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How's 96 Processors Under Your Desk Sound?


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&nsbp;

#1

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Posted 26 April 2005 - 10:11 PM

Call it a cluster in a cubicle.

Posted Image

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Orion Multisystems has come up with a new type of workstation that can hold several processors clustered together for greater power. A 96-processor unit with 192GB of memory measures 27 inches high, small enough to fit under or even on someone's desk. The company also produces a smaller unit with 12 processors, 24GB of memory and 1.4 terabytes of disk space. This model is just 2 feet wide and 4 inches high.


The idea is to spark a renaissance in workstations, the engineering computers that have lost much of their identity with the advent of the desktop computer, said founder Colin Hunter.

"We're trying to bring back a category that went into eclipse in the 1990s," he said.

Ten to 15 years ago, one- and two-processor workstations from SGI and Intergraph defined the state of the art in computing. Oil and gas explorers, as well as the artists behind such films as "Jurassic Park," regularly plunked down five-figure sums for these computers.

But SGI's contributions to "Jurassic" proved prophetic. In 1996, Compaq Computer and others began to produce cheaper workstations based on Intel chips that were only slightly more powerful than regular desktops. They soon took over the jungle.

"Intel advanced the state of the art much faster than the SGI or Sun guys," Hunter said.

At the same time, however, clusters began to grow in popularity. As a result, a growing percentage of computing work gets done in the back room. That can create problems with office space and power delivery, a problem similar to one that other companies are trying to tackle with blade servers and blade desktops.

"We can't have computers in racks all over the place," said Horst Simon, director of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which will conduct a trial with Orion's workstations in the near future. "The gap has widened because nobody has tackled the problem of putting the performance gains on the desktop."

So who needs 96 processors? Animators for one, Hunter said. Currently, animators design characters and scenes on their personal desktops and then polish their work on clusters of servers lashed together in a rendering farm. This process, however, ties up the equipment that's most expensive--and most in demand by others. More desktop power will permit artists to tinker with lighting and shading before tying up the corporate server bank.

"We don't replace render farms or back rooms. We just make them more efficient," Hunter said. "What we face now is a performance gap between what you can get out of a PC and what you get out of a cluster."

Orion's target markets include the movie, engineering and life sciences industries. Systems integrator The BioTeam will sell a turnkey version of the 12-processor workstation that will contain over 200 applications targeted for biological and pharmaceutical researchers.

All 12 of the chips in the smaller Orion workstation are mounted on a single board. Each connects a portion of the computer's memory. Hard drives are also attached to individual processors. The 96-processor computer consists of eight of these boards stacked vertically. Chips on the same board communicate using Gigabit Ethernet, while board-to-board communication takes place on 10 Gigabit Ethernet.

The systems come with Fedora Linux version 2.6.6.

complete article

#2 pentool

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Posted 28 April 2005 - 09:19 AM

sounds good! I'm sure it also helps at winter heating! :D

#3 Imagenesis

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Posted 10 May 2005 - 07:15 PM

I'm fien with my FX55, 1gb OF OCZ and a 6800 Ultra. Wouldn't mind it though :D

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#4 RWME

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Posted 02 June 2005 - 05:54 PM

How many TFLOPS is that orion system?

#5 digitalmunky

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Posted 07 June 2005 - 12:50 AM

So when are they going to port over Adobe's catalog??? Oh, and don't forget the newly acquired Macromedia selections...

#6 turn

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Posted 11 June 2005 - 02:29 AM

whoa ! now i can really get that game of solitare cookin'

#7 Cold Coffee

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Posted 13 June 2005 - 10:16 PM

whoa ! now i can really get that game of solitare cookin'


Yeah.... what about it trying to compete with a Mac ay.... bet ya the Mac still wins :p ha ha ha ha....

Anyways.... who needs or even wants that kinda power??? Now I'll never have the chance to drink my coffee while it's warm.... or worse... how could you use the excuse -while chatting with your collegues by the coffee machine- "ow sorry boss.... comp still rendering, so thought it was a good idea to use this spare time to check if my co-workers are on that deadline ;)" NOT :p
Still busy designing my life and the world around me :D
Cold Coffee

#8 turn

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Posted 13 June 2005 - 10:52 PM

Yeah.... what about it trying to compete with a Mac ay.... bet ya the Mac still wins :p ha ha ha ha....

Anyways.... who needs or even wants that kinda power??? Now I'll never have the chance to drink my coffee while it's warm.... or worse... how could you use the excuse -while chatting with your collegues by the coffee machine- "ow sorry boss.... comp still rendering, so thought it was a good idea to use this spare time to check if my co-workers are on that deadline ;)" NOT :p

lol.im just bitter cause im using a 333mhz imac...and thats a single 333mhz processor.
:D




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