Virginia Supercomputer: 1100 Apple Dual G5

[asian1]

Hello
From News.com.com (Sept. 2, 2003):
Virginia Tech University and Apple plan to build
a supercomputer using 1100 Apple Dual G5 board.
Is it possible to do similar thing (at lower cost)
using Pegasos 3 G5 or Amiga......?

News

[asian1]

Hello
They use Infiniband 10 Gbps switch from Mellanox.
I don't understand why they choose high speed
Infiniband, because the speed of G5 bus is only
900 Megabyte/second. Infiniband bandwidth is
10 Gigabit/second (approx. 1.25 Gigabyte/second).
Why the speed of external Network is faster
than internal bus between processors and RAM?
Is this efficient? Can the G5 use the bandwidth
efficiently?
According to IBM, the node of their POWER CLUSTER
are multicore CPU, but they had to use only 1 core
for every node because of HW design & efficiency.
Is there any similar problem with Dual G5 on
every node?

Mellanox

BTW: the company that offer Cluster based on
MELLANOX is called TOPSPIN. The company that
create AmigaOne is called TOPSHINE. Are the above
companies related / belong to the same group?

[asian1]

>Infiniband & Ethernet

Hello
IIRC Infiniband is different from 10 Gbps Ethernet.
The system IS NOT based on IP and is not designed
for LAN. Infiniband is designed by IBM, Intel, HP
as PCI BUS replacement, not LAN.
I don't think there is a collision problem on
BUS, especially with switching equipment.
There is a linux sourceforge project for Infiniband.
Is it possible to use the driver on Linux for
PowerPC?
Infiniband Trade Association
Supercomputer
Linux

[asian1]

Hello
On top 500 Supercomputer list, the new system
will be in top 200. Several major financial
groups are missing from the list.
Citibank and Bank of America are listed at 350s
and 400s.

If someone can persuade the groups to build
similar machines as Virginia Tech, but based
on cheaper Pegasos 3 or Amiga.......:
1. Is this possible?
2. What about the OS and application?
3. Can Genesi or Eyetech handle the massive
orders?
4. Is Apple board more reliable and have less
bugs than Pegasos 3 / Amiga......?

Top 500