SGI announces Octane III personal supercomputer
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Sep 22nd 2009 11:41AM
posted Sep 22nd 2009 11:41AM
SGI Unveils Octane™ III Personal Supercomputer
Octane III Delivers Unparalleled Performance, Energy Efficiency and Ease of Use to HPC Users in Office Environments
Intel Developer Forum 2009, San Francisco
FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SGI® (NASDAQ: SGI) today announced the immediate availability of Octane™ III, the company's first personal supercomputer. This new product takes high-performance computing to a new level by combining the immense power and performance capabilities of a high-performance deskside cluster with the portability and usability of a workstation. The Octane III is uniquely suited for workplace environments and supports a vast range of distributed technical computing applications.
Octane III is office-ready with a pedestal, one-by-two-foot form factor, whisper-quiet operations, easy-to-use features, low maintenance requirements and support for standard office power outlets. While a typical workstation has only eight cores and moderate memory capacity, the superior design of the Octane III permits up to 80 high-performance cores and nearly 1TB of memory for unparalleled performance.
"Octane III makes supercomputing personal again," said Mark J. Barrenechea, president and CEO of SGI. "Our customers have been asking for office environment products with large core counts that are easy to use and whisper-quiet. Octane III brings all of this to the HPC professional, and enables a new era of personal innovation in strategic science, research, development and visualization."
Octane III is easily configurable with single- and dual-socket node choices, and offers a wide selection of performance, storage, graphics, GP-GPU and integrated networking options. Yielding the same leading power efficiencies inherent in all SGI Eco-Logical™ compute designs, Octane III supports the latest Intel® processors to capitalize on greater levels of performance, flexibility and scalability.
"IDC research has shown a growing demand for high-performance deskside supercomputers, and the new Octane III personal supercomputer is designed to directly address the requirements of both the entry level HPC technical server market and the desktop workstation market with a high-performance cluster designed to help close the gap between the desktop and the data center," said Earl Joseph, HPC Program Vice President at IDC. "SGI workstations and servers have been highly regarded by HPC scientists, engineers and analysts, and the new system with up to 80 high-performance cores and 1TB of memory is certain to capture the attention of many HPC computing professionals."
Octane III is available in a variety of configurations:
* Ten dual-socket, Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series-based nodes
* One dual-socket, Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series-based workstation with advanced NVIDIA graphics and/or GP-GPU card support
* Nineteen single-socket, Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 3400 series-based nodes
* Nineteen single-socket, Dual-Core Intel® Atom™ processor-based nodes
"SGI's Octane III offers a solution for workstation users wanting to reach dramatically higher levels of performance with minimal investment. With the support of up to 19 Intel® Xeon® processors, HPC users looking to enhance their workgroup productivity outside the data center can also utilize the benefits of the Octane III for faster discovery and quicker simulations," said Richard Dracott, General Manager of High Performance Computing at Intel. "With certification from the Intel® Cluster Ready program, Octane III will provide a powerful, easy-to-deploy personal supercomputer."
For a simple, out-of-the-box experience, Octane III ships as a factory-tested, pre-integrated platform with broad HPC application support – powerful enough for the most complex applications in the world. These include fluid dynamics, quantum mechanics, molecular dynamics, seismic processing, data analytics, rendering, visualization and computer-aided design, among many other HPC applications.
Octane III supports Microsoft HPC Server 2008, SUSE® Linux® Enterprise Server and Red Hat® Enterprise Linux operating systems. Linux configurations include SGI ProPack™ and ISLE™ cluster management software.
Octane III will be on display at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) at Moscone Center, San Francisco, Calif., on September 22-24, 2009, in Booth # 718 at the Technology Showcase in the HyperScale Community.
Availability and Pricing:
Octane III is immediately available with Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series or Intel® Atom™ configurations. The base configuration price starts at $7,995. For more information about Octane III, please visit http://www.sgi.com/OctaneIII.
Octane III Delivers Unparalleled Performance, Energy Efficiency and Ease of Use to HPC Users in Office Environments
Intel Developer Forum 2009, San Francisco
FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SGI® (NASDAQ: SGI) today announced the immediate availability of Octane™ III, the company's first personal supercomputer. This new product takes high-performance computing to a new level by combining the immense power and performance capabilities of a high-performance deskside cluster with the portability and usability of a workstation. The Octane III is uniquely suited for workplace environments and supports a vast range of distributed technical computing applications.
