Virginia Tech G5 Super Computer

If you were to buy 1100 CPUs at one time. I would think you caould get a deal also.

rman said:

If you were to buy 1100 CPUs at one time. I would think you caould get a deal also.

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Nope, no deal...

"Varadarajan said Apple provided significant technical help and gave Virginia Tech some of the first G5s off the production line, but the college paid full price for the machines, which cost $3,000 apiece.


Varadarajan said he plans to upgrade the entire cluster to Panther, the latest version of the Mac OS X operating system, in a couple of weeks."

-Wired Magazine:
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,61005,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

This is a pretty good link to the latest news on this computer:

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2003/10/30.14.shtml

it seems that the number being reported to top500 is 10.28TFlops. It seems that the report which the top 500 list is based on has been released. http://www.netlib.org/benchmark/performance.pdf if you care to look at the report yourselves. Page 53 is where they start the ranking of all of the machines. After a win over miami this weekend, this week is turning out to be a very good week to be a hokie :-D.

'Big Mac' ranked 3rd fastest supercomputer

Source: MacMinute.com

'Big Mac' ranked 3rd fastest supercomputer
November 4, 2003 - 16:58 EST* Virginia Tech's supercomputer cluster made from 1,100 Power Mac G5s now ranks third among the world's 500 fastest supercomputers. "The Terascale Cluster computer, nicknamed 'Big Mac' by some, conducts 9.6 trillion calculations per second, zipping along with 2,200 IBM microprocessors not unlike those found in high-end consumer desktop computers," reports AP. "The Top 500 is a twice-a-year listing started in 1993 to provide a 'Who's Who' of hot computers, spotting and tracking trends in high-performance computing. The ranking by the Top 500 project will be formally announced on Nov. 18 at the Supercomputing Conference in Phoenix."

G5 Supercomputer Kits from Virginia Tech

Source: MacRumors.com

G5 Supercomputer Kits from Virginia Tech
Wednesday November 05, 2003 07:35 PM

As mentioned in a previous report, Virginia Tech will begin offering Supercomputer Kits beginning early next year.

These kits will provide plans for institutions to create their own PowerMac G5 clusters with off-the-shelf components. The Virginia Tech PowerMac G5 cluster currently ranks #3 in the world based on preliminary results. Final rankings are due in mid November.

Techweb.com reports that, amongst others, the National Security Agency and the Argonne weapons laboratory have expressed interest in the plans. Previous comments from Dr. Srinidhi Varadarajan noted that we could "expect to see a lot more G5 clusters."

My Comments: I wouldnt mind one.. maybe if everybody in the forums donated $5 we could get one for mac-forums, ok.. maybe $500.00 each, but still

Murlyn said:

Source: MacRumors.com

G5 Supercomputer Kits from Virginia Tech
Wednesday November 05, 2003 07:35 PM

As mentioned in a previous report, Virginia Tech will begin offering Supercomputer Kits beginning early next year.

These kits will provide plans for institutions to create their own PowerMac G5 clusters with off-the-shelf components. The Virginia Tech PowerMac G5 cluster currently ranks #3 in the world based on preliminary results. Final rankings are due in mid November.

Techweb.com reports that, amongst others, the National Security Agency and the Argonne weapons laboratory have expressed interest in the plans. Previous comments from Dr. Srinidhi Varadarajan noted that we could "expect to see a lot more G5 clusters."

My Comments: I wouldnt mind one.. maybe if everybody in the forums donated $5 we could get one for mac-forums, ok.. maybe $500.00 each, but still

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I wonder if there is going to be a student discount on the super computer kits

Actually on a better jealousy note, I have a tour of the facility scheduled tomorrow at 9am. Im going to try to take my camera in and take some pictures. I shall post them should I be allowed to take them.

Hmm.. yeah probably about 10-20% so if you can still afford that.. then by all means.. go for it! *grin*

Can't wait to see the pics!

Murlyn said:

Hmm.. yeah probably about 10-20% so if you can still afford that.. then by all means.. go for it! *grin*

Can't wait to see the pics!

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I wasnt allowed to bring my camera in :-( but the place is awesome. They seem to have something on the order of 1050 nodes up and running at the moment with the confirmed capacity of 10.28 TeraFlops (from the architect himself). The cooling system is really effective as the room which is 1 acre in size stays at about 62 degrees, and if the cooling system is damaged, the room would jump to over 100 degrees in less than 5 minutes. The backup power systems are amazing too, they have two separate power company feeds, a huge UPS, and a backup generator all for the cluster alone... The system has 8 - 10 power handling units, each pulling about 67000kwh. The racks that were used for the installation were custom designed and the prototype was built overnight and delivered to VT the next morning during the early planning and construction phases. Overall, it is an amazing accomplishment and I can't wait until it is actually being put to use.Im very proud to be a hokie.

It's official: G5 supercomputer ranked 3rd fastest

Source: MacMinute.com

It's official: G5 supercomputer ranked 3rd fastest
November 16, 2003 - 00:40 EST As expected, Virginia Tech's "Big Mac" supercomputer cluster, built with 1,100 Power Mac G5s, officially ranks third among the world's 500 most powerful supercomputers. The US$5.2 million system, officially named "X," ranked No. 3 with a performance of 10.3 trillion calculations per second, or 10.3 teraflops. The No. 1 and No. 2 systems were Japan's Earth Simulator and Los Alamos National Laboratory's ASCI Q with performance of 35.6 teraflops and 13.8 teraflops, respectively. The results were released today in the Top500, a twice-a-year list of the world's 500 fastest machines.

