously posts these worthless tick-turds? SGI *was* the definition of cool in the computing industry. Sure they've fallen from grace, but have a modest amount of fucking respect for the former rulers.
And you base that on...? RFA, they've seen massive increases in the speed of their analysis.
Do you really believe that NASA just shows up with a pile of money and says 'how many Tflops in LINPAK does this buy'? They bought a smaller Altix system (256P I think) quite a while ago to benchmark their code and do tons of testing. That system was expanded to 512P maybe last year (check SGI's press releases). They pulled the trigger on this project because they decided that for the money and their needs that this was the best system.
You can buy these at www.sgi.com. Just contact a sales rep, they'd be glad to sell you a system like this. NASA paid $45M. And there are (probably) no graphics on NASA's system, it's a supercomputer not a workstation. If you want graphics take a look at something like SGI's Prism... it can have up 512 CPUs (above that you must cluster) and up to 16 GPUs. Does 3DMark run on Linux anyway?
Shipping ... but are any systems deployed?
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Cray XT-3 Ships
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· Score: 1
I guess they'll be setting their sights on SGI, which currently has the 'fastest computer in the world' bragging rights (well not officially, gotta way for the Nov. top 500).
This is great news... I'd like to see three of these drives in a small form factor desktop!
On a related note, is there such a thing as a slim SCSI CD/DVD drive? I'm interested in building my own system with a SCSI backplane and I'd like to have a slim SCSI CD-ROM use the same backplane. I've search high and low and haven't found anything.
If I had my wish there would be someone (say Toshiba) producing slim slot-loading CD/DVD RW drives with a SCA80 SCSI interface.
Am I nuts? Seems kind of crazy to have a highend system (like say an Onyx350) using SCSI for the hard disks and then also have an IDE controller and use an IDE CD-ROM.
> I kind of feel bad for SGI for investing much of > their time and effort to make the Itanium a key > piece of their Linux solution in their Altix line > of servers.
Don't. SGI can switch processors in their NUMAflex systems with surprising little, though still non-trivial, effort.
I'd like to see them refocus on MIPS... not likely. Or failing that switch to PowerPC chips... again, not likely.
NASA has been around for years. They've been developing their massively parallel software for years. And now they're getting a new system to run it on and continue whatever it is that they do these days. These systems are meant to be upgraded and users typically hang on to them for quite a long time. This system started out as a 128P or 256P single system a year or so ago. It's already grown to a cluster of 2 512P systems. And apparently they like it enough that they want 18 more 512P nodes. 1024P nodes are on SGIs roadmap by the end of the year.
EPIC has been around for a long time. The compilers are already there. SGI uses Intel's compilers I believe. The performance is apparently very good. The Altix system posts very good SPEC benchmarks for a single CPU and the benchmarks scale nearly linear as you add CPUs. Plus the memory and I/O performance is out of this world.
Why use Itanium? Because back when SGI decided to switch to IA64 in the late 90s there was no other promising commodity 64-bit CPUs being developed.
Check the price on the SGI cluster from the first Slashdot post... it's a freaking steal... I doubt IBM or anyone else could provide better bang/buck.
Know of any 512P Opteron systems? Slower? Last I knew Altix had the best STREAM score by a large margin. The processors aren't the big deal it's the NUMAflex architecture, massive memory bandwidth and scaleabily, and the huge nodes.
Can't wait till every electronic device shows up on my wireless network. I suppose it will be a while before standards are created and things like quality of service and crossplatform issues are figured out.
What these damn articles always leave out (who pays them off?) is the big question: can I record stuff from the device to a computer on the network? They always play up the fact that you can play music and movies from your computer... well great. But can I record a TV show to my computer and then burn it to disk or share it with friends? And how long before lawsuits over this kick off?
SGI has had multi-GPU graphics cards for a long time (since the late 80s?), and boy are they expensive.
I have an Indigo2 with MaxIMPACT graphics. It has 2 Geometry Engines and 2 Raster Managers. I believe that each set handles a different scan line. Because it is done entirely in hardware MaxIMPACT is twice as fast as a single GE/RE board like HighIMPACT.
