Apple Posts In-Dept Look At VA Tech's 'Big Mac' Supercomputer

by , 10:00 AM EST, December 23rd, 2003

Perhaps if you where born yesterday, or have lived your life has a Luddite-hermit who recently fell off the wagon and is catching up on this "Web" thing, you may not know about Virginia Tech's new pride and joy; a 2200 processor super-computer comprised of G5 Macs. Even if you do know about Virginia Tech's 'Big Mac', you may not know all of the interesting details about how it was put together, or by whom, or why. If such intimate technical details make your heart skip a beat, then you'd best have a defibrillator standing by; Apple has posted an in-depth review of Virginia Tech's super-Mac; it's a techno-geek's must-read. Here's an excerpt from the article, Cost-Conscious Supercomputing:

Dr. Srinidhi Varadarajan knew that he wanted to build a world-class supercomputer. Also, he wanted to solidify the position of Virginia Tech's world-class computer science program. But with only a fraction of most supercomputing budgets to spend, it seemed like a hopeless dream. He crunched numbers, solicited every likely vendor, examined and ultimately discarded all possible options using other platforms and chips. Then in June of 2003, news of Apple's Power Mac G5 hit the airwaves. At last, Varadarajan realized, he'd have as much 64-bit processing as he needed to power his dream, without overtaxing his budget.

Soon after the announcement, Varadarajan took delivery of his very first PowerBook laptop running Mac OS X. Within days, he placed an order for the 1100 dual processor, 2.0 GHz Power Mac G5 computers that now drive Virginia Tech's new supercomputer. Smart choice: In November of 2003 the giant system -- named System X -- became the third fastest supercomputer in the world.

System X is radically different from traditional, high-performance supercomputers. Unlike most, it is based on a "supercluster" of Power Mac G5 computers, each of which has 4GB of main memory, and 160GB of serial ATA storage. Not only is System X the world's fastest, most powerful "home-built" supercomputer, it quite possibly has the cheapest price/performance of any supercomputer on the TOP500 list.

Even the non-geek will find this article interesting. Stop by Apple's Web site for more information.

The Mac Observer Spin:

Virginia Tech's supercomputer does, indeed, deserve praise; it's not only the 3rd fastest supercomputer in the world, but it is one of the least expensive, and that's an easy thing for Apple to hype. This article does a good job of doing just that, and we hope the company will able to use it to sell some more systems to more schools and other research facilities.

Cost-Conscious Supercomputing