Hardware Hoax? RE: Total Impact web site

[networkman]

I mentioned in an earlier thread that I'd emailed the Sales dept at the Total Impact web site: http://www.totalimpact.com/products.html

Here's the email response from them(Brad Nizdil) and my original letter to them:

Our products are real and in fact the mPOWER board has been shipping for over a year and a half now. You are more then welcome to come and visit us if you would like. I am sure that the SETI@Home client could be ported to our board. We do not have the bandwidth to do so right now but
perhaps I can free up a development board if you know someone that would like to take a shot at it. As for pricing:

4 X 400MHz G3 with 1MB of L2 per processor $3600
4 X 433MHz G3 with 1MB of L2 per processor $4000
4 X 400MHz G4 with 1MB of L2 per processor $5600
4 X 466MHz G4 with 1MB of L2 per processor $5900
4 X 500MHz G4 with 1MB of L2 per processor $6300

We also offer 2 processor boards.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Brad Nizdil

> Greetings,
>
> There is speculation amoungst a group of my peers that your website is a hoax, that your product does not really exist, and that it is simply a "pipe-dream".
>
> HOWEVER, if your products really are the real thing, then some of us would like more information and pricing for said units. I particulary am interested to know if the SETI@Home client can be used with your product, instead of the RC5 client that is mentioned for benchmark figures.
>
> I apologize in advance for the "hoax" part, but I figure if your product is real, then it's my duty to spread the word to my peers.
>
> Thanks,
> Rich


So there you have it, there's the info! Whether it's an affordable solution or not, I can't say, but at least you now know that it isn't a hoax.

BTW, Brad's email is simply: brad@totalimpact.com

 

[KifArU]

Have you already emailed them that Anand may be interested in testing the board? That's someone who would like to take a shot at it, I think.

Thijs

 

[mindless]

Hey it sounds legit. Now do we have anyone here who would have the knowledge in porting the varius clients over? Well actually we should be asking something more along the lines of is anybody here willing to shell out the cash if they would crack?

 

[br0wn]

why build the crack rack using such a ridiculous priced components ?
4x500Mhz G4 with 1MB of L2 = $6300x4

you can build 30-40 PCs with that kind of money.

 

[JHutch]

No, no, it is $6300 per board (with 4 processors on it). The "per processor" refers to the fact that each processor has 1 MB of L2 cache of its own.

I think it would be hilarious to put 5 of these PCI cards in a motherboard (with one PCI vid card). Imagine, 20 500MHz G4 processors all cranking away at SETI, RC5, whatever... All for the bargain basement price of $31500. Of course, you'd probably have to register the behemoth with the defense department as a supercomputer!



Later,
JHutch

 

[Russ]

Cool, I just ordered ten of them. I was wondering what I was going to do with the two extra motherboards I have laying here.
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Psyche!

Russ, NCNE

 

[networkman]

br0wn,

Reasons for not building 30 to 40 PCs:

Space, time, space, electricity.. did I mention SPACE?!?

 

[ViRGE]

Besides, the 4 pack of 400mhz CPUs is still 1600mhz of G4 power, which is still 4.5K WU's a day, in a single computer!

 

[amok]

Hmm, you can stack custom made racks (like the great one Clay had for WarpCore). He built WarpCore with 24 450MHz cpus and put them in a rack that was about 6 feet long and 2 deep. He also built that for around the price of one of those cards . About the price of the 4 400MHz G4 card to be exact. And that setup pumped out around 10K blocks/day .

 

[vss1980]

That is still an expensive solution. Take the 4 x 500MHz G4 board - thats over US $1500 per processor - how much would 1 500MHz G4 & motherboard & 64MB of memory cost?

Also, do they offer a performance advantage over a standard G4 based computer - a normal computer has to spend CPU cycles taking care of hardware controllers, etc. This doesn't have to do as much in that respect so could this give better performance than an equivalent computer?

 

[amok]

The G4 400 is around $525 for just the zif cpu according to what I kind find on pricewatch. The 450 is around $630, and the 500 is around $750. Hehe, they are making a killing by selling those cards for over $6K, considering that all they had to come up with was a device to connect the cpus and a little firmware .