I beleive that ATI's modern GPUs have been designed to work in parallel (up to 32 chips?). It's very cool to see a card using 4 R300s.
SGI is starting to use ATI's chips in their own graphics boards, though I've not seen any multi-GPU boards from them yet. Of course no gamer would ever be able to afford an SGI graphics supercomputer, but it still makes one drool.
I have yet to see any other computer maker come close to Apple's design.
Silicon Graphics has had the best case/system designs in the Industry. I think the O2 is the greatest desktop system ever built. Too bad it represents a dead end.
I think last spring F1 became the biggest sport in the world according to TV viewing numbers (excepting the Wolrd Cup finals).
Americans are retards when it comes to racing. Which is a shame because F1 was thriving in America in the 60s and 70s and we actually had some Americans drivers.
If I was a billionaire I'd upgrade Watkins Glen, kickout the proffitable but contemptable Wiston Cup jerks, and try to get F1 back on the best road coarse in the country.
Interesting post. I'm surprised they maintain multiple copies of their database, it's gotta be huge. Someone should sell them a large SAN/NAS machine and a copy of CXFS;)
Google is dropping some serious $$$ on large system(s) here. Why did they choose to use clusters of PCs? It's got to be a nightmare to manage. Why not go for something from a company like SGI or IBM where you can get very large NUMA systems?
Not even reading the article you post, that's stupid. SGI is considering selling them and Alias is in acquisition talks. No one has split yet.
http://www.sgi.com/newsroom/press_releases/2004/fe bruary/alias_software.html
WiFi should be like air conditioning used to be ..
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Hotels: "Vacancy, Color TV, Pool, WiFi" Dinners: "WiFi for Your Convenience!" Theaters/Stores: "WiFi Inside!"
It's a cheap commercial draw. Combined with public networks, wISPs, Mobile WiFi, etc. the future is looking increasingly cord-free.
I'm running a Silicon Graphics Indigo that dates from 1991-1992: 150MHz R4400 MIPS 1MB L2, Elan Graphics (4GEs), 384MB RAM, 9GB Disk, running IRIX 6.5.
Pretty cool to see hardware accelerated 3D from that long ago. The box is just too cool. PCs have yet to catch up with vintage SGIs in terms of packaging and design.
Mine is very similar to this system, but I lack the GalileoVideo I/O board and the Cosmo video compression board:
http://www.nekochan.net/gallery/album11
My Indigo still feels faster than any new PC I've used. And depending on the task it is still quite capable. I listen to MP3s, use OpenOffice, chat on IRC, and surf the net very comfortably. I also run Pro/ENGINEER v20 and Photoshop/Illustrator. Converting video or doing anything with texutres (no hardware texture support) really shows the machines age.
I also have several 180MHz R5000 Indys which were new in 1996. One with a dual-head video card, one with hardware accelerated 3D, one with video I/O/capture/real-time-effects/compression, and one with a Nintendo64 development board. For a basic multimedia/desktop system an Indy is still very useable.
I also have a SPARCstation IPX, 40MHz I beleive. It has a big tablet for using AutoCAD, an optical mouse, and a very neat vertical stand. I don't really use the system but I suppose it's the oldest functioning thing I have.
Slashdot Mirror
That's simply not true in science. The scientific community *is* the exception par excellance. Einstien *was* wrong ... he admited so himself. He saw his theory as incomplete because it did not mesh with Quantum Mechanics, and he did not like the way QM explained things. So he set to work to come up with a grander theory which would explain the very small and the very big, but he never finished it. Sure after x number of years and a theory still holds up it gets enshrined and people get used to it. But everyone knows that it will eventually be superceded by something which is even more correct. This is the business of science.
Today there are many people saying Einstein was 'wrong'. He was 'wrong' just like Newton was. Which is to say that neither were the last word, and science marches on.
In science great claims require great evidence.
Yes there's some truth to that. One thing SGI has been guilty of is bad management and wishy-washiness. But it should be pointed out that SGI has been a supporter of OSS for a very very long time and has a been an important contributor not only to the Linux kernel but has also open sourced a lot of their own software. Heck they gave the world XFS for free!
