Virginia Tech Announces Supercomputer Plans

CousinVinnie writes "Previously noted in this Slashdot story, the administration of Virginia Tech has announced they're puchasing 1100 G5's (another story) in hopes to build a top-10 supercomputer by October 1. Tech will be spending $5.2 million over five years on the project, which should help it pull in more research money." Maybe VT can use the new computers to beef up their web site.

cray

[pheared]

Burns: [throws his glass at Homer]
You call this Postum?
[bashes a 5-feet high pile of paper]
Burns: You call this a tax return?
[bangs a CRAY with his cane]
Burns: You call this a supercomputer?

Performance comparisons...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

The comparison is like Apples to Oranges. Most people end up asking "Orange you going to build a beowulf cluster of those Apples?"

Maybe...

[Ieshan]

Maybe Apple will use this G5 cluster against a single-processor itanium to show that, yes, they ARE the fastest personal computer!

The only problem will be finding a desk big enough to fit the guys...

what are they going to name it?

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm, what to name a mac-based supercomputer?

deep-pink.

Re:Maybe...

[jmenezes]

Well, reguardless of the performance of the itanium vs. the G5 cluster, at least you'll be saving on your electricity bill by going with the 1100 G5s....

Obligitory Troll

[Maskirovka]

Slashdot summary:
1) Itaniums are for pussies.
2) Go Apple!
3) Opterons still kick the G5's butt.
4) I can't wait to run doom3 on my backordered G5.
5) People griping about apples proprietary hardware and software, and how this cluster could have been built cheaper from oem parts, and ebay ethernet hubs.
6)Dumb lists summarizing other trolls.

Re:Apple ... supercomputer...?

[tesmako]

Oh nos!1!! The supercomputer will be all loud and stuffs! Whatever shall we do? It will be a pain to play quake on it and ecverything. A monumental failure this.

What the hell do you do with 1100 mice?

[Eclypser]

Post suggestions here!

Re:Maybe...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

This is college. I'm sure some engineering students would have adapted the heat sinks on the Itanium into a whisky still or an expresso machine.

(Sigh) Quitters.

You should watch out

[jbarket]

Jokes like this can get you put away in the punatentury for a very, very long time.

Re:Argument for G5 here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do one of those come with every G5?
If so I'm switching platforms!!

Re:Performance comparisons...

[hackstraw]

I hear this comparison of apples and oranges all the time.

Aren't both fruits that grow from trees?

How about comparing sea water and comets?

"speculation and rumor"?? On /.?!?

[sczimme]

Lots of speculation and rumor, too, if you're into that sort of thing.

This is slashdot! We're all about speculation and rumor. Innuendo, too, especially on the weekends.

Oh, and sentence fragments.

:-)

The real news isn't the super computer

[Chairboy]

I think we can all agree that the shocking thing here wasn't that they were building the super computer as much as it was that a campus rumor was true!

What will happen next, dogs and cats living together? Mass hysteria?

Re:What the hell do you do with 1100 mice?

[daeley]

I don't know what you'd do with them, but I'm sure some wanker on here is already complaining there aren't 2200 buttons. ;)

Re:This is quite cool but...

[Anonymous Coward]

ECC is dying...

OS X 10.3

[Srsen]

As it turns out, this is the minimum recommended system configuration to run OS X 10.3 Panther.

Re:This is quite cool but...

[BWJones]

multibanked ram is nothing new. it's been around since the 486 days for consumers (iirc), and much earlier in big machines, i'm sure. afaik, most mobosthese days are at least 128bits wide.

Yep, my old Macintosh 9600 had a 128-bit wide memory bus if you used identical ram in each of the 12!! RAM slots.

Re:What the hell do you do with 1100 mice?

[Xugumad]

Feed an army of robotic cats?

Time for a new icon

[47Ronin]

Now that we have G5s don't ya think it would be a better idea to use a G5 pic instead of the G4 icon? e.g. http://www.apple.com/g5processor/ [apple.com]

Re:what are they going to name it?

[commodoresloat]

Just call it the Big Apple.

Re:This is quite cool but...

[hackstraw]

And how many undetected errors do you log each week?

infinity - 7.3 I think.

Re:This is quite cool but...

[Greedo]

I think they are excellent machines, but not for science.

Well, like ...

One night, I was processing these gene sequences on my Itanium cluster, you know? When all of a sudden it went berserk, the screens started flashing, and, like, the whole result set just disappeared. All of it. And it was a good result set! I had to cram and resequence it really quickly. Needless to say, my rushed thesis wasn't nearly as good, and I blame those Itaniums for the funding didn't get, and tenure I lost.

I'm happy to report that my sister and I now share an Apple G5 cluster. It's a lot nicer to work on than my old Itanium farm was, it hasn't let me down once, and my papers have all been really good.

Thanks, Apple.

Ellen Feiss, PhD

What da hell will make /. change its G4 thumbnail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on /. Would you please grab a damn G5 thingie offa something somewheres and quit using G4 thumbnails in Apple stories? It sticks out like a green sore thumb and it's embarrassing for /. Time to roll with the changes.