[Beowulf] Japan knocks China off the #1 spot of the Top500 by 3X - a GRAPE machine ?

[Christopher Samuel]

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According to the NYT the new Top500 list (due out in
the next few hours) will list the Japanese 'K' machine
at the #1 spot at 8.2 PF.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/technology/20computer.html?_r=1

# The computer, known as "K Computer", is three times
# faster than a Chinese rival that previously held the
# top position, said Jack Dongarra, a professor of
# electrical engineering and computer science at the
# University of Tennessee at Knoxville who keeps the
# official rankings of computer performance.
[...]
# K is made up of 672 cabinets filled with system
# boards. Although considered energy-efficient, it
# still uses enough electricity to power nearly
# 10,000 homes at a cost of around $10 million
# annually, Mr. Dongarra said.
#
# The research lab that houses K plans to increase
# the computer?s size to 800 cabinets. That will
# raise its speed, which already exceeds that of its
# five closest competitors combined, Mr. Dongarra said.

The excellent @HPC_Guru on Twitter said:

# K Supercomputer Technical details: 80k+ SPARC64 VIIIfx
# CPUs, 640K+ cores, 1PB+ RAM, 6-dimensional Mesh/Torus
# interconnect

But I have a reliable source who claims that this is
using GRAPE cards as APUs to reach its performance
without causing (another) meltdown in Japan..

cheers,
Chris
- -- 
    Christopher Samuel - Senior Systems Administrator
 VLSCI - Victorian Life Sciences Computation Initiative
 Email: samuel at unimelb.edu.au Phone: +61 (0)3 903 55545
         http://www.vlsci.unimelb.edu.au/

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