Researchers create supercomputer with four GeForce 9800 GX2 cards
By Donald Melanson 
posted May 29th 2008 4:48PM
posted May 29th 2008 4:48PM
It's far from the first supercomputer created with the help of some gaming hardware, but this rig built by a group of researchers from the University of Antwerp is certainly impressive enough in its own right, with it employing four of NVIDIA's high-end GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics cards (which combined pack eight GPUs) to help develop new computational methods for tomography. Dubbed the FASTRA, the system also packs an AMD Phenom 9850 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 750GB hard drive, all of which is powered by a 1,500W power supply (and tastefully lit up with some blue LEDs). That apparently lets 'em do calculations that previously took an hour in just a few seconds, not to mention finally get a decent frame rate in Crysis. Be sure to check out the video after the break for a thorough (and more entertaining than it should be) overview of the system.
Come on! Of course he's trying to be funny! He's acting all the way, it's way to smooth a video.
super or not, that computer ain't gonna stop me from stealing that guy's lunch money today.
LOL.
Does this guy not know that nVidia already sells this kind of stuff called the Quadroplex?
http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadroplex.html
@saq
Yes there are those, but they have at most 4 GPUs were this setup has 8. Also with all 4 cards there is 4 gigs of frame buffer memory, with only one of the Nvidia models having more. Latestly there is cost, 4000 euros for this setup and almost $11,000 US for the Nvidia prebuilt product. I think these guys got the better deal.
I wonder if this setup can be applied to 3D graphics animation...
Imagine having Toy Story 3 in just 2 months after production starts :)
Wow. That guy is totally jacked.
lol
Nice PC. I bet the guy can do one hell of a Father Guido Sarducci impression :)
Dugg for Father Guido Sarducci.
Oh wait...
enough with the crysis... does it run doom???
This is why AMD bought ATI, according to a lecture by AMD.
This guy looks like a fish.
His eyes are too far apart.
He's hilarious, though.
-bZj
My Mac Pro runs faster then that piece of junk. Doesn't even use 1,500 of waste of space electric bullsh*t.
I get perfect frame rate on crysis but not anymore sense I took windblowz off. What a crappy OS.
Technically Using Nvidia nForce 790 Ultra SLI chipset, you could use Intel Core 2 CPU as well as have 4 PCI-E x16 slots to run such configuration. MSI P7N2 or Asus P5N64 WS Professional. Also ASUS P5W64 WS Professional, which uses Intel 975X chipset have 4 PCI-E x16 slot (although severely limited bandwith wise x8 x8 x4 x8)
Hardware specs from their website:
http://fastra.ua.ac.be/en/specs.html
Motherboard is an MSI K9A2 Platinum
I blame Donald. Why would you even mention Crysis in the article? Thanks to that there comments like these asking about crysis. CAN NO ONE READ? Please before posting a comment based on the synopsis visit the site actual site: http://fastra.ua.ac.be
I was shocked too..
The site actually contained information!
-AMD because there was no other option
-No SLI because its not supported (THIS MEANS CRYSIS SUCKS. DEAL WITH IT)
-The Cards function independently while communicating to the system
-Hard drive is not a bottleneck
-Heat is an issue that is why the case is open, they plan to add another fan
The reason for this build was not to get an insane gaming pc but to offer a cheap solution to a 3.5 million euro problem. To have a system that can keep up with a super computer for € 3,496,000 less means scientists who need access to a tomographic reconstruction do not have to wait for time with the super computer.
Any more questions please defer to their site I am quiet positive it will be helpful.
By the way, I am against caps lock however SHIFT is my friend.
Actually, that machine probably wouldn't be as good with Crysis as you're all thinking.
Those cards, from what I can see, are all independent. So you'd only really get the power of one in Crysis.
this is just a question out of curiosity not intended to be provocative, but would it me more viable to use or more ps3's?
The use of nvidia's CUDA GPU programming interface lets them develop tomography applications that render straight from the video cards. If they were using PS3s (or any other distributed software) it would require having a separate program for viewing finalized models or would likely be much much slower at manipulating the model in real time.
brilliant use of readily available off the shelf bits to achieve outstanding results.
is it just my imagination or should these dudes be on the phone to dreamworks even as I'm typing this?
seems like this same type of approach could be amazing for 3d rendering, I think they could make millions selling this to movie studios.
To all the morrons who think this plays crysis: it doesn't, or well, you could play 4 times crysis on different screens but that makes no sense does it? No performance benefit over one of these babies.
That is - Amazing!
I haven´t got big enough words to carry my feelings for this experiment,
it brings tears to my eyes - with happiness. I tried explaining this to my colleagues who didn´t understand squat (who can blame them?, I can barely comprehend this myself)
At first my thoughts where - I will BUY this - NOW - I´ve got some money saved up, but it would take me countless hours and perhaps even years to realize and understand the power of this, but this is exactly the kind of progress that wakes up the "old kid programmer" in me and want to do "big things" with it - because we can when we want to!
This brings supercomputing to average Joe!
Way to go guys, innovative!
The only question in my mind was how did they get to the proprietary parts of this to use it to its full potention? I hear countless Linux people complain that they can´t program native drivers because nvidia hasn´t released information about it´s hardware on - coding hardware level.
I just love the last comment about how the video is "not half as entertaining as it should be", lol. Right on man, at least show some fast frame rate gaming just to mess around... You are nerds aren't you?
will this computer run crysis on very hight setting over 60 FPS
Mine does at least 65-120fps on max but its not a crappy PC its a Mac Pro. You guys need to switch and stop making PC I mean vista way to go on screwing up everything stop while your ahead.
Don't diamonds come from Antwerp?
Yes, they trade them there at the bourses. And some of the most important families/companies are based there. The diamonds themselves don't actually come from Antwerp though.