Fastest Computer On Earth
Published by Codrut Nistor, on June 10th, 2008, in the categories: News
"Fastest computer on earth" is a very interesting topic, because every time I think that fastest computer available on this planet about two decades ago was slower than my desktop computer I have now I get chills down my spine. The most interesting part is that after I found out about the new supercomputer holding the crown, I got some serious chills, because I don't know if I'll ever have that amount of processing power on my desk, and I am not planning to leave this world anytime soon. Now, let's leave my thoughts aside and see some of the technical specifications of the fastest computer on earth, shall we?
Pictured above, the IBM Roadrunner is currently the fastest computer on earth, and it got this label earlier this week, when it reached the performance level it was designed for, exactly 1.026 petaflops! This computer was built for the US Department of Energy, and it consists of almost 6,500 AMD Opteron dual core processors and almost 13,000 IBM PowerXCell 8i CPUs, all packed in TriBlades that are connected by Infiniband.
Using the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS, the Roadrunner covers almost 12,000 square feet (1,100 square meters), and each of the TriBlades I mentioned above has four Opteron cores, four PowerXCell 8i CPUs, 16 GB Opteron and 16 GB Cell RAM. Not that impressive, after all... but if we go up, we'll end up with the final cluster, having the following configuration:
- 6,480 dual-core Opterons with 51.8 TB RAM (in 3,240 LS21 blades)
- 12,960 Cell cores with 51.8 TB RAM (in 6,480 QS22 blades)
- 216 System x3655 I/O nodes
- 26 288-port ISR2012 Infiniband 4x DDR switches
- 296 racks
Say whaaat? Now, that's what I can really call a supercomputer! In fact, it's the fastest computer on earth, so this is the ultimate computing machine, not "just another IBM mainframe."
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11 Comments on “Fastest Computer On Earth”
Robbie said on 06/10/2008:
Nice, how is that compared to the human brain? Power, speed and the right software...Nice...
Fastest Computer On Earth said on 06/10/2008:
[...] ibm mainframe - Google News wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt [...]
gerson said on 06/27/2008:
Where is this SUPER-coputer located? What applications use this computer?
As you had said really, i found the computer on my desktop is quite adequate.
MrLeN said on 12/07/2008:
Oh good. They've built a machine that can run Vista.
MrLeN said on 12/07/2008:
..scrap that. They're using Linux. Sorry, I missread.
Jonathan said on 01/04/2009:
I am very impressed. It just makes me wonder what we will have in five-ten years. Just watch out for Japan!
Lee Rollins said on 01/08/2009:
hi
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good luck
Aaron Cain said on 01/10/2009:
hi
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good luck
Tony said on 06/12/2009:
@ Jonathan
in 5 to 10 years, it will take that just to run microsoft windows!
rhillelonna said on 12/22/2009:
What's up everyone. I have been a follower of this board for quite a spell hehe :P Just wanted to finally say hi to everybody! Can't wait till new year! By the way, does anybody know if I can watch Avatar movie online on this site like it says I can? I very much wanna watch it but i'm slightly broke haha :P
ignispoff said on 01/20/2010:
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