My Comments: Well... awesome!

Murlyn said:

Source: MacMinute.com

It's official: G5 supercomputer ranked 3rd fastest
November 16, 2003 - 00:40 EST As expected, Virginia Tech's "Big Mac" supercomputer cluster, built with 1,100 Power Mac G5s, officially ranks third among the world's 500 most powerful supercomputers. The US$5.2 million system, officially named "X," ranked No. 3 with a performance of 10.3 trillion calculations per second, or 10.3 teraflops. The No. 1 and No. 2 systems were Japan's Earth Simulator and Los Alamos National Laboratory's ASCI Q with performance of 35.6 teraflops and 13.8 teraflops, respectively. The results were released today in the Top500, a twice-a-year list of the world's 500 fastest machines.

My Comments: Well... awesome!

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Awesome is correct. And I even got to touch it :-D This is so amazing, im considering graduate school just to get a chance to work with it, and possibly help design and build the next one.. :-D

Virginia Tech Math Emporium boasts 550 iMacs

Source: MacMinute.com

Virginia Tech Math Emporium boasts 550 iMacs
November 20, 2003 - 15:10 EST Virginia Tech's "X" supercomputer, built with 1,100 Power Mac G5s, isn't the only large collection of Mac used at the university -- its new math facility houses more than 550 flat-panel iMacs. "In what used to be a five-and-dime store, a 60,000-square foot space has been converted into Virginia Tech's Math Emporium, a state-of-the-art computer lab that serves 7000 math students each school year. Outfitted with nearly 550 iMac systems running Mac OS X, the Math Emporium has created a unique academic community in which students have control of their own learning.

Murlyn said:

Source: MacMinute.com

Virginia Tech Math Emporium boasts 550 iMacs
November 20, 2003 - 15:10 EST Virginia Tech's "X" supercomputer, built with 1,100 Power Mac G5s, isn't the only large collection of Mac used at the university -- its new math facility houses more than 550 flat-panel iMacs. "In what used to be a five-and-dime store, a 60,000-square foot space has been converted into Virginia Tech's Math Emporium, a state-of-the-art computer lab that serves 7000 math students each school year. Outfitted with nearly 550 iMac systems running Mac OS X, the Math Emporium has created a unique academic community in which students have control of their own learning.

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Yeah that place exists.... They make it sound like all the students just love going there... so far from the truth. People go there because they have to. Its about 1/2 a mile off campus, and is served by the bus system. Thank god I have gotten through my time here at tech where they require going over there for part of classes.

Hey, I'm new to this mac stuff, and actually the whole computer thing. But there has been something that was on my mind since i read the Virginia Tech story.

Can i make my own little super computer by combining mebbe 2 or 3 g4 power macs or cubes?

I've been asking some Apple "genius's" but they don't seem to understand my question.

turtlelee14 said:

Hey, I'm new to this mac stuff, and actually the whole computer thing. But there has been something that was on my mind since i read the Virginia Tech story.

Can i make my own little super computer by combining mebbe 2 or 3 g4 power macs or cubes?

I've been asking some Apple "genius's" but they don't seem to understand my question.

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it really wouldnt be a super computer with a few machines, because there is more to the super computer here than just a bunch of machines. There are also VERY expensive fiber backbones that connect each machine to one another to allow for near instant communication with one another. Regular ethernet would take too long to send data across to gain any advantages over just using each machine separately. Clustering in OS X requires low-level drivers which apple has chosen not to release as of yet (search for information on their Xgrid project). so the blunt answer is no, you can not.

Thanks hokiethang, thats the most detailed explanation i've heard.

But just say i'm really really wanting to try this out, what else do i need to know and... even though it may not make the computer much faster (or faster at all), i'm sure there are other benefits arn't there?

For example, more hard drive, more cd slots, more firewire/usb slots, mebbe even more ram? Or does this require the the fiber backing and OSX clustering you were talking about?

Just curious =)

turtlelee14 said:

Thanks hokiethang, thats the most detailed explanation i've heard.

But just say i'm really really wanting to try this out, what else do i need to know and... even though it may not make the computer much faster (or faster at all), i'm sure there are other benefits arn't there?

For example, more hard drive, more cd slots, more firewire/usb slots, mebbe even more ram? Or does this require the the fiber backing and OSX clustering you were talking about?

Just curious =)

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that really wouldnt be clustering, thats more shared resources. If you connect 4 machines to the network you theoretically have 4 cd drives. In order to do anything greater than simply using drives of another machine, you really would have to get into a more expensive project. Supercomputers are not designed to do the things you may want to do with them (like play games or do photoshop). Supercomputers are all about getting data moved through a processor as fast as possible. Firewire/USB as far as I know can not be shared over a network, and if it were it probably would be slow (ethernet is 100mbit, firewire is 400mbit). trying to share ram over a network would be stupid as well because internal ram speeds are mostly in the range of 1 - 3 Gigabit. Its possible, with the right software to share ram, but you will have a very very SLOW computer (since the processors would have to wait for the network to deliver stuff to local ram). Supercomputers use their own ram at each node for their own calculations, and when they finish the data they are working on, they send the information back to the head node of the machine. The head node then organizes the data and dispatches new data to that machine for it to process.