IBM Cell mixed with Opteron for Supercomputer

[Viditor]

Business Week Article

"In September, IBM announced its latest supercomputing innovation, an unusual machine that, in computer terms, is as strange a cross as that between a cat and a dog. Dubbed Roadrunner and destined for the Energy Dept.'s Los Alamos National Laboratory, it's a so-called hybrid supercomputer. It will use IBM's proprietary Cell processor chips, originally designed for video games, as well as AMD's (AMD) Opteron chips that power PCs and servers.

Roadrunner will be four times faster than IBM's most powerful supercomputer, the Blue Gene/L (see BusinessWeek.com, 7/28/06, "Japan Bests IBM in Supercomputer Stakes"). Roadrunner points the way to where the computing industry may be heading?melding pricey but speedy technology with inexpensive off-the-shelf components"

I think the combination of Cell with Opteron is just plain weird...but it does kinda make sense.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Wouldn't this be a Cell-eron:laugh:

 

[Ayah]

I would love to get my hands on that to fold.

 

[swtethan]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
Wouldn't this be a Cell-eron:laugh:

:laugh:

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: swtethan

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
Wouldn't this be a Cell-eron:laugh:

:laugh:

hehe

The extra "l" makes it pwn though!

 

[TanisHalfElven]

the was pitched as a chips with infinite (nearly) upgrade capability. (just add more of them). i belive there were even prediction of cells boards that could plug into a PCs slots and allow the cell o work with the processor.

with torenza and HT links to add in boards that would certaily be possible and greatly usefull for many operations (encoding and rendering come to mind.. as well as other FPU intensive opewration).
i'll see if i can find the article i read some 2-3 years ago about this stuff.

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
Wouldn't this be a Cell-eron:laugh:

lol.. nice

 

[CCityInstaller]

Originally posted by: tanishalfelven
the was pitched as a chips with infinite (nearly) upgrade capability. (just add more of them). i belive there were even prediction of cells boards that could plug into a PCs slots and allow the cell o work with the processor.

with torenza and HT links to add in boards that would certaily be possible and greatly usefull for many operations (encoding and rendering come to mind.. as well as other FPU intensive opewration).
i'll see if i can find the article i read some 2-3 years ago about this stuff.

I believe I know the article you are talking about. I read something along these lines in an issue of CPU about two years ago.

 

[MDme]

This was posted on the .....ahem..Inquirer...cough..cough...several months ago. With AMD's platform infrastructure (HT, Torrenza) it was quite logical to do. IT's basically a Cell chip on a hypertransport interconnect/slot on an AMD Torrenza platform...networked supercomputer.