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News IBM may build fastest supercomputer

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Tim S, 7 Aug 2007.

  1. Tim S

    Tim S OG

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  2. iwog

    iwog Linux cursed

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    Wooo, a big powerful computer that isn't being used to think up more ways to kill us. I hope it goes through as golbal warming est bad
     
  3. sgr55

    sgr55 What's a Dremel?

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    I'll take 2 :)

    Seriously scary how much power that thing will have. Hell, it's scary to think about the software written to run on one of them.
    Wonder how it would compare with one of these distributed computing projects (SETI etc)
     
  4. Duste

    Duste Sierra my delta, bravo!

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    Wonder how good this would be at Folding, eh? :p
     
  5. steveo_mcg

    steveo_mcg What's a Dremel?

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    Dear national supercomputer place would you care to join the bit folding team, regards us.
     
  6. Brooxy

    Brooxy Loser of the Game

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    At least that's what we're being told...

    They say it's for global warming to be solved, but how much power would go into running the thing?
     
  7. Delphium

    Delphium Eyefinity enabled

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    HAH, my thoughts exactly, by the time they finished running there calculations they would have worked out they could have saved man kind a further 10years by not running that beast.


    I bet it will run Oblivion and Crysis like liquid though :geek::D
     
  8. Amon

    Amon inch-perfect

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    Does it come in a colour other than IBM Black?
     
  9. Bauul

    Bauul Sir Bongaminge

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    Now THAT would be a case mod project and a half!
     
  10. devdevil85

    devdevil85 What's a Dremel?

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    What do they do with the parts for old/out-of-date supercomputers? Do they auction them off or what?
     
  11. The_Beast

    The_Beast I like wood ಠ_ಠ

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    Wow cool computer
     
  12. g3n3tiX

    g3n3tiX Minimodder

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    Does it run Doom ?

    more seriously, there's a flaw : a huuuge power hungry beast (wattage of such a thing ?) is used to calculate and simulate the effects of global warming. Sweeet irony indeed.
     
  13. Techno-Dann

    Techno-Dann Disgruntled kumquat

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    If you're in the right place at the right time, you can pick up a mid-80s Cray for $5000 or so... They're usually torn apart for the bits of gold in them. Of course, a QX6800 will run circles around it, but it's still a Cray.

    Imagine turning a Cray into a modern Beowulf cluster... Talk about a nifty case mod.
     
  14. jweller

    jweller What's a Dremel?

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    Such arcane talk

    I wish you egghead types would stop talking in such arcane techie talk. :geek: ;)
     
  15. Zurechial

    Zurechial Elitist

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    I bet it won't. :p

    If I'm not mistaken, Supercomputers are built as pure calculation powerhouses, not the kind of hardware we're familiar with that'll run x86 software.
    I doubt it's even possible to load *any* desktop-computer software on it at all :p

    Mind you, I'm far from being an expert on the topic..
     
  16. Techno-Dann

    Techno-Dann Disgruntled kumquat

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    You could probably emulate an x86 CPU and DX10-compliant video card, and have enough power left to run either game quite nicely...
     
  17. Zurechial

    Zurechial Elitist

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    Point. :hehe:
     
  18. Shadowed_fury

    Shadowed_fury Minimodder

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    42... Yeah!
     
  19. completemadness

    completemadness What's a Dremel?

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    wow, should be interesting

    Don't they currently hold the award anyway, with bluegene ? i thought that was the fastest supercomputer in the world
    Although it does have a MTBF of like 4 hours

    Oh and as to the computing bit of it, modern super computers basically are a baewolf cluster, it because too difficult to build ginormous motherboards, so now their just lots of multi-cored, multi socketed computers
     
  20. Bauul

    Bauul Sir Bongaminge

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    I bet if you cracked it open, all you'd find is an Internet connection that links to millions of desktop PCs worlwide that are acting as zombies for it.

    That, or an old, wizend man with a long beard.
     
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