Good job NASA? Yeah I'd agree. But what about good job SGI? Why does SGI always seem to have bad marketing and not get the press/praise they deserve?
This is an SGI system. SGI has laid out plans for terascale computing (stupid marketing speak for huge ccNUMA systems) a while ago. I'm sure NASA and SGI worked together but this is essentialy an 'Extreme' version of an off-the-shelf SGI system.
Who goes through Slashdot all day and anonymously posts these worthless tick-turds? SGI *was* the definition of cool in the computing industry. Sure they've fallen from grace, but have a modest amount of fucking respect for the former rulers.
And you base that on ...? RFA, they've seen massive increases in the speed of their analysis.
Do you really believe that NASA just shows up with a pile of money and says 'how many Tflops in LINPAK does this buy'? They bought a smaller Altix system (256P I think) quite a while ago to benchmark their code and do tons of testing. That system was expanded to 512P maybe last year (check SGI's press releases). They pulled the trigger on this project because they decided that for the money and their needs that this was the best system.
You can buy these at www.sgi.com. Just contact a sales rep, they'd be glad to sell you a system like this. NASA paid $45M. And there are (probably) no graphics on NASA's system, it's a supercomputer not a workstation. If you want graphics take a look at something like SGI's Prism ... it can have up 512 CPUs (above that you must cluster) and up to 16 GPUs. Does 3DMark run on Linux anyway?
I guess they'll be setting their sights on SGI, which currently has the 'fastest computer in the world' bragging rights (well not officially, gotta way for the Nov. top 500).
This is great news ... I'd like to see three of these drives in a small form factor desktop!
On a related note, is there such a thing as a slim SCSI CD/DVD drive? I'm interested in building my own system with a SCSI backplane and I'd like to have a slim SCSI CD-ROM use the same backplane. I've search high and low and haven't found anything.
If I had my wish there would be someone (say Toshiba) producing slim slot-loading CD/DVD RW drives with a SCA80 SCSI interface.
Am I nuts? Seems kind of crazy to have a highend system (like say an Onyx350) using SCSI for the hard disks and then also have an IDE controller and use an IDE CD-ROM.
> I kind of feel bad for SGI for investing much of
... not likely. Or failing that switch to PowerPC chips ... again, not likely.
> their time and effort to make the Itanium a key
> piece of their Linux solution in their Altix line
> of servers.
Don't. SGI can switch processors in their NUMAflex systems with surprising little, though still non-trivial, effort.
I'd like to see them refocus on MIPS
NASA has been around for years. They've been developing their massively parallel software for years. And now they're getting a new system to run it on and continue whatever it is that they do these days. These systems are meant to be upgraded and users typically hang on to them for quite a long time. This system started out as a 128P or 256P single system a year or so ago. It's already grown to a cluster of 2 512P systems. And apparently they like it enough that they want 18 more 512P nodes. 1024P nodes are on SGIs roadmap by the end of the year.
... it's a freaking steal ... I doubt IBM or anyone else could provide better bang/buck.
EPIC has been around for a long time. The compilers are already there. SGI uses Intel's compilers I believe. The performance is apparently very good. The Altix system posts very good SPEC benchmarks for a single CPU and the benchmarks scale nearly linear as you add CPUs. Plus the memory and I/O performance is out of this world.
Why use Itanium? Because back when SGI decided to switch to IA64 in the late 90s there was no other promising commodity 64-bit CPUs being developed.
Check the price on the SGI cluster from the first Slashdot post
Know of any 512P Opteron systems? Slower? Last I knew Altix had the best STREAM score by a large margin. The processors aren't the big deal it's the NUMAflex architecture, massive memory bandwidth and scaleabily, and the huge nodes.
mod parent up
Can't wait till every electronic device shows up on my wireless network. I suppose it will be a while before standards are created and things like quality of service and crossplatform issues are figured out.
... well great. But can I record a TV show to my computer and then burn it to disk or share it with friends? And how long before lawsuits over this kick off?
