World's fastest: IBM's Roadrunner supercomputer breaks petaflop barrier using Cell and Opteron processors

When you're looking to set a record this is how you do it. Not only has IBM's Roadrunner supercomputer come on-line, it's now the world's fastest -- twice as fast as the old BluGene/L champ -- and churning through 1.026 quadrillion calculations per second. The $133 million supercomputer achieved the milestone with the help of 12,960 "improved" Cell processors (yes, like those powering your PS3) and a smaller number of AMD Opteron processors -- 116,640 processor cores in total. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending upon your perspective), Roadrunner is for military use only so you'll have to solve the traveling salesman problem on your own time. While not quite into Exaflop territory, we're definitely on the way.

[Thanks, Chris S.]

[mexican_dragons @ Jun 9th 2008 4:19AM]

Crysis anyone?

[Cassini @ Jun 9th 2008 6:36AM]

Five trillion frames a second, anyone?

[Brian @ Jun 9th 2008 6:51AM]

Crysis? Forget that... I'm waiting to see how quickly the cards bounce after solitaire, I still remember how slow it was on the 286...

[Ace b @ Jun 9th 2008 11:32AM]

So now we know what the military was using those cell processors for when they ripped them out of all of those ps3's.

But seriously,this has got to be the beginning of Skynet.

[jak0b @ Jun 9th 2008 4:21AM]

perhaps even doom?

[Arlen Forsstrom @ Jun 9th 2008 4:24AM]

"nothing runs Crysis"

[Robert @ Jun 9th 2008 6:08AM]

You need 3 of these to play Crysis. :-P

[david amodt @ Jun 9th 2008 4:24AM]

wow... that's gotta run word and IE pretty darn fast....

[Steve Jones @ Jun 9th 2008 3:14PM]

Your comment is weak, unoriginal and a downright fail. Taxi for one.

[The Apple @ Jun 9th 2008 4:24AM]

Im wondering if it will break the 10 FPS Limit on Crysis At the Moment..

[maty @ Jun 9th 2008 4:36AM]

Probably much more so than on any Mac.

Sorry, that was low, your icon made me do it =[.

[The Apple @ Jun 9th 2008 5:16AM]

Ouch that cut me deep, i need an iBandaid to heal that one...

[maty @ Jun 9th 2008 5:46AM]

Rofl. Naw, Vistaplast all the way!

[Zut @ Jun 9th 2008 7:13AM]

ARGH! I know saying this makes me a whiny little bitch, and I'm sure I'll get "lowest ranked", but.....

Why does everyone moan about Crysis so much?!? I not long ago got a new mig-high end rig that runs Crysis at max settings smoothly and with no problems at all. If you were to price it up now with post-Christmas prices it would be not much over £1,000 (inc. 22" monitor).

[The Apple @ Jun 9th 2008 9:48AM]

Ahh, I have so much to teach you, Grass Hopper

[retro77 @ Jun 9th 2008 10:41AM]

-1 Zut: answer: its a joke, roll with it.

[TeddyLikesComputahs! @ Jun 9th 2008 4:26AM]

this is StarCraft material right here

[r3loaded @ Jun 9th 2008 4:27AM]

Roadrunner?

"Meep meep!" - Pchow!

[BuddyBoy @ Jun 9th 2008 4:57AM]

The little guy better watch out, Will E Coyotes got himself an ACME supercomputer complete with sling shot.

[BigDaddyM @ Jun 9th 2008 4:28AM]

LOL, I guess no.

[Jaque-o @ Jun 9th 2008 4:31AM]

Something tells me that doesnt fit in my living room

[TeddyLikesComputahs! @ Jun 9th 2008 4:34AM]

i guess the predictions from the past of future computers filling a whole room has come to reality

[Stranger @ Jun 9th 2008 4:51AM]

Supercomputers has always and will always fill a whole room, that's the nature of the beast. Anyway, IBM seem to know how to build these babies since they occupy five positions in the top-ten list and roughly 200 positions in the top-500 list according to top500.org. Well done!

[Ian @ Jun 10th 2008 2:00AM]

well like all computers they will get smaller, so im wondering will it only be able 30 years till the power of that machine can be put in a laptop? Because a 2 GHz computer now is i dono how many times more powerful then the first super computers.

o yea and i have a feeling its quite true but still mind-boggling that the same 2 GHz computer is much more powerful then the space shuttle. thats slightly depressing

[ed. @ Jun 9th 2008 4:34AM]

FAIL!!!!!!!!!

[cantcount @ Jun 9th 2008 4:38AM]

Its a joke, you guys are dorks.
Me = cantcount
You = cantread

[tchapp @ Jun 9th 2008 4:45AM]

for real...how hot must that room be?

[Rynth @ Jun 9th 2008 4:47AM]

Probably cooler than your freezer, IBM loves its AirCon.

[ijaz @ Jun 9th 2008 4:49AM]

I can't believe no one has mentioned this. SkyNet?

[Stranger @ Jun 9th 2008 4:52AM]

Why should anyone, it's just a lame of joke.

