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- Small Chips for Big Computers
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zogger Tue, 06 May 2008 21:48:00 PDT Computers
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Scientific modeling requires a lot of computer resources, sometimes using supercomputers that are very large, have thousands of CPUs and require tremendous amounts of energy to run and to keep cool. The problem is, even the largest now still can't cope with some of the datasets that researchers would like to run. A group of environmental modelers thought of a project, but then when they calculated what sort of computer would be required they realized it wasn't possible yet, it would take a new megacomputer of a size that the equivalent energy to run it would be similar to the energy needed to power a city of 100,000 people. Faced with this problem, they had to relook at the entire idea of supercomputers and came up with an alternative solution, using millions of very low power chips that were designed exactly for the task at hand, and not using general purpose CPUs.
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.."They conclude that a supercomputer using about 20 million embedded microprocessors would deliver the results and cost $75 million to construct. This “climate computer” would consume less than 4 megawatts of power and achieve a peak performance of 200 petaflops."
ed.z.: Abstract only from the link there, not much more technical details but the sheer scale is impressive, 20 million albeit small processors...of course, 10 years after that it will be on eBay.... in the meantime, maybe they (I mean anyone "they" looking to build a whopper computer on the cheap) could work a deal with some cellphone people and recycle millions of discarded/turned in/ headed towards recycling cellphones and use those processors? Just a wild thought what with all the e-waste in the world and whatnot... there has to be *something* you can do with old cellphones, I am not even a phone geek that much and have maybe a dozen, going back to bagphones. AFAIK, except for the batteries, they all still work! Most (all of them probably) you cannot use on the networks anymore, functional junk.
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- Small Chips for Big Computers
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David Leppik Wed, 07 May 2008 11:27:28 PDT
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Saw this at Ars (which has excellent coverage.)
Reminds me of Japan's custom-built Earth Simulator which was at the top of the Top 100 supercomputer list for years. If you have the budget for a totally custom single-task computer, it's always going to beat the pants off of a general purpose computer. What's remarkable here is both that they have a single application which can can command this budget and that an existing embedded CPU design works for them as a starting point.
In supercomputing tasks, the network topology is at least as important as the CPU speed. Thus you often have relatively slow processors connected with a super-fast network; if the processors were any faster, they'd just sit around waiting for more data.
Sorry, Zogger, they probably don't have a use for your old cell phones. Even if they start with the same processor design that your cell phone uses, it's fabricated for the special purpose, with a particular number of cores, a certain amount of cache, and specialized interconnects. Old electronics can be recycled, though. In fact, when I bought a new Ubuntu machine from Dell, they offered free shipping to recycle my old computer.
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