Octane III is office-ready with a pedestal, one-by-two-foot form factor, whisper-quiet operations, easy-to-use features, low maintenance requirements and support for standard office power outlets. While a typical workstation has only eight cores and moderate memory capacity, the superior design of the Octane III permits up to 80 high-performance cores and nearly 1TB of memory for unparalleled performance.
"Octane III makes supercomputing personal again," said Mark J. Barrenechea, president and CEO of SGI. "Our customers have been asking for office environment products with large core counts that are easy to use and whisper-quiet. Octane III brings all of this to the HPC professional, and enables a new era of personal innovation in strategic science, research, development and visualization."
Octane III is easily configurable with single- and dual-socket node choices, and offers a wide selection of performance, storage, graphics, GP-GPU and integrated networking options. Yielding the same leading power efficiencies inherent in all SGI Eco-Logical™ compute designs, Octane III supports the latest Intel® processors to capitalize on greater levels of performance, flexibility and scalability.
"IDC research has shown a growing demand for high-performance deskside supercomputers, and the new Octane III personal supercomputer is designed to directly address the requirements of both the entry level HPC technical server market and the desktop workstation market with a high-performance cluster designed to help close the gap between the desktop and the data center," said Earl Joseph, HPC Program Vice President at IDC. "SGI workstations and servers have been highly regarded by HPC scientists, engineers and analysts, and the new system with up to 80 high-performance cores and 1TB of memory is certain to capture the attention of many HPC computing professionals."
Octane III is available in a variety of configurations:
* Ten dual-socket, Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series-based nodes
* One dual-socket, Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series-based workstation with advanced NVIDIA graphics and/or GP-GPU card support
* Nineteen single-socket, Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 3400 series-based nodes
* Nineteen single-socket, Dual-Core Intel® Atom™ processor-based nodes
"SGI's Octane III offers a solution for workstation users wanting to reach dramatically higher levels of performance with minimal investment. With the support of up to 19 Intel® Xeon® processors, HPC users looking to enhance their workgroup productivity outside the data center can also utilize the benefits of the Octane III for faster discovery and quicker simulations," said Richard Dracott, General Manager of High Performance Computing at Intel. "With certification from the Intel® Cluster Ready program, Octane III will provide a powerful, easy-to-deploy personal supercomputer."
For a simple, out-of-the-box experience, Octane III ships as a factory-tested, pre-integrated platform with broad HPC application support – powerful enough for the most complex applications in the world. These include fluid dynamics, quantum mechanics, molecular dynamics, seismic processing, data analytics, rendering, visualization and computer-aided design, among many other HPC applications.
Octane III supports Microsoft HPC Server 2008, SUSE® Linux® Enterprise Server and Red Hat® Enterprise Linux operating systems. Linux configurations include SGI ProPack™ and ISLE™ cluster management software.
Octane III will be on display at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) at Moscone Center, San Francisco, Calif., on September 22-24, 2009, in Booth # 718 at the Technology Showcase in the HyperScale Community.
Availability and Pricing:
Octane III is immediately available with Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series or Intel® Atom™ configurations. The base configuration price starts at $7,995. For more information about Octane III, please visit http://www.sgi.com/OctaneIII.
Personal supercomputer--dual-core Atom?
wat
Well, fourty of them will probably do a fine job as a file server or so...while being a lot less energy-demanding.
With servers and supercomputers, comes the price & performance per watt considerations, and atom is a pretty efficient design.
Yeah, I don't get how it can start at $7995 with an Atom as a selectable CPU.
Are you people dense? You think some idiot is going to spec this with a single Atom CPU in it? The thing can hold up to 80 cores, duh. Trust me, these are no nettop specs so don't get your panties in a bunch over the mention of an Atom cpu.
no one is reading this tid bit:
* Nineteen single-socket, Dual-Core Intel® Atom™ processor-based nodes
Neat. However, I remember when the killer specs met with a killer case. I miss the old logo and their unique Crimson and Indigo series cases.
Sorry, but i got stuck on the 1TB or RAM....... only for 4GB in my pc :)
Considering the crap being sold nowadays, the specs arent that bad for $7000
Finally a pc that can effectively.... run..... Photoshop
What read link?
Pretty sure it can run crysis before anyone asks..
Just in time for the winter heating season up here...
Well I'm looking forward to the Crysis benchmarks :-)
Don't give your hopes up Digital Media folks... The one that's designed for 3d graphics is still only 8 core. So who cares.
You were so close SGI- Just give us the 80 core with a quadro card and we'll be all set, thanks!
Okay, that price is awful. It's just like the old days of sgi.
Can you explain how 80 cores for that much is awful?
