Coolest Desk Ever!

[Rubycon]

Text

 

[Canai]

That's awesome!

Might run into some problems with the optical mice though

 

[Steve]

What a shame to waste some perfectly good CPUs, they could be put to good use crunching numbers...although I don't think there is an IA64 port of SETI, is there?

 

[Kaspian]

That is just to freaking cool!

 

[bonkers325]

whats Itanium?

 

[mrCide]

seems wasteful, it's not like they were 486s

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: bonkers325
whats Itanium?

A system architecture

 

[R Nilla]

It would be cooler if the desk doubled as a supercomputer.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: R Nilla
It would be cooler if the desk doubled as a supercomputer.

Actually that would make the desk very hot.

 

[ballmode]

Too busy looking for me

 

[R Nilla]

Originally posted by: Rubycon

Originally posted by: R Nilla
It would be cooler if the desk doubled as a supercomputer.

Actually that would make the desk very hot.

In that case, I think I'd have to argue that this is the coolest desk ever.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

What a waste......they couldn't find ANY use for those chips?

 

[imported_LoKe]

Originally posted by: OneOfTheseDays
What a waste......they couldn't find ANY use for those chips?

Am I missing something? They're unpacking and storing chips for future use.

 

[nakedfrog]

I dig it.

 

[Schfifty Five]

looks pretty tacky/ugly to me.

 

[Rubycon]

Would you rather have a desk like this instead?

 

[DnetMHZ]

Originally posted by: OneOfTheseDays
What a waste......they couldn't find ANY use for those chips?

It was probably a government installation, we'll just pay more taxes for the new one

 

[MrPickins]

Originally posted by: mrCide
seems wasteful, it's not like they were 486s

That was my first thought.

Originally posted by: Rubycon
Would you rather have a desk like this instead?

Neat.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: mrCide
seems wasteful, it's not like they were 486s

As far as supercomputers go, they are. The author doesn't go in to detail on what exact model these are, but Itanium chips can be as old as 733mhz relics from 2001. Once they're too slow for a supercomputer, there's nothing else left to do with them; they're not suitable for normal user machines due to the architecture, and due to the massive speed difference between those and newer processors, they'd be a poor choice to build a supercomputer on the cheap because of the power draw as opposed to a few modern processors.

As far as supercomputers are concerned, an old Itanium is a 486.

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: mrCide
seems wasteful, it's not like they were 486s

As far as supercomputers go, they are. The author doesn't go in to detail on what exact model these are, but Itanium chips can be as old as 733mhz relics from 2001. Once they're too slow for a supercomputer, there's nothing else left to do with them; they're not suitable for normal user machines due to the architecture, and due to the massive speed difference between those and newer processors, they'd be a poor choice to build a supercomputer on the cheap because of the power draw as opposed to a few modern processors.

As far as supercomputers are concerned, an old Itanium is a 486.

That isn't limited to Itaniums. All enterprise level CPUs obsolesce much more rapidly than consumer level CPUs. Also, they are useful for a lot more than just being part of a supercomputer.

I still think this was a waste. I actually work at an Itanium design center and people were talking about this earlier today. Surely they could have donated them to a more useful cause. Even if they were based on Merced, they still could have been put to use considering the architecture is still functional and has limited capability even compared to today's standards and IA-64 instruction set.

 

[Rubycon]

They were scrap so it's no different than if they made it with hubcaps or spoons.

 

[essasin]

Now all we need is an Itanium tiled Jerker and it would be the ultimate desk.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
They were scrap so it's no different than if they made it with hubcaps or spoons.

perfectly usably good hubcaps or spoons?

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles

perfectly usably good hubcaps or spoons?

Hubcaps and spoons don't need thousands of dollars of necessary hardware to work.

 

[nonameo]

Originally posted by: ballmode
Too busy looking for me

I agree. I think some tint would help with that.