IBM building world's fastest supercomputer using Opteron and Cell processors

One reason there's so much fuss (and delay) over the upcoming PlayStation 3 platform is the fact that it sports those new Cell processors jointly developed with Sony and Toshiba. Now those Cell procs are about to find themselves pumping away at the heart of a new $35 million supercomputer for Los Alamos National Laboratory. But this won't be just supercomputer mind you, IBM is hoping to reclaim the title of the world's fastest once completed in 2007. Dubbed Roadrunner, ACME IBM plans to jump from 280-teraflops to a full petaflop performance by combining AMD Opteron blade servers and Cell-based accelerator systems. A performance threshold achieved earlier this year by NEC's MDGrape-3, the supercomputer behind new pharmaceutical drugs and the curious taste and powerful punch of Mad Dog's 20/20 Red Grape Malt beverage. Mmm, grape.

[Eric @ Sep 6th 2006 8:22AM]

I wanna see some Xeon action instead...C'mon Intel and Apple

[-= XGM =- @ Sep 6th 2006 8:33AM]

That thing must be some intense F@H folder, ask em to make it join team engadget :P

[RC @ Sep 6th 2006 8:42AM]

Fine, but can you play quake on it?

[henning @ Sep 6th 2006 9:04AM]

The Cell processor was never the reason for either of the PS3's delays. You can chalk those up to Blu-ray and Blu-ray.

[will @ Sep 6th 2006 9:15AM]

I wonder if those angled ends actually contain any working components...

[georget @ Sep 6th 2006 9:20AM]

And Windows will still take 10 minutes to boot up.

[Faisal Rahman @ Sep 6th 2006 9:38AM]

pffft....my ENIAC in my backyard is better than THAT!

[Houston Joost @ Sep 6th 2006 9:57AM]

Pop culture references are quite banal.

[Pal @ Sep 6th 2006 10:07AM]

So. NEC built a 1 petaflop super computer for $9 million, while IBM is making a 1 petaflop supercomputer for $35 million?

[M. Rod Von Hugenstein @ Sep 6th 2006 11:32AM]

I can't help but wonder if we will have petaflop desktops in 40 years? I think it's safe to say that we all have the equivalent of a supercomputer on our desks, when you compare processing power to the fastest machines of the past.

[Wes Felter (IBM Research) @ Sep 6th 2006 12:03PM]

Will, the angled ends are there to direct air flow. Cold air comes up from the floor, then the angled plenum redirects it to flow horizontally through the rack, and then another angled plenum redirects the hot exhaust air up towards the ceiling.

[Abe @ Sep 6th 2006 12:29PM]

40 years?
10 at the most

[Charles @ Sep 6th 2006 12:30PM]

M.Rod, When we have super computers on our desks will they still be super?

[autopilot @ Sep 6th 2006 1:37PM]

Skylab became self-aware at 60 teraflops. We are all doomed, rise up again the machines before it's too late!

[macona @ Sep 6th 2006 1:38PM]

The NEC computer was designed for one specific task. That is pharmaceutical research, nothing else. I am sure this computer is more versatile.

[Ben @ Sep 6th 2006 3:25PM]

didnt the japaneese make a pentaflop supercomp for 7million? What makes this one so special?

[dov @ Sep 6th 2006 7:34PM]

I bet Doom3 won't run smoothly on it.. :D

[Simon @ Sep 7th 2006 5:52AM]

Everything IBM costs more... -_-

[John @ Sep 7th 2006 2:25PM]

Am I the only enamoured of the MD20/20 reference? If only you could have worked the Bling-Bling Berry in there somehow...(I'll be looking for that in future post Mr. Ricker).

[Thomas Ricker @ Sep 7th 2006 2:26PM]

+2 points John

[avr @ Sep 7th 2006 10:24PM]

1 petaflop, that's how many ps3 put together?

[Adam @ Sep 7th 2006 10:29PM]

I, for one, welcome our new petaflop overlord.

[dave @ Oct 6th 2006 6:20PM]

cray's doing an opteron based teraflop'er too. they have 24,000 quad core K8's. 96000 processor cores?!?!?

[lara @ Dec 1st 2008 11:42PM]

Nice blog..Thanks for sharing it..!!
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