Interesting.

[aaaaa00]

Only very very tangentially related to xbox2/PS3, but this is a REALLY FAST computer:

www.mc.com/products/powerstream_7000

The PowerStream® 7000 system from Mercury Computer Systems delivers extreme processing density with one TeraFLOPS or more of total processing power within an air-cooled, deployable chassis. Optimized for the deployment of high-end image and digital signal processing applications in the harsh, confined environments of airborne, oceangoing, or land-mobile platforms, the PowerStream 7000 system provides an exceptionally powerful solution based on open hardware and software standards.

Based on PowerPC® 7447 microprocessors with AltiVec™ technology and the RapidIO® communications fabric, the PowerStream 7000 system offers performance density exceeding 150 GFLOPS per cubic foot. Fitting more processing power into tight spaces enables full signal and image processing closer to the sensor in mobile platforms.

The RapidIO switch fabric connects more than 120 processor and I/O nodes in a single system, with up to 75 GB/s of aggregate bandwidth and 60 GB/s of bisection bandwidth. This bisection bandwidth is a measure of the worst case communication bottleneck in the system. Combined with up to 60 GB of memory in the system, this high bandwidth enables the next generation of adaptive signal processing algorithms on large images and data sets.

Compact, rugged, and powerful, the Mercury PowerStream 7000 system satisfies the needs of the most demanding real-time radar and signals intelligence applications. Its unique, highly scalable architecture provides flexibility for custom configurations of processors, memory, and I/O to suit any deployment mission.

;-)

 

[chapban.]

150GFLOPs per cubic foot? Is that consider big or small in the superkomputer world?

I be wondering is it really possible to cramp ten of that monster into a few chips and a small box. Is it possible for nextgen graphix to be 1TFLOPS? Somehow, i have a sinking feeling, what ever the large FLOPS consoles be, it be like how nVidia calculate their FLOPS, which sounds about right(i think) if we take the progression of GPU into 2005/6/7. Yeay?

 

[aaaaa00]

I be wondering is it really possible to cramp ten of that monster into a few chips and a small box.

In the largest configuration this machine is a in 2x2x2 foot enclosure, rack mountable, encompassing 120 processors and 60 GB of RAM.

So it's a teraflop in a 2x2x2 foot cube.

Pity it draws 4.2 kW in that configuration.

Someday I'd like to have one of those in my house.

 

[London Geezer]

A 1Tflop microwave... Nice... I'm sure this thread will turn into a "1TflopNOitcantbeYESitcanyou'llseethepowerofthenextgenerationsuperPlaystation3andxbox2butplaystation3willnotbeasgoodasxbox2becauseIsayso" so i thought i'll give my input now before it's too late. And what a contribution i'd say...

Is this supposed to be used for anything outside military and world/weather/physics simulation sectors? Or is it for CGI too?

 

[aaaaa00]

Is this supposed to be used for anything outside military and world/weather/physics simulation sectors? Or is it for CGI too?

I presume it is useful for any problem that requires a lot of floating point calculation and can easily be partitioned over 120 nodes.

A 3D render farm might work quite well on it, although there are probably more cost effective solutions -- unless you want your render farm to fit on an airplane or boat or something.

 

[chapban.]

2x2x2 foot sounds small, right?
maybe teraflop consumer computing maybe possible....sometime near future i guess. 4.2kW is a sucker man. How much does it cost?

 

[aaaaa00]

2x2x2 foot sounds small, right?
maybe teraflop consumer computing maybe possible....sometime near future i guess. 4.2kW is a sucker man. How much does it cost?

If you have to ask, it probably costs too much.

2x2x2 foot for the processor enclosure. Then you need the power supply, cooling, storage, and I/O hardware. So it ends up being a rack mount.

Not a big deal for the people that need it, since those people probably own datacenters.

On the other hand, I dunno. Maybe we will be able to fit something like this in a reasonable form factor in a few years. That would be nice.

 

[passerby]

Is this supposed to be used for anything outside military and world/weather/physics simulation sectors? Or is it for CGI too?

No mention of CGI on their webpage. Although it can likely be done if CGI tools and software can be made to run. Even so I can't find any mention of the OS - proprietary? - In which case there may be little choice of tools/software besides those for the industries they are targeting.

 

[MfA]

I doubt the cost/performance ratio is interesting for CGI.

 

[aaaaa00]

Although it can likely be done if CGI tools and software can be made to run. Even so I can't find any mention of the OS - proprietary? - In which case there may be little choice of tools/software besides those for the industries they are targeting.

They supply an OS and a C++ compiler/IDE with it.

Presuming you actually need something this fast and you can afford it, I think you could pretty easily convince your rendering software supplier to recompile the render engine of your choice for it for you.

But like I said above, there are probably more cost effective options for a large rendering farm than this machine, presuming you're not under some sort of space or mobility constraint.

 

[Sonic]

Thread locked. Keep it out of the console forum.