Apple Building 2nd SuperComputer at VA Tech.

[rpm]

Apple Will Build Second Supercomputer at Virginia Tech

Updated: Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2004 - 5:24 AM

By CHRIS KAHN

Associated Press Writer

ROANOKE, Va. (AP) - After building one of the world's fastest supercomputers on its first try, Apple Computer Inc. said Monday it will again team with Virginia Tech to make another high performance machine using its new 64-bit Xserve G5 computer.

Xserve, a thinner, more compact machine designed for clustering with other computers, will replace the supercomputer Tech built in November using off-the-shelf G5 PowerMacs.

Tech project leader Srinidhi Varadarajan said the university will upgrade from PowerMacs to Xserves in April or May. Tech is still negotiating the price with Apple, though Varadarajan said any additional cost to the school would be "fairly minimal."

Source: WTOPNEWS.com

:devil:

[Iguana]

Wonder what they're going to do with all those PowerMacs... hey VT, I could use a PowerMac G5!

[Dazzla Veteran]

There's gonna be a ton of Dual G5 refurbs available soon then :D

[JK1150]

they will prob distribute them accross campus

[Steven]

Yeah i figured they'd replace all them with xserve's.

1U Racks can hold up to 50 machines (more?)

They'll save so much space and have room for even more! :D

[Tim Dorr Veteran]

The xserve is basically 1/4 the size. It's just cost that becomes an issue in this case. The things just a few months old! That's a lot of money to spend in a short timeframe.

[Toxikk Veteran]

10 gigaflops. i wanna go see it.

[the evn show]

I imagine VA Tech has some sort of a deal where the old machines can be returned in exchange for the XServes. Even if they only sold for the refurbished price the upgrade will only cost a few hundred per node. The advertising value this arrangement has had for Apple, VA Tech, IBM, infiniband, etc. is easily worth the cost a thousand powermacs. This is advertising right in the heart of computer-geek country - the same people who have some pull when it comes to suggesting future hardware for big company's heavy iron come upgrade season. A super bowl commercial will cost a few million dollars too, but that hits one market. Being a top-3 super computer supplier is the equivalent of a super bowl advertisement for another market.

Also, at 5m for the first one - even if VA turfed the G5s and bought 1100 new xserves it's still only a $10m investment total: cheaper than any other computer in the top5 by a sizable margin.

Not to mention the lower power consumption of the xServe (with it's subsequent cooling cost), and the significantly reduced building space they will take up. I wouldn't go so far as to say moving from xserves from powermacs will pay for itself, but it will definitely have a non-trivial amount of operating costs.

[PeterClark]

they are doing a straight swap from Powermac G5 to Xserve.

Apparently they may also be adding some more nodes!

[frod]

hmm, too bad the cluster nodes apple sells don't have an expansion slot. bad move on their part i think. not everyone thinks gigabit ethernet is fast enough ;).

now va tech will have to buy full xserves just so they can use fiber cards in them. that's about $1000 extra per unit. not to mention less efficient cooling from all the extra, and in this case useless, components inside getting in the way of air flow.

oh well, it'll still be one hell of a machine. now in 1/4th the space ;P

[configure Veteran]

https://www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=17007&category=main

Different source, same writer but thanks anyway :)r

[Redestium]

Damn VT able to build a second one just for space reasons, while they can't put in more student parking?!