Maintaining its leadership in HPC performance among open systems solutions, Silicon Graphics (NYSE: SGI) today unveiled a new version of its SGI(R) Altix(R) 3700 system that delivers twice the bandwidth and processor density of its flagship high-end model. The new Altix(R) 3700 Bx2 model makes it easier for users to cost-effectively deploy the world’s most powerful system based on the industry-standard Linux(R) OS and Intel(R) Itanium(R) 2 processors — delivering more compute power while requiring less space.
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[ Details from SGI on how the project was concieved and implemented. ]
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[ This article has more technical details about the system. ]
The system, a $50m Linux-based NASA machine called Columbia, which SGI sold in July, can perform 42.7 trillion calculations per second, or 42.7 teraflops, SGI announced on Tuesday. However, that speed isn’t the final word: the system used only four-fifths of the 10,240 Intel Itanium 2 processors in the full machine being uncloaked at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.
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Concluding a 15- week effort with NASA and Intel to build and successfully install the world’s most powerful supercomputer, Silicon Graphics (NYSE: SGI) today announced that the new 10,240-processor Columbia supercomputer is fully deployed at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility located at Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. Unlike traditional supercomputer deployments that have taken years to become fully viable, Columbia was available to scientists throughout its installation, giving NASA and the U.S. Government an immediate and revolutionary boost in capabilities as they strive to solve some of
history’s most demanding scientific problems.
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Silicon Graphics (NYSE: SGI) with NASA today confirmed that NASA’s new Intel(R) Itanium(R) 2 processor-based Columbia supercomputer is the most powerful computer in the world. Only days after NASA completed installation of Columbia — and using just 16 of Columbia’s 20 installed systems — the new supercomputer achieved sustained performance of 42.7 trillion calculations per second (teraflops), eclipsing the performance of every supercomputer operating today.
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