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World's most powerful computer is doubled in size
MacWorld ^ | 3/11/2005 | By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

Posted on 03/14/2005 3:03:33 AM PST by Swordmaker

World's most powerful computer is doubled in size

Blue Gene/L, already ranked as the fastest supercomputer on the planet, has been doubled in size, according to researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.

Livermore has been running a 32,000 processor system since December, but three weeks ago trucks began delivering the components that allowed Livermore to add another 32,000 processors worth of power to the supercomputer, effectively doubling its processing power.

Though there are still some adjustments being made, the system is now operational, said Robin Goldstone, group leader with the Production Linux Group at Lawrence Livermore. "It's mostly functional. They've actually run calculations on the 32,000 nodes," she said Wednesday. "They're shaking out the last few bad nodes."

Blue Gene/L is made up of approximately 32,000 two-processor nodes, giving it about 64,000 processors in total, Goldstone said.

A 33,000 processor prototype of Blue Gene/L, assembled by IBM Corp. last November was ranked the fastest computer on the planet on the Top500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers. IBM's prototype was benchmarked at 70.72 trillion calculations per second, or teraflops, using the Linpack benchmark, which puts the system through a series of mathematical calculations.

Lawrence Livermore's new system is expected to be capable of approximately twice that performance, making it nearly three times as powerful as the next system on the list, NASA's (the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's) 10,240-processor "Columbia" supercomputer. Columbia has been benchmarked at 51.87 teraflops. Goldstone declined to comment on the Livermore system's benchmark performance.

The 32,000 node Blue Gene/L represents the second stage of a three-part build-out of the US$100 million supercomputer that is expected to be completed by June. When fully assembled at Lawrence Livermore, Blue Gene/L will be a 130,000-processor system with a theoretical peak performance of 360 teraflops, according to IBM.

Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of Blue Gene/L is how compact it is. When the complete system is assembled into a total of 64 server racks this June, it will be a about half the size of a tennis court, much smaller than most of today's supercomputers.

Blue Gene/L will consume less power too. The final system is expected to draw approximately 1.6 megawatts of power. To put this in perspective, another supercomputer that Lawrence Livermore will be bringing online this June, the 100 teraflop ASCI Purple system, is expected to require 4.8 megawatts.

The difference is that ASCI Purple will be made out of general purpose servers, similar to IBM's eServer p655, whereas BlueGene/L's compute nodes contain little more than memory and processors.

"We've kind of reached the limit with these commodity clusters," said Goldstone. "They just generate too much heat and too much power."

IBM is now in the process of commercializing Blue Gene and is selling a 5.7 teraflop single-rack version of the system, called the eServer Blue Gene Solution, to high performance computing customers. The company has also agreed to deliver Blue Gene systems to a number of research institutions including the San Diego Supercomputer Center and the University of Edinburgh.

This month, the Armonk, New York, computer maker plans to operate a 100 teraflop Blue Gene system at its Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. This system, which IBM claims will be the world's largest privately-owned supercomputer, will be used, in part, for life sciences research.


TOPICS: Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: bluegenel; supercomputers
The 32,000 node Blue Gene/L represents the second stage of a three-part build-out of the US$100 million supercomputer that is expected to be completed by June. When fully assembled at Lawrence Livermore, Blue Gene/L will be a 130,000-processor system with a theoretical peak performance of 360 teraflops, according to IBM.

Whow... This thing will be done before it starts!

1 posted on 03/14/2005 3:03:33 AM PST by Swordmaker
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To: Swordmaker

Blue Gene IS a beast...........ingenious architecture, as well.


2 posted on 03/14/2005 3:09:25 AM PST by RightOnline
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To: Swordmaker

What a monster.


3 posted on 03/14/2005 3:15:33 AM PST by Wiz
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To: Swordmaker

That number is a third of a petaflop... perhaps with another upgrade after faster chips come out, a petaflop will be reachable.


4 posted on 03/14/2005 4:04:45 AM PST by ikka
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To: Wiz
What a monster.

This one's got eleven. I imagine even "Deep Thought" itself would be impressed.

("Spinal Tap" and "Hitchhiker's Guide" ping)

5 posted on 03/14/2005 4:14:03 AM PST by guitfiddlist (When the 'Rats break out switchblades, it's no time to invoke Robert's Rules.)
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To: Swordmaker

Wow, I bet that thing would run Everquest 2.

:-P

Bones


6 posted on 03/14/2005 5:37:28 AM PST by Bones75
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To: Bones75

I wonder what Half-Life 2 benchmarks on this beast?


7 posted on 03/14/2005 6:36:35 PM PST by Future Snake Eater (The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.)
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To: Swordmaker

When does this thing attain consciousness?


8 posted on 03/14/2005 7:27:54 PM PST by Lawgvr1955 (Never draw to an inside straight.)
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To: Lawgvr1955
When does this thing attain consciousness?

Don't know... but I would start to worry if you hear of any glowing blue bubbles with naked men who look strangely like Arnold Schwarzenegger inside...

9 posted on 03/14/2005 7:52:26 PM PST by Swordmaker
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To: Swordmaker

You really need to cross that off your Christmas wish list. ;-)


10 posted on 03/14/2005 7:57:14 PM PST by verity (The Liberal Media and the ACLU are America's Enemies)
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To: Future Snake Eater
Good point. Man it kind of sucks, the new games they come out with for PC seem really cool. But, the system requirements needed to run them keep going up and up such that if you have a new machine you can only run the newer games for about a year and a half.

I have a 1.5ghz machine and already I can't run any of the new stuff that's coming out. There's that new NASCAR SimRacing out, but the minimum requirements is 2ghz, with a recommended gig of ram.

I cant even play NASCAR Thunder 2005 because my video card won't support it, which I found out after I installed it.

It is getting to be an expensive hobby.

Bones
11 posted on 03/15/2005 5:31:10 AM PST by Bones75
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