Top 500 trends

Greg Lindahl lindahl at keyresearch.com
Tue Nov 26 11:12:56 PST 2002


On Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 10:14:32AM -0600, Dean Johnson wrote:

> Now if only Shuttle would introduce their liquid immersion box
> and avoid the heatpipe altogether.... ;-)

http://www.spraycool.com; immersion is not necessary. This is how the
new Cray X1 is cooled. In theory it could hit the mainstream in ~ 5
years. It is the only technology I have seen capable of dealing with
the power density of a small server built using Itaniums. So it
doesn't attack the real issue (high watts/GFlop), but it papers
over it nicely.

> I still like the characterization about whether you would want your
> Oregon-bound wagon pulled by 8 sturdy oxen, or a thousand chickens.

google says someone claims the real quote is:

"If you were plowing a field, which would you rather use? Two strong
oxen or 1024 chickens?" -- Seymour Cray

Of course, both the X1 and the Earth Simulator are an army of oxen,
not just a brace.

-- greg





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