Supercomputers

D

Diddy

New Member
I have heard about those Super Computer which are capable of so much calculating, meteorologist are using for helping them make a more accurate prediction of the weather. They are also used by other sciencetist, where they use them for advanced big calculations.

So does anybody know how fast these computers are? And it is possible to make computers that are much faster than those we have at home, they are just far too expensive for normal people?
 
You're absolutely right that there are supercomputers helping predict the weather. Basically they're made of lots of cpu's bunched together. The fastest supercomputer is Blue Gene and is made up of 65536 processors. It's roughly the speed of 135 TFLOPS, which is fast.

Having said that, distributed computing programs like Folding@Home far exceed anything that's capable using a supercomputer.
 
Diddy said:
Ehmm what is that blue gene used for and where is it placed?
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It's installed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and although I don't know much about it, apparently it's doing similar work to Folding@Home, simulating proteins.
Diddy said:
And what is folding@home?
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It's a distributed computing program, where millions of people across the world dedicate spare cpu time simulating the folding of proteins to help with medical research. Then the results are sent back via the internet. Here's their home page, I really recommend you take part, it doesn't affect the normal running of your pc, and we have our own team at Computer Forum, read the sticky in this section.
 
Ok thanks for the information.

So you help them because their own supercomputer is not capable of doing it all by itself?
 
Diddy said:
So you help them because their own supercomputer is not capable of doing it all by itself?
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I wouldnt say that, but this way it gets the job done much quicker.
 
There is no limit - a supercomputer is made of linking thousands of cpu's together in parallel, such a computer probably cost millions to implement, but is certainly not something within the realms of anyone apart from the corporate giant that is IBM (amongst others).
 
magicman said:
There is no limit - a supercomputer is made of linking thousands of cpu's together in parallel, such a computer probably cost millions to implement, but is certainly not something within the realms of anyone apart from the corporate giant that is IBM (amongst others).
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Cray Inc. makes some pretty amazing supercomputers (around 100G FLOPS.. which, while not in the same league as Blue Gene, is still very fast ).. I have been to a few small companies who use such machines.
 
SFR said:
Cray Inc. makes some pretty amazing supercomputers (around 100G FLOPS.. which, while not in the same league as Blue Gene, is still very fast ).. I have been to a few small companies who use such machines.
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Lol, so they do. Shame their website doesn't include a price list - I'd be interested in seeing what one of those babies cost. :P
 
but then- you would think about having five or six hundred v-cards in SLI. lol. Dont forget- the hard drives have to keep up. That would take a lot of SCSIs. And then storage- have your own personal warehouse next to your room. uh oh- your boot drive has died, now you have to go find it and replace it. Have fun.
 
"Server farms" fascinate me. A few of our (the company I work for) customers have incredible server rooms...

There is this one company that keeps records for some of the largest (fortune 500) title companies in the world. I remember walking into their server room.. it was huge! They had more than a few supercomputers. I do not know what kind of computers they were but there were 8 circular walk-in rooms about 10-15 feet in diameter placed throughout the giant computer room... it was pretty crazy!

My boss just upgraded... Our server room consists of about 10 tubs full of cables and adapters, a few fireproof file cabinets, two Dell Rack Cabinets, one with 6 and the other with 7 power edge and power vault rack servers, each with their own APC UPC and three tower servers on a desk...
 
Got any pictures??

I was reading up on a new super computer. I'll try to find the link, but it was nice to say the least.

Bob
 
What are they using those super computers for?

I visited a company not that long ago who was selling catalytic converters and at the same time doing reaserch, they had this super computer do not know how fast it was, to simulate this catalytic converter, and thereby see how it worked.
 
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