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Supercomputer sets record: 12,960 chips that are an improved version of the IBM Cell
- Thread starter FrankT
- Start date
Neo C. said:
Long long time.
Then again, 25 years IS a long long time.
Guy at my school created a computer to replace a beowulf cluster that a professor had, it does 1.odd gigaflops, I believe. (16 core, 4 quad core Pentiums). It was quite impressive, the downside was that the vid cards were.. wlel, the bought them for $25...
Things are just gonna get more awesome from here. They're using modified, double-precision enhanced versions of 2005 CELL technology.
By 2010 there should be a 1 TFLOP (single precision) CELL and 1 TFLOP Larrabee, among others. Give it a couple more years for Supercomputers to take advantage DP-enhanced versions of those and other chips, and they'll shatter records again.
By 2010 there should be a 1 TFLOP (single precision) CELL and 1 TFLOP Larrabee, among others. Give it a couple more years for Supercomputers to take advantage DP-enhanced versions of those and other chips, and they'll shatter records again.
Neo C. said:
Well, there's also the problem of sheer technological breakdown. I mean, we're not going to be improving that much for much longer (We're going to be falling under Moore's Law soon, I think? Or are we already under it?). In fact, a lot of the focus is on reducing the power useage of chips, and decreasing the heat produced (two are related).
Multicore helps, but even then you can only go so far (especially cost-wise).
Neo C. said:
Are we just talking about CPUs, though? There's a lot of FP power in them there GPUs.
Just taking CPUs, though, there was a 35x jump in fp spec between ps2 and ps3. If we could expect the same between generations going forward, we'd get there in 2-3. Without counting GPUs.
But unfortunately I don't think we can expect the same kind of jump :| Besides, if we're talking 20 or 30 years down the road, computers may be fundamentally different..maybe quantum computing will be a reality, who knows.
Here is the press release from IBM's website which gives some more information on the breakdown of Opteron vs Cell processors:
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/24405.wss
Armonk, NY - 09 Jun 2008: In 2006, the Department of Energys National Nuclear Security Administration selected Los Alamos National Laboratory as the development site for Roadrunner and IBM as the computers designer and builder. Roadrunner, named after the New Mexico state bird, cost about $100 million, and was a three-phase project to deliver the worlds first hybrid supercomputer one powerful enough to operate at one petaflop (one thousand trillion calculations per second). Thats twice as fast as the current No.1 rated IBM Blue Gene system at Lawrence Livermore National Lab itself nearly three times faster than the leading contenders on the current TOP 500 list of worldwide supercomputers.
Roadrunner will primarily be used to ensure the safety and reliability of the nations nuclear weapons stockpile. It will also be used for research into astronomy, energy, human genome science and climate change.
Roadrunner is the worlds first hybrid supercomputer. In a first-of-a-kind design, the Cell Broadband Engine® -- originally designed for video game platforms such as the Sony Playstation 3® -- will work in conjunction with x86 processors from AMD®.
Made from Commercial Parts. In total, Roadrunner connects 6,948 dual-core AMD Opteron® chips (on IBM Model LS21 blade servers) as well as 12,960 Cell engines (on IBM Model QS22 blade servers). The Roadrunner system has 80 terabytes of memory, and is housed in 288 refrigerator-sized, IBM BladeCenter® racks occupying 6,000 square feet. Its 10,000 connections both Infiniband and Gigabit Ethernet -- require 57 miles of fiber optic cable. Roadrunner weighs 500,000 lbs. Companies that contributed components and technology include; Emcore, Flextronics, Mellanox and Voltaire.
Custom Configuration. Two IBM QS22 blade servers and one IBM LS21 blade server are combined into a specialized tri-blade configuration for Roadrunner. The machine is composed of a total of 3,456 tri-blades built in IBMs Rochester, Minn. plant. Standard processing (e.g., file system I/O) is handled by the Opteron processors. Mathematically and CPU-intensive elements are directed to the Cell processors. Each tri-blade unit can run at 400 billion operations per second (400 Gigaflops).
The machine was built, tested and benchmarked in IBMs Poughkeepsie, N.Y. plant, home of the ASCI series of supercomputers the company built for the US government in the late 1990s. IBMs site in Rochester, Minn. constructed the specialized tri-blade servers. Software development was led by IBM engineers in Austin, Texas and by researchers in IBMs Yorktown Heights, N.Y. research lab. Roadrunner will be loaded onto 21 tractor trailer trucks later this summer when it is delivered to Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico.
Roadrunner operates on open-source Linux software from Red Hat.
Energy Miser. Compared to most traditional supercomputer designs, Roadrunners hybrid format sips power (3.9 megawatts) and delivers world-leading efficiency 376 million calculations per watt. IBM expects Roadrunner to place among the top energy-efficient systems later in June when the official Green 500 list of supercomputers is issued.
IBM is developing new software to make Cell-powered hybrid computing broadly accessible. Roadrunners massive software effort targets commercial applications for hybrid supercomputing. With corporate and academic partners, IBM is developing an open-source ecosystem that will bring hybrid supercomputing to financial services, energy exploration and medical imaging industries among others.
