Re: What are people paying for when they by a supercomputer?

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Article #389

#389

From: Geoff Lane
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 14:49

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In article <1992Nov16.174414.12427@craycos.com> jrbd@craycos.com (James Davies) writes:
>In article <1992Nov16.141214.7632@walter.bellcore.com> mo@bellcore.com writes:
>>if you know how to build a 1GFLOP machine for $10,000
>>(much less sell it for that much), then you should do
>>so immediately and become immensely wealthy.
>>
>>i don't know where you got this $10K number, but boy,
>>are you confused.
>
>Actually, even the $250,000/GFLOP number sounds a bit low to me; $2M/GFLOP
>is closer to the current going rate.


MIPs aren't the problem - I/O and memory access is the problem.  Any old 
fool can plug together a bunch of Intel CPU chips and claim that the 
resulting box is faster than a Cray (usually the model isn't specified :-) 
but it takes an expert to get the bus architecture correct.  It's also damn 
expensive.










-- 
Geoff. Lane. | Internet: zzassgl@uts.mcc.ac.uk | Janet: zzassgl@uk.ac.mcc.uts
UTS Sys Admin,  Manchester Computing Centre,  Oxford Rd,  Manchester, M13 9PL
During a week's TV I want to be entertained, bored, delighted, disgusted, made
happy, saddened, enlightened, mystified, else they aren't doing the job right.

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From: zzassgl@uts.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Lane)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
Subject: Re: What are people paying for when they by a supercomputer?
Message-ID: <6080@mccuts.uts.mcc.ac.uk>
Date: 18 Nov 92 14:49:55 GMT
References: <1992Nov15.201147.5302@athena.mit.edu> <1992Nov16.141214.7632@walter.bellcore.com> <1992Nov16.174414.12427@craycos.com>
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