What these damn articles always leave out (who pays them off?) is the big question: can I record stuff from the device to a computer on the network? They always play up the fact that you can play music and movies from your computer
SGI has had multi-GPU graphics cards for a long time (since the late 80s?), and boy are they expensive.
I have an Indigo2 with MaxIMPACT graphics. It has 2 Geometry Engines and 2 Raster Managers. I believe that each set handles a different scan line. Because it is done entirely in hardware MaxIMPACT is twice as fast as a single GE/RE board like HighIMPACT.
I beleive that ATI's modern GPUs have been designed to work in parallel (up to 32 chips?). It's very cool to see a card using 4 R300s.
SGI is starting to use ATI's chips in their own graphics boards, though I've not seen any multi-GPU boards from them yet. Of course no gamer would ever be able to afford an SGI graphics supercomputer, but it still makes one drool.
Silicon Graphics has had the best case/system designs in the Industry. I think the O2 is the greatest desktop system ever built. Too bad it represents a dead end.
Articles on other technical aspects of F1.
I think last spring F1 became the biggest sport in the world according to TV viewing numbers (excepting the Wolrd Cup finals).
Americans are retards when it comes to racing. Which is a shame because F1 was thriving in America in the 60s and 70s and we actually had some Americans drivers.
If I was a billionaire I'd upgrade Watkins Glen, kickout the proffitable but contemptable Wiston Cup jerks, and try to get F1 back on the best road coarse in the country.
I thought surely this dude would have one of these. Man I'm gonna die before I find one.
Interesting post. I'm surprised they maintain multiple copies of their database, it's gotta be huge. Someone should sell them a large SAN/NAS machine and a copy of CXFS ;)
Google is dropping some serious $$$ on large system(s) here. Why did they choose to use clusters of PCs? It's got to be a nightmare to manage. Why not go for something from a company like SGI or IBM where you can get very large NUMA systems?
Wow. PCs were just as boring in 1981 as they are now.
Yeah:
. se rial.number.summary/index.htmlt ta.cc/english/All.Maserati/Summa ry/Maseratis.Overview.htm
http://www.barchetta.cc/All.Ferraris/ferrari.by
http://www.barche
Not even reading the article you post, that's stupid. SGI is considering selling them and Alias is in acquisition talks. No one has split yet. http://www.sgi.com/newsroom/press_releases/2004/fe bruary/alias_software.html
Hotels: "Vacancy, Color TV, Pool, WiFi"
Dinners: "WiFi for Your Convenience!"
Theaters/Stores: "WiFi Inside!"
It's a cheap commercial draw. Combined with public networks, wISPs, Mobile WiFi, etc. the future is looking increasingly cord-free.
I'm running a Silicon Graphics Indigo that dates from 1991-1992: 150MHz R4400 MIPS 1MB L2, Elan Graphics (4GEs), 384MB RAM, 9GB Disk, running IRIX 6.5.
Pretty cool to see hardware accelerated 3D from that long ago. The box is just too cool. PCs have yet to catch up with vintage SGIs in terms of packaging and design.
Mine is very similar to this system, but I lack the GalileoVideo I/O board and the Cosmo video compression board:
http://www.nekochan.net/gallery/album11
My Indigo still feels faster than any new PC I've used. And depending on the task it is still quite capable. I listen to MP3s, use OpenOffice, chat on IRC, and surf the net very comfortably. I also run Pro/ENGINEER v20 and Photoshop/Illustrator. Converting video or doing anything with texutres (no hardware texture support) really shows the machines age.
I also have several 180MHz R5000 Indys which were new in 1996. One with a dual-head video card, one with hardware accelerated 3D, one with video I/O/capture/real-time-effects/compression, and one with a Nintendo64 development board. For a basic multimedia/desktop system an Indy is still very useable.
I also have a SPARCstation IPX, 40MHz I beleive. It has a big tablet for using AutoCAD, an optical mouse, and a very neat vertical stand. I don't really use the system but I suppose it's the oldest functioning thing I have.
"You can't take code based on a license you signed, change it a little and then give it away for free (as in the case of XFS from SGI)."
This guy actually thinks XFS is a minor tweak of 20 year old SySV code?