Mecury begins shipments...

[Kryton]

Shamelessly stolen from The Reg.

MCS' Cell evaluation machine is based on Turismo's blades running Terra Soft Solutions' Y-HPC Linux for Cell. Cell-optimised Scientific Algorithm Library (SAL), Trace Analysis Tool and Library (TATL), Parallel Acceleration System (PAS) libraries and tools from MCS and IBM are included, too. And MCS' MultiCore Framework code "optimises data movement within the Cell".

One or two of the Cell blades are installed in the 7U machine, which also contains either a single-chip Xeon board, or two CPU Power-based cards, two Gigabit Ethernet switches and its own 2000W power supply to keep everything ticking over. The Xeon and Power boards both run Linux, too.

It looks like an absolute beast of a machine but it is crammed with extras. What is interesting is it is running Cell blades illustrating the amazing temperatures? Maybe the PS3 doesn't need vents

 

[Carl B]

What I'm hoping for is more in the way of benchmarks at one point or another.

 

[Kryton]

What I'm hoping for is more in the way of benchmarks at one point or another.

They will be ludicrous, though, as you can stick Xeon/Power/Cell blades in as you wish. It will be quite hard to translate a combined benchmark into Cell-specific details (which will most likely mirror the IBM results we've seen).

Edit: Reading what you can do it would be possible to have: 4 Cell + 1 Xeon / 2 PPC + 2 Gb NICs + PSU

 

[Carl B]

They will be ludicrous, though, as you can stick Xeon/Power/Cell blades in as you wish. It will be quite hard to translate a combined benchmark into Cell-specific details (which will most likely mirror the IBM results we've seen).

Edit: Reading what you can do it would be possible to have: 4 Cell + 1 Xeon / 2 PPC + 2 Gb NICs + PSU

Yeah I guess I didn't read carefully enough that it would be a 7U system - I actually read this news elsewhere earlier today first and the article I read didn't mention it.

That is *definitely* a wacky configuration.

 

[Bobbler]

2U per dual cell blade (probably) and 3U for the Xeon/PowerPC + super power supply. Sounds pretty reasonable, really. A rather hefty box though.

 

[Kryton]

2U per dual cell blade (probably) and 3U for the Xeon/PowerPC + super power supply. Sounds pretty reasonable, really. A rather hefty box though.

Seems that yes it is a double-thickness blade for the dual-Cell parts. I had a dig around on their website too (and found this info is quite old, sorry if it's a repost) and found some info. on operating temperatures etc.

Size
Length: 429.9 mm (16.925 in)
Width: 245.3 mm (9.657 in)
Height: 58 mm (2.283 in)
The board is a double-width Dual Cell-Based Blade in a 7U chassis

Environmental
Ambient temperature: 0°C to 35°C
Humidity: 5% to 95% non-condensing
Altitude: -400 m below MSL to +3000 m above MSL
Noise level: 45 dB from 1 m at 35°C

I am speculating a lot this evening but I suspect that if they have a demo box showing this off we can be sure that it is quite close to final spec. This would mean that it is quite probable that devs have the 1U rackmounts (or will extremely soon) with the only potential issue in the plan being the RSX. If the RSX does operate at a decent thermal level I can easily envisage the PS3 case prototype actually making it through to production (perhaps some vague cosmetic alterations) and it would seem to be 'quiet' (assuming we can drop a dB or two because this is a dual box).

 

[Alpha_Spartan]

What does this have to do with consoles other than the fact that Cell will be in PS3?

 

[Carl B]

Anything Cell related is automatically the purvue of the console forum through the Transitive Theory. Same with anything blu-ray/HD-DVD related.

C'mon Alpha, I know you've picked up on these trends in your time here.

@Kryton: I like where you're going with that theory of yours. Time will tell...