Applications for Cell-based hybrid supercomputing include: calculating cause and effect in capital markets in real-time, supercomputers in financial services can instantly predict the ripple effect of a stock market change throughout the markets. In medicine, complex 3-D renderings of tissues and bone structures will happen in real-time, as patients are being examined
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/24405.wss
Armonk, NY - 09 Jun 2008: In 2006, the Department of Energys National Nuclear Security Administration selected Los Alamos National Laboratory as the development site for Roadrunner and IBM as the computers designer and builder. Roadrunner, named after the New Mexico state bird, cost about $100 million, and was a three-phase project to deliver the worlds first hybrid supercomputer one powerful enough to operate at one petaflop (one thousand trillion calculations per second). Thats twice as fast as the current No.1 rated IBM Blue Gene system at Lawrence Livermore National Lab itself nearly three times faster than the leading contenders on the current TOP 500 list of worldwide supercomputers.
Roadrunner will primarily be used to ensure the safety and reliability of the nations nuclear weapons stockpile. It will also be used for research into astronomy, energy, human genome science and climate change.
Roadrunner is the worlds first hybrid supercomputer. In a first-of-a-kind design, the Cell Broadband Engine® -- originally designed for video game platforms such as the Sony Playstation 3® -- will work in conjunction with x86 processors from AMD®.
Made from Commercial Parts. In total, Roadrunner connects 6,948 dual-core AMD Opteron® chips (on IBM Model LS21 blade servers) as well as 12,960 Cell engines (on IBM Model QS22 blade servers). The Roadrunner system has 80 terabytes of memory, and is housed in 288 refrigerator-sized, IBM BladeCenter® racks occupying 6,000 square feet. Its 10,000 connections both Infiniband and Gigabit Ethernet -- require 57 miles of fiber optic cable. Roadrunner weighs 500,000 lbs. Companies that contributed components and technology include; Emcore, Flextronics, Mellanox and Voltaire.
Custom Configuration. Two IBM QS22 blade servers and one IBM LS21 blade server are combined into a specialized tri-blade configuration for Roadrunner. The machine is composed of a total of 3,456 tri-blades built in IBMs Rochester, Minn. plant. Standard processing (e.g., file system I/O) is handled by the Opteron processors. Mathematically and CPU-intensive elements are directed to the Cell processors. Each tri-blade unit can run at 400 billion operations per second (400 Gigaflops).
The machine was built, tested and benchmarked in IBMs Poughkeepsie, N.Y. plant, home of the ASCI series of supercomputers the company built for the US government in the late 1990s. IBMs site in Rochester, Minn. constructed the specialized tri-blade servers. Software development was led by IBM engineers in Austin, Texas and by researchers in IBMs Yorktown Heights, N.Y. research lab. Roadrunner will be loaded onto 21 tractor trailer trucks later this summer when it is delivered to Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico.
Roadrunner operates on open-source Linux software from Red Hat.
Energy Miser. Compared to most traditional supercomputer designs, Roadrunners hybrid format sips power (3.9 megawatts) and delivers world-leading efficiency 376 million calculations per watt. IBM expects Roadrunner to place among the top energy-efficient systems later in June when the official Green 500 list of supercomputers is issued.
IBM is developing new software to make Cell-powered hybrid computing broadly accessible. Roadrunners massive software effort targets commercial applications for hybrid supercomputing. With corporate and academic partners, IBM is developing an open-source ecosystem that will bring hybrid supercomputing to financial services, energy exploration and medical imaging industries among others.
Applications for Cell-based hybrid supercomputing include: calculating cause and effect in capital markets in real-time, supercomputers in financial services can instantly predict the ripple effect of a stock market change throughout the markets. In medicine, complex 3-D renderings of tissues and bone structures will happen in real-time, as patients are being examined
Although the RoadRunner broke the petaflop boundary, it may or may not be the #1 supercomputer in the world. The Top 500 supercomputer list only comes out on June 17 2008. There may be some surprise entry.
The other interesting parameter is the efficiency (It is also tracked as an indicator in the Top 500 list). A program written for Cell can usually hit close to its theoretical max flop compared to cache based systems. This is a consequence of its Local Store design.
I guess we can talk about it after people have played MGS4.
The other interesting parameter is the efficiency (It is also tracked as an indicator in the Top 500 list). A program written for Cell can usually hit close to its theoretical max flop compared to cache based systems. This is a consequence of its Local Store design.
I guess we can talk about it after people have played MGS4.
Mr. Wonderful
Member
:lol :lolnli10 said:
To do maths fast?ianp622 said:
I'm sorry Dave but I cannot violate human free will. I can only inform you of the possible outcomes of your actions.voltron said:
Good Luck Buddy!
Love and Kisses,
Computer
If a cure for cancer was reveled, we would all be fucked.Zophar said:
Global populations would skyrocket.
This is not quite a valid comparison though.gofreak said:
The PS2 was not using a dedicated FP processor. The Cell was designed for this task, and as such, the performance is drastically better than a normal Moore's Law style progression.
Unless there is some breakthrough in FP calculation, then you won't see this leap again.
mentalfloss
Banned
"It will be used principally to solve classified military problems to ensure that the nation's stockpile of nuclear weapons will continue to work correctly as they age."
So much wrong in one sentence.
So much wrong in one sentence.