New PowerPC-based IBM Supercomputer

[MacRumors]

With the final Top-500 Supercomputer rankings to be released on Sunday, The New York Times reports that IBM has built a dishwasher-sized prototype computer with 512 PowerPC 440 processors that ranks 73rd in the world.

The computer is part of an ongoing project to build a a new supercomputer for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. This project is targeted to be completed by 2005 and the resulting computer is expected to have 128 times the power of the current prototype (1.4 TFlops), which would bring it close to 180 TFlops. The current fastest supercomputer performs at 35.8 TFlops.

Livermore currently holds the #3 spot, but this position is expected to be taken by the Virginia Tech PowerMac G5 Cluster in the upcoming rankings.

The PowerPC 440 is designed for embedded systems and allows IBM's new supercomputer to achieve a high density of processors. While the chip is a member of the PowerPC family, the processor has no specific relationship to Apple Computer.

 

[arn]

Er... Page 2 mostly because I'm not sure the interest in it.... PowerPC expansion is a good thing. Doesn't directly affect Apple, per se... thought people might be interested.

arn

 

[Thanatoast]

what comes after terraflops? petaflops? and how long do you think till we get one? four years? five? and most importantly, will it run P6's or G7's?

 

[Sun Baked]

Sort of cool, a computer/server the size of a laundry appliance ranked on the supercomputer list and available to businesses.

Plus it seems like it doesn't require the infrastructure burden a lot of the "supercomputers" require (didn't sound too much worse than the burden a business might incure on a truly dedicated refrigerated telecom/server room).

It will be air-cooled, as opposed to many high-performance machines that use water and refrigeration, and it will use no more power than the average home, the executives said. Computer scientists and industry analysts said the Blue Gene/L represented a radical departure from the industry's obsession with ever-faster microprocessor chips. Instead, I.B.M. designers chose to balance computing speed and energy consumption to create a far denser data processing system than had previously been possible.

 

[Sol]

So?!

What is the big deal? IBM built hundreds of supercomputers in the past and they will keep on doing it. Unless this dishwasher-size prototype is running OS X or using 970 processors I do not see what relevance this has to the Mac.

 

[arn]

Originally posted by Thanatoast
what comes after terraflops? petaflops? and how long do you think till we get one? four years? five? and most importantly, will it run P6's or G7's?

Although it will not be a computer for classified applications, the Livermore machine will be a significant step toward a Defense Department goal of creating a computer capable of reaching 1,000 trillion mathematical calculations a second - referred to as a petaflop - by the end of the decade.

 

[Photorun]

It'd be a bummer to have one in your kitchen and accidentally put your greasy pots and pans, tablewear, and some plates in it before realizing OH CRAP!

 

[SiliconAddict]

Originally posted by arn
referred to as a petaflop -

Hmmm petaflop....sounds kinky

What kind of things can you possibly do with that much computer power?

 

[PyroTurtle]

calculate pi...
figure out the true vector and spaciality of my nose...
play unreal 2k3...
help al gore spell...
piss of the energy department...
i mean, the list is endless...
oh, i forgot the most important one...play halo...

 

[JonL]

Nuclear Weapons

Originally posted by SiliconAddict
Hmmm petaflop....sounds kinky

What kind of things can you possibly do with that much computer power?

Unfortunately, the main gov't interest in supercomputers is for modeling nuclear reactions so that "better" weapons can be developed more quickly and without the need for real testing (blowing up big chunks of Nevada and alerting the rest of the world about what we are up to).

 

[ghutchis]

What can you do with a petaflop?

Originally posted by SiliconAddict
Hmmm petaflop....sounds kinky

What kind of things can you possibly do with that much computer power?

The Defense Department's goal is to be able to simulate nuclear explosions and the degradation of old nuclear weapons. Current DoD supercomputers at Sandia, Livermore and Los Alamos are good but not quite at that level. So they estimate a petaflop would allow this sort of modeling in a reasonable amount of time (e.g. months of CPU time for a few seconds of nuclear explosion).

There are plenty of other so-called "Grand Challenge" problems which will probably submit under the force of a few petaflops. IBM has also proposed building a petaflop computer to simulate the folding of proteins. There are more--researchers periodically draw up lists so we can entice supercomputer manufacturers to make the beasts.

-Geoff
(A computational chemist.)

 

[ethernet76]

From what i read, the PPC 440 is basically a modified PPC 970...yadda yadda yadda(reason why i submitted the story).

So the development of the PPC 970 it seems has had a lot of benficial outcomes for both apple and IBM.

 

[hvfsl]

Is it 512,440 proccessors in one computer or 512 proccessors. The 440 PPC 440 in the article does not make this so clear.

 

[Sun Baked]

Originally posted by hvfsl
Is it 512,440 proccessors in one computer or 512 proccessors. The 440 PPC 440 in the article does not make this so clear.

Yes it does...

The prototype has 512 PowerPC 440 microprocessors, which are similar to the I.B.M. 970 processor being used in Apple Computer's G5 Macintosh, but each with a lower clock speed. By lowering the clock speed governing how fast the chip executes calculations, it is possible to pack the processor chips far more closely together. Speed is then made up in other areas of the computing system.

512 air cooled processors clocked low and packed a dense cluster.

It's part of the 400 series, System on chip PowerPCs...

