University of Antwerp stuffs 13 GPUs into FASTRA II supercomputer

The researchers at the University of Antwerp's Vision Lab caused quite a stir last year when they built a supercomputer with four high-end NVIDIA graphics cards, but it looks like they've truly stepped up their game for their followup: a supercomputer that packs no less than thirteen GPUs. That, as you might have guessed, presented a few new challenges, but after wrangling some flexible PCI cables into a specially-made case and loading up a custom BIOS courtesy of ASUS, they were apparently able to get six dual-GPU NVIDIA GTX295 cards and one single-GPU GTX275 card up and running with only a few hiccups. As before, the big advantage with this approach is that you get an enormous amount of computing power for a relatively small cost -- twelve teraflops for less than €6,000, to be specific. Head on past the break for a pair of videos showing the thing off, and hit up the link below for the complete details (including some jaw dropping benchmarks).

[MrFantasticals Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:23PM]

I'm speechless...

[Eternity Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:28PM]

@MrFantasticals
I know right? I can barely play Crysis on my iMac and these University twerps get all the cool....I mean hot gear!

[geekthree Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:31PM]

@Eternity

Macs play games?!11?!1?!?!

/bait

[Eternity Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:43PM]

@geekthree
Idk I don't have that kind of time.... I mostly play casually old games. I am still catching up in P.C gaming. Yes a Mac is a P.C contrary to popular marketing bullshit.... but my PS3 is for anything SRS I want to play when I can afford time to go on a binge.

[zenomatic Posted Dec 14th 2009 5:04PM]

@Eternity
Although it is true that Mac and PC use the same platform nowadays, Macs and PC are still different: PC's use the old BIOS while Macs use EFI exclusively. Hence, Macs != PC's.

[urza9814 Posted Dec 14th 2009 5:18PM]

@zenomatic No, Macs are PCs. PC = Personal Computer.

[cloud858rk Posted Dec 14th 2009 5:25PM]

@MrFantasticals
I just searched YouTube for some Mac commercials and looky here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFRhSPNicgc

"The world's fastest, most powerful personal computer."

Now what were you saying?

[zenomatic Posted Dec 14th 2009 6:11PM]

@cloud858rk
If you're trying to prove your point with anecdotal evidence, at least do your homework first.
Mac guy vs. PC guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntZ14BAFMyo

[Bryce Posted Dec 15th 2009 3:17AM]

@zenomatic fail....

[musback Posted Dec 15th 2009 6:42AM]

@mac vs pc dumbasses:
Dumbasses.

[mfong Posted Dec 15th 2009 10:04AM]

@urza9814
I'm so glad that you notice that too. I always say "Windows OS" or "Apple OS", I hate how the public says PC and Mac.

[Eternity Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:24PM]

Yes! I am absolutely sure college students are doing plenty of ummmm... RESEARCH with all that horsepower

/sarcasm

[geekthree Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:30PM]

@Eternity

I know, and I reckon they'll use it for porn too...

[MrFantasticals Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:34PM]

@geekthree Only a matter of time

[Sibuna Posted Dec 14th 2009 5:08PM]

@geekthree Realtime rendered porn, no less. To satisfy their more, let's say exotic, tastes.

[well weapon Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:25PM]

how would this do running snow leopard and using all of those GPUs and all of their cores as discreet logical threads in grand central? i mean, would that be hundreds? thousands? how many cores do each GPU have?

[Joe Posted Dec 14th 2009 5:05PM]

@well weapon I doubt Snow Leopard would scale to that number of GPUs.

[fischju Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:25PM]

And think of all the money you'll save on heating the building!

[Slick Posted Dec 14th 2009 10:00PM]

@fischju

Think oh how many grilled cheese sandwiches you could same in parallel!

[xKNGx Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:25PM]

that guy is awesome.

[chispito Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:31PM]

@xKNGx I like the youtube comments he includes in the video.

[HUPextreme Posted Dec 14th 2009 7:48PM]

@xKNGx I think its sheldon's long lost brother

[Honza Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:25PM]

There's only one thing worse than Dutch nerds, and that's Dutch nerds with money.

[Thijsie Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:33PM]

@Honza
Antwerp's in Belgium, that little country south of the Netherlands. It is home to Belgians, and not to the Dutch.

[Cekezzz Posted Dec 14th 2009 5:24PM]

@Thijsie

I'm from Belgium and I can tell you this one is a Dutch.

[mianmian Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:25PM]

Impressive, though the massive computing power is still limited within GPGPU code only.

[xconan Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:35PM]

@mianmian
they're probably already programming using CUDA... or some variation of it

[Kamokazi Posted Dec 14th 2009 5:30PM]

@mianmian

Much of the data crunched through the big supercomputers is floating point calculations anyway, so while it has limitations, it works for more things than it does not.

[geekthree Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:27PM]

I say, Spiffing nerd ensemble!

[patboy2008 Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:27PM]

Wow! Programs that use CUDA would run crazy fast on that thing!

[Wiggy Fuzz Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:29PM]

look how big it is next to that researcher dude :O

[Gary Coleman Posted Dec 14th 2009 5:07PM]

@Wiggy Fuzz

that's what she said.

[miketimoff Posted Dec 15th 2009 11:34AM]

@Wiggy Fuzz

are you jealous? that it is not you on that video?

[dimithra Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:30PM]

Wow.. if they only go commercial now

[pankomputerek Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:49PM]

@(Unverified) commercial university ... no I don't think they will...

[wachtrij Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:30PM]

Talking about overkill!

[MarcusMaximus Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:30PM]

Now do the same with 6 Radeon HD 5970's and we'll talk.

[Frogztar Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:31PM]

Can't believe I'm the first one to say this: Lets see how well Crysis runs on this thing. Sorry guys, had to be said :P

[formetopoopon Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:53PM]

@Frogztar

No one said it because asking how well it runs Crysis is soooo last year and will get you downranked.

[geekthree Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:31PM]

Macs play games?!11?!1?!?!

/bait

[geekthree Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:33PM]

@geekthree

That was supposed to be a reply to MrFantasticles.. what a bloody javascript mess the engadget comment system is.. its actually buggier than before, it took me 3 times.. THREE... to sucessfully get the "replying to" box up...

>.<

[Showbiz Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:35PM]

@geekthree So you admit to having a problem getting it up?

[Eternity Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:38PM]

@geekthree
Hence why you are the 3rd geek.... they say everything comes in 3 and well.. the 3rd time is indeed a charm. So be happy.

[geekthree Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:46PM]

@Showbiz

Thats not what she said..

[mike222 Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:35PM]

BUT CAN IT PLAY CRYSIS?

[pankomputerek Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:47PM]

@mike222
No it can only play 2 bit tetris.

[loocas Posted Dec 14th 2009 5:15PM]

@mike222 Apparently not. Since: 1) it barely Boots and 2) it runs a special, custom, distro of Unix or Linux.

[leonbev Posted Dec 14th 2009 7:50PM]

@loocas It looks like he's running CentOS 5.3. Nothing too exotic about that... it's just Red Hat Enterprise in drag.

NVidia has better decent Linux drivers than ATI does anyway.

[johnbellone Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:36PM]

Very sweet. Wonder how much power this thing eats.

[BigD145 Posted Dec 14th 2009 4:40PM]

@johnbellone I think that power supply says 1500W, but that's doesn't seem like enough.