Filed under: Desktops

C’mon, who here doesn’t want their very own supercomputer to do, um, whatever they want with? In an effort to make sure every man, woman and child has an absurdly powerful number cruncher in their home (let’s go with OSPP, or One Supercomputer Per Person), Microsoft has tag-teamed with the fabled Cray in order to “drive high productivity computing into the mainstream.” The Cray CX1 Supercomputer comes loaded with Windows HPC Server 2008 and incorporates up to 8 nodes and 16 Intel Xeon CPUs (dual- or quad-core); additionally, it boasts up to 4TB of internal storage, 64GB of memory per node and interoperates nicely with Linux. The CX1 is said to be the most affordable supercomputer offered by Cray (not to mention the “world’s highest-performing computer that uses standard office power”), but it’ll still run you anywhere between $25,000 to well over $60,000. Chump change, right?

[Via NetworkWorld]

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Filed under: Desktops

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/microsoft/Fastest_ever_Windows_HPC_cluster_nets_68_5_teraflops’; In the grand scheme of supercomputers, a homegrown cluster constructed by Microsoft is just a boy among men. However, said rig has set at least one record by becoming the “fastest-ever Windows HPC cluster.” At the International Supercomputing conference in Dresden, Germany, it was announced that this beast ranked 23rd in the world “with a problem-solving performance of 68.5 teraflops.” The National Center for Supercomputing Applications utilized a beta version of Windows HPC Server 2008 to hit the aforesaid mark, and if you’re curious as to what it took to get there, try 9,472 cores of processing power. There’s more where this came from for the hardcore nerds in attendance right in the read link.

[Via Slashdot]

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Filed under: Desktops

People have been stuffing PCs in all kinds of things they don’t belong in for a while now, but this Linux cluster creatively packed into an Ikea Helmer filing cabinet might be the first time we’ve seen furniture actually modded into a useful case. Sure, it looks like an ordinary filing cabinet, but it’s packing six machines with Intel Core 2 Quad processors on Gigabyte S-series mobos with 8GB of RAM each, allowing it pump out 186 Gflops — enough to complete a render job that takes a 2.66Ghz quad-core Mac Pro nine hours in just 64 minutes. Yeah, that’s quite a filing cabinet. Hit the read links for tech specs, instructions, and updates on Helmer II.

[Via Make]

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Filed under: Desktops

Off hand, we can’t think of how we’d truly utilize the horsepower generated by a 72-processor cluster shoved into a “whisper-quiet, low-power deskside cabinet,” but we’d happily draw up a plan if forced. SiCortex — the same folks who delivered the bicycle-powered supercomputer — has introduced its new SO072 Catapult, which features a standard Linux environment, 48GB of RAM and a trio of (optional) PCIExpress slots. This aptly categorized high performance computer (HPC) sucks down less than 200-watts of power, sports a pair of gigabit Ethernet ports and has room for six internal hard drives. Reportedly, each of the 12 SC072 nodes is a multi-core chip with six CPU cores, and while $15,000 may seem steep for your average tower, we’d say this is a pretty good value considering the hardware.

[Via Gadgetopia]

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