US Army buys 3132 processor Mac G5 supercomputer

[Eug]

Apple sells 1566 Xserves for U.S. Army research

Apple Computer Inc. will announce on Monday the sale of 1566 dual processor 1U rack-mount 64-bit Xserve G5 servers to COLSA Corp., which will be used to build what is expected to be one of the fastest supercomputers in the world. The US$5.8 million cluster will be used to model the complex aero-thermodynamics of hypersonic flight for the U.S. Army.

"We did about a year and a half of research on a variety of processors before making our decision," Dr Anthony DiRienzo, executive vice president at COLSA Corp., told MacCentral. "We did a best value competition and Apple won that competition. It was based on performance; the facility (power requirements, floor space etc.); cost; and an assessment of vendor stability. We solicited to six companies and they won."

The supercomputer, named MACH 5, is expected to deliver peak performance capability of more than 25 TFlops/second. In comparison, the Virginia Tech supercomputer announced last year attained sustained performance of approximately 10 TFlops/second, according to Apple director of product management, server hardware Alex Grossman.

 

[Mik3y]

psh, my laptop is faster then taht! 😛

 

[MDE]

[insert Apple bashing here]

 

[Insane3D]

$5.8 Million? Yep, sounds like Apple pricing. 😛

😀

 

[Mik3y]

Originally posted by: Insane3D
$5.8 Million? Yep, sounds like Apple pricing. 😛

😀

ya, for ONE G5! 🙂

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: MDE
[insert Apple bashing here]

You called it, but it's especially lame today. 😛

 

[ponyo]

Originally posted by: Mik3y

Originally posted by: Insane3D
$5.8 Million? Yep, sounds like Apple pricing. 😛

😀

ya, for ONE G5! 🙂

I've no complaint about Apple pricing. Apple stock has been kicking butt recently. Apple bashers can bash all they want but Apple and I are laughing all the way to the bank. 🙂

 

[exodus454]

i happen to like apples, but the price is a bit steep for what you get

 

[tart666]

$3700 per node? that sounds pretty cheap, no?

(edit) but the 25 TFlops (8GFLops / CPU) sounds a little optimistic, most of top500 clusters get about half of that (4GFlops / CPU)

PPS, nm, apple misinformation already starting, they are comparing Rmax of old cluster to Rpeak of the new one... good job, apple PR, good job

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: exodus454
i happen to like apples, but the price is a bit steep for what you get

5.8 million bux for > 10 Teraflops/s is pretty nice. 😎

 

[Wahsapa]

http://www.apple.com/acg/xgrid/ i think that prolly helped them win the deal. i think its interesting that everybody thinks apple is gonna die but there landing big contracts like this for a place in the top 10 on the super computing list

 

[Insane3D]

Jeez, some people can't take a joke. 😀

Good for Apple, I've got no problem with them or their products.

🙂

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Wahsapa
http://www.apple.com/acg/xgrid/ i think that prolly helped them win the deal. i think its interesting that everybody thinks apple is gonna die but there landing big contracts like this for a place in the top 10 on the super computing list

People have been predicting the end of Apple for YEARS now. 😛

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Wahsapa
http://www.apple.com/acg/xgrid/ i think that prolly helped them win the deal. i think its interesting that everybody thinks apple is gonna die but there landing big contracts like this for a place in the top 10 on the super computing list

People have been predicting the end of Apple for YEARS now. 😛

People have been predicting the end of Apple since the first time some guy saw the soldiered inline transistors in a plywood box with a keyboard and a monitor and went "What are you insane? Why would somebody pay you for that?" and it hasn't stopped since.


To bad the "BigMac" missed out in the latest "top500.org" list. They were at number 3 in the last one, and would be number 5 in this one. Right now #2 is a Itanium2 system.. a Linux cluster.

Of course #1 is the Japanese "Earth Simulator" by NEC and has been #1 for a long long time and still dominates by a wide margin(I am sure that IBM and other big American HPC compinies like HP find this very very irritating.). ASCI Q finally lost #2 spot to the Linux cluster and is now #3. I wonder if the Bigmac upgrade will push it past Asci Q or not.

The most interesting one is IBM's Blue Gene cluster at #4 and #8.