The IBM PowerPC 440GP is a superscalar processor with large caches, a 128-bit CoreConnect bus and high performance peripherals, including PCI-X bridge and DDR SDRAM controller. It is planned to be available in 400, 466, and 500 MHz frequencies with higher speeds to follow, providing 1,000 MIPS performance at 500 MHz. The processor teams with a high bandwidth 4.2 GB/s on-chip CoreConnect bus, and off-chip interfaces with peak bandwidths of 2.1 GB/s to DDR memory, and 1.1 GB/s PCI-X, along with two ethernet and several other communications interfaces. This powerful processing engine fits into a 25 mm package, offering a compact solution for dense applications.

It's really the next generation embedded PowerPC the Book E core -- so nothing to do with the Power line or the PPC970 spinoff.

The Book E is the next generation PowerPC geared toward embedded applications.

See the IBM Blue Logic ASIC division...

http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/products/asics/products/cores/corelist.html
http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/products/powerpc/cores/

 

[joesporleder]

Speaking of PPC, Dual 1.8 G5?

Has anyone heard in the rumor mill of the 1.8Ghz G5 becoming a dual machine in the very near future? A poster on a MacOS X mailing list I am on claimed to hear from an Apple dealer that the 1.8 G5 will become a dual processor machine as early as Monday. So thought I'd ask the king site of rumors to see if there are any other rumblings along this line. Perhaps the entry level will be a single 1.8, the middle will be dual 1.8 and the high end will stay dual 2.0? Does anyone feel the current 1.6 G5 seem a bit crippled? Reminds me of the Yikes! G4.

 

[Photorun]

Originally posted by PyroTurtle

help al gore spell...

Uh, I think you're thinking Dumbass Dubya, or Dan Quayle (if you're old enough). Al Gore can spell, it'd be a dry spelling, but he can spell.

 

[PyroTurtle]

i'm amazed! only ONE PERSON GOT IT! good job, seriously

 

[MacRAND]

Blue Gene is air cooled

Originally posted by Photorun
It'd be a bummer to have one in your kitchen and accidentally put your greasy pots and pans, tablewear, and some plates in it before realizing OH CRAP!

Remember, it is Air Cooled. When you get your Blue Gene, just don't hook it up to a water supply.

I wonder how many MP3 songs it could handle for a large residence or small business LAN?
But is it iTunes compatible

 

[ryan]

Re: Nuclear Weapons

Originally posted by JonL
Unfortunately, the main gov't interest in supercomputers is for modeling nuclear reactions so that "better" weapons can be developed more quickly and without the need for real testing (blowing up big chunks of Nevada and alerting the rest of the world about what we are up to).

Note to quibble, but the point of simulating nuclear explosions is not to prevent people knowing "what we are up to" but rather to remain in accordance with an international treaty on live nuclear weapons testing.

 

[andyduncan]

Re: Blue Gene is air cooled

Originally posted by MacRAND
I wonder how many MP3 songs it could handle for a large residence or small business LAN?

The correct metric for this type of thing is the LOC. LOC is an ANSI standard referring to the number of Libraries Of Congress can fit in a certain area/on a given machine. It is one of a number of ANSI/ISO 'Relative' standards. Others include:

OSPs (number of Olympic Swimming Pools that could be filled by...)

TABOLCTATW(number of Times A Beam Of Light Could Travel Around The World while...)

HOAP (Number of x that could fit on the Head Of A Pin)

Im sure people will remember others, but I don't have the actual standards documents in front of me right now...

 

[MacRAND]

Blue Gene is air cooled

Originally posted by andyduncan
The correct metric for this type of thing is the LOC. LOC is an ANSI standard referring to the number of Libraries Of Congress that can fit in a certain area/on a given machine.
It is one of a number of ANSI/ISO 'Relative' standards.
Others include:
OSPs (number of Olympic Swimming Pools that could be filled by...)
TABOLCTATW (number of Times A Beam Of Light Could Travel Around The World while...)
HOAP (Number of x that could fit on the Head Of A Pin)
I'm sure people will remember others, but I don't have the actual standards documents in front of me right now...

SORRY. I was looking for the iTunes MP3 iMport standard, like how many AIFF songs can iTunes import while converting to MP3 for iPod...per ns on this computer - standard.

 

[york2600]

Re: So?!

Originally posted by Sol
What is the big deal? IBM built hundreds of supercomputers in the past and they will keep on doing it. Unless this dishwasher-size prototype is running OS X or using 970 processors I do not see what relevance this has to the Mac.

I'd say this has relevence in that everytime IBM sells a PowerPC processor they are paying off some of their capital investments in their new fab plant as well as R&D costs. That can only benefit 970 and G3 R&D and fab.

 

[MacRAND]

So?!

Originally posted by york2600
I'd say this has relevence in that everytime IBM sells a PowerPC processor they are paying off some of their capital investments in their new fab plant as well as R&D costs. That can only benefit 970 and G3 R&D and fab.

Exactly. I agree.
Power to PPC chips, 970/980 or 440, and IBM
Thanks IBM for VMX/AltiVec/Vector instructions on PPC chips.
Is there an Intel equivalent?

Plus, with the advent of Big Mac at VirginiaTech, our Mac consciousness in use of PPC chips to drive SuperComputers and eServers has been aroused forever.
Go PPC and Blue Gene! Long live Lawrence Livermore Labs!
Intel, eat IBM dust.

 

[PyroTurtle]

hmmmm....
i'm glad at all the super-powers that these desktop bricks are getting...but how about get something this powerful in say, the size of a 15.2" TiPB...now that would be a great rumor

 

[Mord]

PPC 440's are in nintendo game cubes so 512 of those at $99 (whole sale) a pop thats $51200 for a super computer....nice they made a super computer from ps 2's so it should be possible?