Virginia Tech building new supercomputer??

[kami]

Heh, the GBit network cards in modern computers are far from the most advanced, what they use here is called something like 'HyperBand'? Anyways, it's much more powerful and it's what any supercomputer-maker with respect for his work uses.

[Toxic::Joka]

So basically you could put together 1million G5's and make a computer smarter than a human? create AI?

hehe, my examples keep getting bigger and bigger  

[BTs_GhostSniper]

So basically you could put together 1million G5's and make a computer smarter than a human? create AI?

hehe, my examples keep getting bigger and bigger  

Yes, but it wouldn't be smarter than just "any" human....only smarter than YOU, Joka

[Toxic::Joka]

If you can just add G5's indefinately and each time you add a new G5 the computing power just gets bigger, and there no roof.

How come you can't do this even cheaper with PC's? If you can add computers indefinately and divide the work load amongst the connected computers then you should be able to do this with any computer right?

How about G3's? Does a 100.000 G3 powermac cluster equal a...100 G5 cluster?

Just curious...

[Ace]

Theoretically, they could scale this XServe approach indefinitely. However, realistically, the more nodes you have, the less efficient it will be per node. While I'm no supercomputer expert, I'm pretty sure they are quite far from any serious diminishing gains.

Heh, the GBit network cards in modern computers are far from the most advanced, what they use here is called something like 'HyperBand'? Anyways, it's much more powerful and it's what any supercomputer-maker with respect for his work uses.

It's called InfiniBand, and they are more interested in the low latency it provides. The 10 gigabit bandwidth is just an added bonus over gigabit ethernet.

[BFG]

The 10 gigabit bandwidth is just an added bonus over gigabit ethernet.

lol i bet.

How come you can't do this even cheaper with PC's? If you can add computers indefinately and divide the work load amongst the connected computers then you should be able to do this with any computer right

I doubt that very much. The G5 is built in a way which is far more friendly to a potential supercomputer builder... Its I O Archetecture (omg that is spelt shockingly badly)  means that it can effectively interconnected.
I suppose it all depends what you mean when u say... "any computer"

[kami]

Theoretically just adding shitloads of computer power doesn't do shit to simulate a human brain if it doesn't have any kind of software emulation, raw electronics can't gain sentience, ever.

Thanks Ace, forgot the name of it for a sec.

[c| Lone-Wolf]

Just speculating about the setup of the system, to possibly avoid the bottleneck problem.

So, first hurdle in my plan, for this all to be a supercomputer, does it all need to be connected together, so each computer(node) can talk directly to every other computer in the system?  (thats alotta cable)
I would think no, and this is why.

My little crack-pot idea, is to break the computers up into individual clusters, of perhaps 10? 15? who knows, just break them up, and make a setup kind of like a pyramid (if you drew it on paper)
Like, having the clusters being the grunts of the operation, doing the raw computing, then sending it back up a level, to a cluster or individual computer, which receives information from mebe 30 (or more, depending) clusters, and combines all that data together to form a piece of info, then forwards it on to another level up, which does the same thing (receiving info from again, 30 or so computers) and so on, until the information is finally compiled completely, so it can be displayed on one screen.

Or maybe im just retarded and should delete this right away because i have no idea how computers divy up the workload.  That always works too =)

[Mr. Lothario]

     That's actually more or less how some parallel supercomputers work. The task at hand is divided between clusters of processors, where each processor has its own RAM for its computations, and each cluster has communal RAM to allow the processors to communicate within the cluster.

[BFG]

in fact i guess computers work like that just on the base level... so i gues u could say that its lots of pyramids x2(duel processors ) x freaking thousands = Hello i own the 3rd fastest supercomputer in the world