It says prices START AT and UP TO 80 cores. I assume for $8K you don't get the max number of cores. I would wager substantial amounts of money on this point.
True that, you're definitely right.
Ten dual-socket, Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 5500 thats 20 Quad Xeon CPus with 80 Cores and 1TB or Ram WOW
put me down for one plz
I'll take 20. I'm sure you get a discount for buying in bulk.
WAAAY too expensive. I mean if you're into that, more power to you. But if you just want to play games without all the PC headaches, just get a PS3 already. Free online play and the graphics can rival PC games on a system the average person can afford. And hey, you can get a FREE PS3 right now online! Just follow the link and follow the instructions and the 80gig PS3 is YOURS!
http://www.gamesncs.com/rd_p?p=192108&t=9528&a=13190-splaystation&gift=13190
beats the hell out of my sgi onyx 3200 sitting in my living room
All of GE's MRI scanners used to run SGI's. The newer scanners all use HP workstaton xw8200's now. I'm wondering if cost was the cause for the change.
VizWorld & InsideHPC covered this yesterday ( http://www.vizworld.com/2009/09/sgi-unveils-octane-iii-personal-supercomputer/ ) and frankly I agree with this.. The one configuration with the 80 cores is pretty interesting, but I don't get why they're offering it with Atoms? And if you add a GPU it drops to 2 CPU's total?
I can get the same thing, better even, from BOXX.
Seriously, why does it drop once you add the card!? That should be the whole point of this computer! Render powerhouse and 3D workstation in one!
Are you hocking BOXX warez or something? Or just cross-posting this to as many sites as possible?
The short of it: this rig certainly fills a specific need. Entry-level MPI coders commonly have no access to machine rooms with proper cooling and power. If a PI can pick up a handful of these, give one to each of their project members, that'd be a huge win. As for the Atom configuration (one of many, including Xeon 5500's), that's actually a very well balanced config. Look at a bluegene. Low clock'd processors tied very closely to the speed of memory and network. Why waste power and heat on cycles you simply can't use?
I'm not sure what to make of your comment about memory... That is the nature of a commodity cluster. If you're looking for an SMP machine, you're looking to spend a hell of a lot more than $8k and wouldn't be looking at anything like this anyway. Infiniband gives RDMA, that's enough for most any MPI coder.
Heh, no.. It's just on my mind since we just bought some where I work.
From a company like SGI, I kinda expect it to be SMP. That was their trademark in the early days, NUMALink massive shared memory.. I don't see why they didn't add that here. Yes it would drive the price up, but it would distinguish them from the rest of the marketplace. They already had the "CloudRack" system, so I don't see what this really adds.
And the oddness of adding a single GPU drops it down to 2-processors seems ridiculous to me. They had the technology to pack GPU's into half-blades years ago, they did it with Altix. Why not do the same here?
Because numalink doesn't fit into this package. This is clearly a low-end system geared for the low-end market. As such, they need to focus on pricing. including Numa would destroy the price point. As for the graphics, I'm sure it's a cooling consideration. 10 x 1u in a half-height rack w/ no cooling would melt with 8 nehalem cores and a proper GPU.
Yes, everyone would love to have a cute little SMP machine w/ 80 cores sitting deskside but the realities of physics and pricing interfere.
Maybe not NUMA in Hardware, but software emulated shared memory is still an option .. an option they're apparently not offering.
It just seems to me that the market for people who want a 10-node cluster, but won't fork out the money for a full rack, but have the money for something like this is pretty small.
Especially given that the full 10-node cluster could have 10 video cards, making it useful for distributed rendering like ParaView, Visit, or anything Chromium.. Something I would think that's important in the "Graphics Workstation" Version of the build but SGI has ignored.
SGI is still around? I thought they went away with the rest of the 90s.
They did. This isn't the SGI you once knew.
My thoughts exactly. Actually, I was just telling someone the other day how their high-tech medical device looked like an SGI O2 ("toaster"). All i got was a blank look. SGwho?
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things.
Careful not to let the North Koreans get hold of one of these, 20 Quad Core Xeon CPUs will push their nuclear research capability to a new level. They can probably start doing simulated detonations then.
Yeah, they certainly couldn't have bought a few hundred regular workstations and a fiber switch, huh? I don't think Kim Jon Il really cares about saving space or electricity when designing missiles.
but can you play games on it?
FANCY BUTTON!
Ah, but will it run FreeBSD?
THAT would be something.
Holy balls. That just blew away the cluster I thought about making using 12 SGI O2's