[scottbell @ Jun 11th 2008 1:17AM]

its mentioned in a reply to the first post

[luzzio @ Jun 9th 2008 4:51AM]

The beauty about it is that all this power will come in the size of your cellphone a generation from now.

Yay for not reaching twenty yet!

[tchapp @ Jun 9th 2008 5:00AM]

in a cellphone? in a generation?

cocaine is a helluva drug.

[SimbaDogg @ Jun 9th 2008 5:51AM]

@tchapp
compare the worlds fastest computer from 1969 which ran @ 36 MFLOPS to even my cheap/old pentium e6300 which runs at around 2500 MFLOPS (not O/C, stock)...its hard to compare to cell phones which are never really tested with flops...but i can also guarantee you will find 1 ghz processors in phones by 2010, especially seeing some of the work that nvidia is working on.

So definitely within a few years you'll see a cell phone that was faster than the worlds fastest computer less than 50 years ago.

hopefully moore's law continues to hold up, in that case we'll see cell phones that are more powerful than my desktop less than 10 years from now.

[SimbaDogg @ Jun 9th 2008 5:53AM]

more food for though...

* 1961: about US$1,100,000,000,000 ($1.1 trillion) per GFLOPS (=US$1,100 per FLOPS); with 1 billion IBM 1620 units @ $64,000 each and a multiplication operation taking 17.7ms [11]
* 1997: about US$30,000 per GFLOPS; with two 16-Pentium-Pro–processor Beowulf cluster computers[12]
* 2000, April: $1,000 per GFLOPS, Bunyip, Australian National University. First sub-US$1/MFlop. Gordon Bell Prize 2000.
* 2000, May: $640 per GFLOPS, KLAT2, University of Kentucky
* 2003, August: $82 per GFLOPS, KASY0, University of Kentucky
* 2006, February: about $1 per GFLOPS in ATI PC add-in graphics card (X1900 architecture) — these figures are disputed as they refer to highly parallelized GPU power.
* 2007, March: about $0.42 per GFLOPS in Ambric AM2045[13].
* 2007, October: about $0.20 per GFLOPS with the cheapest retail Sony PS3 console, at US$400, that runs at a claimed 2 teraFLOPS; these figures represent the processing power of the GPU. The seven CPUs run collectively at a lower 218 GFLO

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOPS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercomputer#The_Top500_list

[pablito56 @ Jun 9th 2008 7:17AM]

C&P from Wikipedia: "Moore's law describes an important trend in the history of computer hardware: that the number of transistors that can be inexpensively placed on an integrated circuit is increasing exponentially, doubling approximately every two years."

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law

[KarlW @ Jun 9th 2008 7:28AM]

Yes, but more transistors =/= better performance.

In fact, you'd have an argument for the opposite being true. The less transistors a signal has to go through, the fewer switching delays it is delayed by, hence the faster it emerges.

[SimbaDogg @ Jun 9th 2008 2:38PM]

@ KarlW
i'd love to take up that argument with anyone...

[Jaque-o @ Jun 9th 2008 5:00AM]

it's dorky joke that lacks the little element named "humor"

[Me @ Jun 9th 2008 5:15AM]

hmmm....roadrunner.... i'd rather call it the "cheetah" or maybe..."Peregrine Falcon"

[Rynth @ Jun 11th 2008 5:07AM]

Dude, nothing faster than roadrunner, not even that Wily Coyote!

Meep Meep! *fwoosh*

It would be great if it made those sounds...

*wanders off day-dreaming*

[cantcount @ Jun 9th 2008 5:32AM]

Ya, crucify him!

[Thi mam(kris120890) @ Jun 9th 2008 5:52AM]

Hopefully be able to play 4 hardcore porn vids in high definition while playing crysis and doom at the same time.

That some hardcore pleasuring right there.

[Thi mam(kris120890) @ Jun 9th 2008 5:57AM]

At the expense of some floor space and and a hella of a load of heat that could be converted in to heating the whole house.

so really it will Hopefully be able to play 4 hardcore porn vids in high definition while playing crysis and doom at the same time while in a bath ( or shower whatever floats you're boat).

That some hardcore pleasuring right there.

[lance @ Jun 9th 2008 6:19AM]

Pong anyone?

[lance @ Jun 9th 2008 6:23AM]

you know it's cool in that place since he's wearing a long sleeve shirt.
The power bill must be crazy huge.

[DJ @ Jun 9th 2008 6:57AM]

I work in a data centre, if I stand in front of one of the mainframes it's very hot, if I stand over a vent in the floor it's very cold, and if I stand in the open it's quite comfortable. I imagine it's quite the same in this case, so clothing doesn't say a whole lot. I usually put up with what I wear to work whether it's hot or cold in there. Most people don't sit and work in a data centre all day. He might not even work in there, he is probably PR and just stepped into the room.

[Technex @ Jun 9th 2008 6:39AM]

People are posting "first" just to get attention, but all they get are low ranks.

[Technex @ Jun 9th 2008 6:40AM]

Anyone spot the roadrunner in the pic? :)

[Luigi193 @ Jun 9th 2008 7:45AM]

LOL, not until you mentioned it!