It uses over 8000(!) 500mhz power440 proccessors. Used in embedded stuff I think. Low power and low temp they are packed into just 4 computer racks (about the size of a refrigurator). It's amazing, and it's just a prototype. It's replacement is destined to replace the "EarthSimulator" by 2005 as the worlds most powerfull computer. Uses a new archatecture to link the cpu's together, very weird stuff. Uses a custom batch proccessing method to run jobs in partitions that sounds similar to the classic manframe model.

The fastest windows computer that I am aware of is at #145 by Cornell... Was 50-something in the last list.

BTW, if that Army computer would be around today it would be the 2nd most powerfull computer in the world.

Pretty f-ing good for 5.8 million dollars. (the earth simulator cost 350 million dollars.)

 

[Schadenfroh]

man, just think of how much money they could have saved if they had spent that on opterons

 

[Regs]

What are they planning to do with 25 TFlops?

 

[viivo]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
man, just think of how much money they could have saved if they had spent that on opterons

Now that'd be a toasty room.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Wahsapa
http://www.apple.com/acg/xgrid/ i think that prolly helped them win the deal. i think its interesting that everybody thinks apple is gonna die but there landing big contracts like this for a place in the top 10 on the super computing list

I'm no expert, but I've been told that Xgrid is not appropriate for this sort of usage. Xgrid is built for ease of use, not speed. COLSA would be using non-Apple open source unix stuff for this purpose - much faster. Xgrid is aimed more for the small lab or educational customer looking to get parallel stuff up and running quickly and easily, not for the person looking for max speed.

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
man, just think of how much money they could have saved if they had spent that on opterons

From the article:

"We evaluated PC-based proposals from other vendors but none came close to delivering either the price, performance or manageability of the AppleXserve G5," said DiRienzo."


More specifics here:

"We did about a year and a half of research on a variety of processors before making our decision," Dr Anthony DiRienzo, executive vice president at COLSA Corp., told MacCentral. "We did a best value competition and Apple won that competition. It was based on performance; the facility (power requirements, floor space etc.); cost; and an assessment of vendor stability. We solicited to six companies and they won."

 

[White Widow]

If 2 of these need water-cooling, I wonder what it takes to cool 3132 of them! I guess we know where Steve Jobs has been focusing his marketing mastery recently...

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: White Widow
If 2 of these need water-cooling, I wonder what it takes to cool 3132 of them! I guess we know where Steve Jobs has been focusing his marketing mastery recently...

G5 Xserves are air cooled. The 2.0 GHz G5s in current Xserves are actually quite cool, probably at around 50 Watts max per chip.

The 2.5 GHz G5s in the Power Macs are closer to 100 Watts-ish, but the main problem is heat density not overall heat. The heat produced overall is not terribly high (and probably is significantly lower than Prescott), but it can be very concentrated in small spots on the die.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Regs
What are they planning to do with 25 TFlops?

Well, they won't get 25 Tflops/s out of it, since 25 is theoretical peak. They'll probably less than half that (although that would still easily put them on the top 10 list of supercomputers).

Here's what they're planning to do: COLSA press release

COLSA Corporation of Huntsville, AL and Apple Computer Corporation of Cupertino, CA jointly announce the acquisition of one of the largest and most powerful computers in the world. COLSA has contracted with Apple to deliver for COLSA?s government customer, the Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center (AMRDEC), the components for a supercluster computer system with more than 3000 processors. The system will consist of 1566 dual-processor, rack-mountable Xserve G5 units. These units employ Apple?s new 2.0 GHz G5 CPU, one of the most powerful processors in the new generation of 64-bit computer chips. COLSA will build, install, test, and operate the Apple Computer component supercluster computer system for its Army customer.

The new system will be delivered to COLSA?s Hypersonic Missile Technology facility located at its newly renovated Research & Operations Center in Huntsville in June. The supercluster will be employed to model the complex aero-thermodynamics of hypersonic flight, including applications related to missile interceptors and scramjet engine performance.

Actually, it's gonna be interesting for the next list.

VT: 2200 G5s (Apple Xserve, 2.0 GHz G5)
COLSA: 3300 G5s (Apple Xserve, 2.0 GHz G5)
Spain: 4564 G5s (IBM BladeCenter, 2.2 GHz G5)

If they're built in time, IBM/Apple could have three G5-based systems in the next top ten list. In addition, IBM could have two G3-based systems up there too (BlueGene), as well as 1 POWER4+ system. (The G5 is based off the POWER4 BTW.)