PowerMac G5 Supercomputer Cluster

Omega65 · September 2003

<a href="http://www.thinksecret.com/news/virginiatech.html" target=_blank>Virginia Tech building PowerMac G5 Supercomputer Cluster</a>

August 30, 2003 - Virginia Tech University is building a Power Mac G5 cluster that will result in a supercomputer estimated to be one of the top five fastest in the world.

In yesterday's notes article, we reported that Virginia Tech had placed a large order of dual-2GHz G5s to form a cluster. Since that time, we've received additional information, allowing us to confirm a number of details.

According to reports, Virginia Tech placed the dual-2GHz G5 order shortly after the G5 was announced. Multiple sources said Virginia Tech has ordered 1100 units; RAM on each is said to be upgraded to 4GB or 8GB.

The G5s will be clustered using Infiniband to form a 1100-node supercomputer delivering over 10 Teraflops of performance. Two sources said the cluster is estimated to be one of the top five fastest supercomputers in the world.

However, Virginia Tech's on a deadline. The university needs to have the cluster completely set up this fall so that it can be ranked in Linpack's Top 500 Supercomputer list.

Apple bumped Virginia Tech's order to the front of the line -- even in front of first day orders -- to get them out the door all at once. Sources originally estimated the G5s will arrive the last week of August; they're still on track to arrive early, possibly next week.

Thrax · September 2003

....

So with Apple in the supercomputer market, I suppose terraflops don't mean anything now?

Templar · September 2003

Exoflops!!1!1

Thrax · September 2003

iFlops?

Leonardo · September 2003

...Virginia Tech had placed a large order of dual-2GHz G5s to form a cluster...

Why would they order computers to build a supercomputer. Wouldn't it be more cost effective to just order memory and CPUs in bulk?

...Virginia Tech has ordered 1100 units; RAM on each is said to be upgraded to 4GB or 8GB.

I have not done the math. Would 1100 units (2200 processors?) 1100 X 4-8GB RAM really put this system into teraflop output?

mmonnin · September 2003

Using Apple math it would.

Omega65 · September 2003

Leonardo said
I have not done the math. Would 1100 units (2200 processors?) 1100 X 4-8GB RAM really put this system into teraflop output? [/B]

Easily. You have 2200 2ghz CPUs altogether for (4.4thz combined) Each CPU only has to produce 1/4 Flop/mhz and I 'm sure the IBM 970 64bit chip is in the multiple Flop/mhz range

danball1976 · September 2003

Considering that it takes 1100 apple 2GHz dual CPU (2200CPU's) computers to produce 10TFlops, and it takes only around 2000 or so Opteron CPU's in an actual supercomputer config to produce 10TFLops, that then really isn't much of a supercomputer.

(Correct me if I'm wrong)

I wonder how much of a communication lag there will be compared to an integrated supercomputer system.

Leonardo · September 2003

bytes
kilogytes
megabytes

what's next? where dos 'flop' come in?

danball1976 · September 2003

Leonardo said
bytes
kilobytes
megabytes

what's next? where dos 'flop' come in?

Come in where?

Gigabytes
Terabytes
Exabytes

Omega65 · September 2003

FLOP = Floating Point Operation (multilpy or add)

Thrax · September 2003

Megaflop
Gigaflop
Terraflop
Petaflop
...
Exoflop

danball1976 · September 2003

Thrax said
Megaflop
Gigaflop
Terraflop
Petaflop
...
Exoflop

I thought it exa came after tera and then after exa was peta. I could search google.

After searching Google:

103 Kilo - 1 thousand
106 Mega - 1 million
109 Giga - 1 billion
1012 Tera - 1 trillion
1015 Peta - 1 quadrillion
1018 Exa - 1 quintillion
1021 Zetta - 1 sextillion
1024 Yotta - 1 septillion

For Binary Conversions:
In computing, a custom arose of using the metric prefixes to specify powers of 2. For example, a kilobit is usually 210 = 1024 bits instead of 1000 bits. This practice leads to considerable confusion. In an effort to eliminate this confusion, in 1998 the International Electrotechnical Commission approved new prefixes for the powers of 2. These prefixes are as follows:

kibi- Ki- 210 = 1 024
mebi- Mi- 220 = 1 048 576
gibi- Gi- 230 = 1 073 741 824
tebi- Ti- 240 = 1 099 511 627 776
pebi- Pi- 250 = 1 125 899 906 842 624
exbi- Ei- 260 = 1 152 921 504 606 846 976

The Commission's ruling is that the metric prefixes should be used in computing just as they are used in other fields. Thus, 5 gigabytes (GB) should mean exactly 5 000 000 000 bytes, and 5 gibibytes (GiB) should mean exactly 5 368 709 120 bytes.

All information comes from this website:
http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/prefixes.html

Geeky1 · September 2003

Well apparently Virginia Tech hasn't been impacted by the current state of the economy

Think anyone will tell them that 1100 AMP/Opteron systems would've been cheaper & faster?

danball1976 · September 2003

Someone would probably tell them, but they won't listen.

How useful are Macs to a university when there are hardly any applications available for use on a Mac running BSD?

Geeky1 · September 2003

The availablity of applications is totally irrelevant in this case, because they're being used as a beowulf cluster. In all probability, the application(s) they're going to be used for are custom-tailored, one-off pieces of software that could be written for just about any platform in existence.

PowerMac G5 Supercomputer Cluster

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