News ASTRA builds 13-GPU supercomputer

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2009/12/15/astra-builds-13-gpu-supercomputer/1

The guys at the University of Antwerp have done it again, besting their eight-GPU desktop supercomputer with a 13-GPU beast offering 12 teraflops of computing power.

 

*droooooool* urgugghrugugguhghghg

can i have it

 

Bet it still won't run crysis on high settings....

 

Cool... where's the custom bios? Where can we get it?

 

Hmm i wonder how well it can fold.

 

Well someone had to say it i guess

 

Pride of place in a friend's collection of old computer parts is an ancient motherboard with an ancient processor complete with ancient maths coprocessor in it's own socket, a 386/387 IIRC. Using custom add-ins to accelerate functions by taking them off the CPU is something we've been doing for decades, for all kinds of reasons. After all, what is a GPU but a chip that's very good at performing lots of mathematical calculations in parallel? It was only a matter of time before someone gave us a way to leverage that specialty for other purposes. That time was a little while ago, and it's nice to see people taking extreme advantage of that and showing just what a kickass idea it was.

Must show my better half this, she works in Nuclear Medicine...

 

Does that involve helping poorly electrons regain their spin

 

I'm crowning you King of Bad Banter for that effort!

 

What an awesome first post

 

I'd have thought more comment worthy was the fact that my fiancee might be interested in a custom-built PC with 7 graphics cards running Linux. Tomography attracts all sorts, I guess.

PS. She's mine, get yer own

 

So is it Fastra or Astra???

 

Anyway good rig but 5970 would be better ))))

 

Little confused by that too mate.

Putting the name aside, Its a brilliant idea and concept I must say! And as its for a good cause I hope they have had all the support they need.

Andy

 

very nice setup thought, they used linux this time round

to bad the video cards will only last 6 months at best as GTX295 (Single side versions) are not known for been reliable for folding and they do something cida the same type of load, 9800GX2 cards far more reliable and only 25% less power full (GTX295 is like having 3 9800 video cards) 9800GX2 cards tend to be more stable as well (had mine for year now all still going)

 

Isn't it ASTRA that built FASTRA II?

 

Yes... I was correct.
ASTRA is the research group that designed and then built the FASTRA II machine.

 

Now all it needs is a Vauxhall badge

 

that's wat i call a desktop pc!

 

if you look at the old vidios for fastra origanal they have one of the team being caught while playing crysis