Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Cray XT Jaguar: The New World's Fastest Supercomputer

Pumping out a sustained 1.64 quadrillion mathematical calculations per second (1.64 petaflops) after a recent technological overhaul, the Cray XT Jaguar is now the world's latest fastest supercomputer (huge disclaimer coming) for non-classified research. And once you see what's under the hood, you'll know why.

The system is powered by 45,000 quad-core AMD Opteron processors that take advantage of 362 terabytes of memory. This and other underlaying architecture allows processors to chew on 284 gigabytes of data per second with its impressive I/O bandwidth, which has apparently been a major bottleneck in supercomputers of yesteryear. Information is stored on 750 terabytes of hard drives.

The Cray XT Jaguar can be found at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory where it will create scientific breakthroughs during the day, and succumb to Crysis at night. [ORNL and EurkeAlert]

gizmodo.com

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