Asustek announces a 1.1 Teraflop, Tesla GPU powered supercomputer
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Oct 28th 2009 1:18AM
posted Oct 28th 2009 1:18AM
Some of us love nothing more than a portable and convenient netbook -- something that Asustek knows all too well -- but how about those of us who need real computing power? To that end, Taipei's choice for all things ultraportable has just announced its very own 1.1 Teraflop supercomputer. Dubbed the ESC 1000, this (albeit large) desktop-sized machine sports a 3.33GHz Intel LGA1366 Xeon W3580 microprocessor and three CUDA-based Tesla C1060 GPUs, the likes of which we last saw in Dell's Precision "personal supercomputer" line. Shipping with 24GB of DDR3 DRAM (1333MHz) and a 500GB SATA II hard drive, the machine is said to have a cost structure of $14,519 over five years. We're guessing that you'll be able to both surf the net and watch HD quality video on the thing, although you probably won't be taking it along with you to Crazy Mocha any time soon. According to a company spokesperson, this thing is ready to ship now, although a launch date and street price have yet to be determined. One more pic after the break.
So even faster editing of porn pics?
Well, it is measured in petafaps.
In my day the only "editing" we had to do was to put separating solutions on the pages that were stuck together.
seriously 500GB? Not only won't that be enough for HD pr0n but at that price I am expecting no less than 2TB.
There are still people that think i7 is completely overkill. I wonder what they would think of this.
soo, what os does this thing use?
windows 95
were not in the 90s man, windows 2000
I might have to go with the downgrade package and install windows 3.1
I'm really just not comfortable with the new interface, and then there are all those stability and compatibility issues...
No you have it wrong. Windows 3.11 for networking is needed.
OS's are sooooo for mortal computers. The hardware on this thing actually wireless beams the internet into your skull.
this is the minimum spec for windows 8
Before anyone asks.... YES!
....but it doesn't want to.
i thought about it, but it is kind of old, in the previous post of the 100 core cpu no one asked it, i think we need a new game to make another joke about it
You lied to me. It doesn't prove or disprove unification theory.
@thefofo
only "kind of" old?
Can I have the chick in the white dress instead? err actually... Hmmm, tough call, can I just get both gift-wrapped with overnight delivery instead?
Make sure they poke holes in the wrapping or you'll have some esplainin to do.
I'll have you both!
Sure we've had our shots!
Orly?
I don't care what the sign says, it doesn't look like she's got teraflops to me.
"cost structure of $14,519 over five years"
Wow! That's almost as much as a Mac Pro!
hahahahahahahaha
no.... this is better!!!
u dont see apple patenting "teraflops" at this price range!!!!!!!
I prefer the artist's rendition.
That 'artists rendering' actually looks like the control panel for one of my transmitters!
Hmm. 3-Tesla computers have been available for some time. I've got one sitting in my closet right now, and our research team just ordered two more. The newer ones have the latest processors, too. I'm not sure why this is news---except that this one's more expensive!
pics or it didn't happen
yeah, no kidding. One of my co-workers at my last internship had one under his desk, and then there were a bunch more throughout the server rooms. Measuring GPU performance in FLOPS is pointless anyhow as it all comes down to the exact problem you're trying to solve, how well you code it, and how many weeks you're willing to spend tweaking your code to run on one exact GPU..
I want 4.
Man, Superman is screwed now. Well, the Superman from Superman III at least. The reboots should be fine.
If only this thing had been around when Dr. No was trying to dominate the world...
This thing will BLEND Crysis.
Doesn't she know its after Labor Day?
That's passe' nowadays.
"you call this a supercomputer?!"
500 gig hard drive? that's it?
Yeah, where's the Terabytes to go with that Teraflop?
This would make an awesome Pc for the kitchen!
Apple should put this in their next Mac Pro.
Does this run on electricity or unicorn tears?
It comes with its own coal power plant.
It runs on on lolcat blood.
seems very similar to a machine our company built a few months back hmmm
Does it have a Flux Capacitor!?
I like the multiple screen approach but I'm not sure this machine can qualify as a netbook
The timing of this release seems like bad news for nvidia.
Allow me to elaborate.
nvidia currently is relying on their "Fermi" chips to allow them to recover from the trouncing AMD's given them lately. One of the big gambles with Fermi is that it is HUGE, and as such, they will be pushing the Fermi-based Tesla's as general purpose super computers (like this one, but even more better).
Given that people who need these things probably take a while to research and plan their acquisitions, why would Asus release a new one just a month or two before Fermi is supposed to come out? That is, unless they think Fermi will be delayed, or won't be as impressive as expected?
Probably too subtle for the engadget set.
Still, Asus putting this out now is no real indication of anything except that Fermi isn't arriving before Christmas, and we knew that already... it's no sweat for them to update the model with the new cards when they show up.
If we are placing bets: Fermi in quantity by early Q2 2010.
since fermi is not coming out yet, this machine will be used for all the upcoming holiday 2009 video editing capturing encoding etc.
which would easy translate to payment for the supercomputer. as of today there are tons of video jobs to be done at my friends laboratory.