Actually, I'm thinking of getting a supercomputer of my own. I read about supercomputers going mainstream, and found a computer that is "250 times faster than the average PC."
Actually, I'd make great use for a computer like that, such as recording in high fidelity. But one of the first things I would do with it is install BOINC on it.
I was surprised a supercomputer could be that small. I've always imagined them to be large bulky machines.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/06/nvidia-tesla-supercomputer-for-1500-to.html
http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,24758514-5014239,00.html
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/06/21/nvidia_launches_tesla/

The Tesla supercomputers cost anywhere from $1,500 to over $60,000 depending on how powerful you want it to be. For my purposes, I wouldn't need a super- powerful computer.

Note there's currently a shortage of BOINC projects capable of running on the GPUs the Tesla supercomputers get most of their computing power from. For example, the last I read, Rosetta@home couldn't run on a GPU. There's probably also a shortage of other software capable of running on a GPU.

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Actually, I'm thinking of getting a supercomputer of my own. I read about supercomputers going mainstream, and found a computer that is "250 times faster than the average PC."
Actually, I'd make great use for a computer like that, such as recording in high fidelity. But one of the first things I would do with it is install BOINC on it.
I was surprised a supercomputer could be that small. I've always imagined them to be large bulky machines.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/06/nvidia-tesla-supercomputer-for-1500-to.html
http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,24758514-5014239,00.html
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/06/21/nvidia_launches_tesla/

The Tesla supercomputers cost anywhere from $1,500 to over $60,000 depending on how powerful you want it to be. For my purposes, I wouldn't need a super- powerful computer.

Note there's currently a shortage of BOINC projects capable of running on the GPUs the Tesla supercomputers get most of their computing power from. For example, the last I read, Rosetta@home couldn't run on a GPU. There's probably also a shortage of other software capable of running on a GPU.

True but I have read that the new Boinc, 6.4.5, will have GPU processing built in. If that is true then alot of Projects may take advantage of that and make it work for them. I just checked http://www.gpugrid.net/ and when you try to download the Boinc software for the video card it tries to download Boinc 6.4.2.

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I ran in to this one the other day
http://newmexicosupercomputer.com/
172 TFlops and 172TB of storage, 14,336 compute cores with 2GB each. 3Ghz dual quad Xeons in each node. Sounds sorta like a lot of PCs put together. The only real difference between this machine and 20,000 new, dedicated Rosetta crunchers is the locality of so much disk storage.

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

that sounds similar in style to Roadrunner, but it is dedicated to National Nuclear Security Administration.

Now it would be interesting to see how fast a system with 30 thousand GPUs would be. If you used 30,000 of something such as this http://game.amd.com/us-en/unlock_radeonhd4870x2.aspx?p=1 which has 2.4 Teraflops each you could have a 72000 Teraflop server! That would be crazy!

I ran in to this one the other day
http://newmexicosupercomputer.com/
172 TFlops and 172TB of storage, 14,336 compute cores with 2GB each. 3Ghz dual quad Xeons in each node. Sounds sorta like a lot of PCs put together. The only real difference between this machine and 20,000 new, dedicated Rosetta crunchers is the locality of so much disk storage.

That is very true, the only major difference between a supercomputer and a desktop is that the supercomputer is designed to use all of its cpus working together on the same problem, whereas a desktop pc is designed to work on one problem at a time. Supercomputers have wires that are MEASURED so that they are IDENTICAL in length that go to each cpu so that the data gets to the right part at the right time. Kind of like a nuclear bomb, all wires have exactly the same resistance and length so each part goes boom at the exact same instant, imploding into a nuclear explosion. Supercomputers have always had this 'mystique' about them, but they are in fact just REAL fancy pc's!

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Now it would be interesting to see how fast a system with 30 thousand GPUs would be. If you used 30,000 of something such as this http://game.amd.com/us-en/unlock_radeonhd4870x2.aspx?p=1 which has 2.4 Teraflops each you could have a 72000 Teraflop server! That would be crazy!

That would definitely run crysis.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/6192309/Microsoft-Xbox-360-used-in-fight-against-heart-disease.html

Looks like that GPU project should try to join up with GPUGRID, which already has access to many more GPUs than the XBOX-360 project is now using. I suspect that GPUGRID would be willing to give them access to those GPUs the current GPUGRID software can't use, in exchange for a suitable server hardware upgrade.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-11/digital-cat-brain-runs-blue-gene-supercomputer

Interesting... I wonder how they prove to themselves that they are accurately modelling a cat's brain?? I guess you simulate inputs for someone wanting to play with the cat. Simulate them dangling a string, and if the model shows the cat deciding instead to lay in the sun and stretch, or jump into the lap of another person and lay on the newspaper they are trying to read, then that would prove it's working! ;)

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

http://fossbytes.com...beam-splitting/

The link is broken, I assume you mean http://fossbytes.com/light-speed-computers-possible-with-beam-splitting/ ?

http://fossbytes.com...beam-splitting/

The link is broken, I assume you mean http://fossbytes.com/light-speed-computers-possible-with-beam-splitting/ ?

yes thanks