Army Contractor To Build A 1566 Xserve Cluster

olePigeon (Wik) writes "MacCentral has an interesting article on a new computer cluster. From the article: 'Apple Computer Inc. will announce on Monday the sale of 1566 dual processor 1U rack-mount 64-bit Xserve G5 servers to COLSA Corp., which will be used to build what is expected to be one of the fastest supercomputers in the world. The US$5.8 million cluster will be used to model the complex aero-thermodynamics of hypersonic flight for the U.S. Army.'" alset_tech was one of the many readers to point to CNET's version of the story.

Only $5.8 Million? I Want One

[powera]

Screw atmospheric calculations or modeling atmospheric flight. I want to see the frame rate for Duke Nukem Forever on that one.

What, Duke Nukem Forever still isn't out yet? Hey, maybe such a computer could create Duke Nukem Forever from scratch so I could play it.

This just might meet the system requirements...

[Anonymous Coward]

for America's Army!

costs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure the computers only costs $5.8 million, but how much will the screwdrivers cost they use to install everything?

Re:Why the Army?

[gl4ss]

well, you know, they saw this spaceshipone on tv tonight and thought that hey, "we want one of those too".

or possibly "wtf how does that thing fly??".

Awesome!

[wiresquire]

1566 X Server cluster? That should get some decent FPS.

Ohhhh. XServe. My bad.

Torn between...

[jabex]

my love for Apple and my hatred for using technology for violence.

Oh screw it, that cluster is gonna be awesome! Forget imagining a Beowulf cluster... imagine your frame rate in Doom III!

First.
20fps.
In Doom III.
Evar!

Another misspell

[mattbot 5000]

Army Contractor To Build A 1566 Xserve Cluster You totally misspelled "1337."

That'll be a damn pretty thermodynamic simulator

[SilentChris]

"Physics computations and weapons simulations so good looking, you're going to want to lick them." - Steve Jobs
"Uh, we'd advise against that sir." - Army colonel
"But he SAID I could lick them! Ooh, red, yellow and green WMD icons!" - G. W. Bush

That's about 9 terahertz

[BandwidthHog]

If you need me I'll be off in the corner, sobbing over my 0.533 gigahertz G4.

Re:Why the Army?

[andreMA]

SAC-Peace is our profession (war is our trade).

I was stationed at HQ SAC (Offutt AFB) in the early 80's and we always said:

• "Peace is our profession... war is just a hobby.

Think different?

[psyconaut]

Kinda hard when you're in the army ;-)

-psy

Re:Why the Army?

[mlk]

When I was in the TA (Weekenders), we had a motto very like that "Drinking is our profession, *hick* Mmugh... *hick* somethingorother... your round"

Re:Why the Army?

[DAldredge]

Not yet, but they will ;->

Re:Only $5.8 Million? I Want One

[lewp]

I think I could have made Duke Nukem Forever by now. No need for a supercomputer.

3132 processors

[l0ungeb0y]

...But only one mouse button.

I sure as hell hope Steve Jobs threw in an iPod and a BMW to go with it. :P

Netcraft Confirms...

[Aardpig]

...that the Army is buying.

Hey now they can run Longhorn!

[rune2]

oh wait...

Uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wait until they find out it doesn't run Windows.

Zing.

Re:Torn between...

[pi radians]

"The only solution to a violent world is to be better at violence than your neighbors.

There are zero societies on Earth that do not hew to this axiom."

You must be a real laugh at parties.

Re:I don't follow the numbers

[ThatsNotFunny]

Simple answer: They are using MACS

No, not Macs as in Macintosh, I'm talking about MACS (Military Acronym Compression Scheme).

See the military uses acronyms for everything, resulting in a higher throughput to the processors. This will allow them to reach the desired 25Tflops.

X-Plane bundle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple should give them X-Plane software as a bundle with this lot - it'll save them having to develop their own simulation! Apparent;y you can use 4 x G5's with X-Plane to yield airline-training quality simulations, so 1566 of them....

What ever happened to....

[Aqua OS X]

What ever happened to the days when our Army would build their own giant evil super computers?

Re:Why the Army?

[sql*kitten]

thought Apple was a company founded on "principles"...

The negotiation went something like this:

Steve Jobs: No way dude! I'll never work with the military! You're harshing my mellow!
Army: We'll tell everyone that Apple is insanely great, and that you personally are a genius.
Steve Jobs: Well that's OK then. Hypersonic missiles are insanely great too!

Re:Only $5.8 Million? I Want One

[M. Baranczak]

Yeah, but then you'd have to wait another year for the Mac version.

Re:Why the Army?

[Ohreally_factor]

Why? Is the Army also going to hire Jonathon Ives to design the look of the hypersonic misiles? That's just great. The iBomb!

Re:So do we blame IBM for the holocaust?

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally a Grammar Nazi who sure found the proper occasion to post ;-)

Re:1556 ????

[Anonymous Coward]

but why 1556. It seems like a rather odd number.

I does look that way, doesn't it? Further inspection, however, reveals that it's actually a rather even number.

Thank you. I'll be here ... *yoink*

Re:Torn between...

[cosmo7]

Anyway, almost every one of them has a Stgw 90 at home, no SIG or whatever you call it. It was developed by the swiss army.

It's the world's first assault rifle with a built-in corkscrew.

Re: iBomb? (was Re:Why the Army?)

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple already invented it.

It was known as the "G4 Cube."

Ba-boom!

Thank you, I'll be here all week. Try the fish, I hear it's great.

Re:Why the Army?

[jimbolaya]

Imagine dropping guided bombs from orbit.

Better still, image a Beowulf cluster of said bombs.