6000 Euro Mini-supercomputer Hits 12 Teraflops with Gaming Hardware
6000 Euro Mini-supercomputer Hits 12 Teraflops with Gaming Hardware
Posted 12/14/2009 at 6:03pm
| by Ryan Whitwam
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The University of Antwerp gave everyone a chuckle last year when they built a quaint little supercomputer made out of four high end Nvidia GPUs. Apparently, that was just a practice run. The same group has now constructed a 13 GPU monster of a supercomputer called Fastra II.
The rig contains six dual-GPU Nvidia GTX295 cards and a single GTX275. As you can imagine, there were a few issues getting the whole system up and running. Motherboard manufacturers don’t usually anticipate someone needing to run 13 GPU cores. With a little persistence and a custom BIOS from ASUS, the tiny supercomputer was up and running. The whole affair cost only 6000 Euros, and is capable of twelve teraflops.
The value per teraflop is high considering most conventional supercomputers cost millions of dollars to build and run. You can check out some possible applications and crazy benchmarks here.
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devin3627
December 15, 2009 at 2:14am
i remember a cheap computer i had in 2003 that had a super at style power supply which i would manually turn on two hard drives so that my computer wouldn't be underpowered by my cheap crappy manufactures power supply. the technology these days... eye candy! hahaha the question is if it can play crysis at maximum resolution at 120fps on a 120hz hd television. that would be awesome.
imagonex
December 14, 2009 at 10:53pm
Again, please verify their website under "specs & benchmarks" and then click the subheading "specifications". Scroll down until you get to the power supply paragraph and once there one will find the following: Thermaltake Toughpower 1500W + 3x Thermaltake PowerExpress 450W.
Apart from the power requirements concerns, the main purpose of the Fastra II is to show off a powerful yet affordable solution for scientific computing using off the shelf parts. The only customization would be to the BIOS, some hardware parts (such as the PCIe flat cables and GPU cage) and, of course, the programming necessary for its main purpose.
Considering it cost 6000 euros, this is quite an affordable solution when compared to a rack of nodes and/or a mainframe.
JohnP
December 15, 2009 at 2:50pm
It is easy to see why NVidia is pushing hard on the CUDA and OpenGL front when they will have the power to dominate low end supercomputers like this. Kinda like using Castroil on a formula 1 race car. Adds cred to their products.
imagonex
December 14, 2009 at 8:28pm
Just wanted to add that it appears the PSU in the PC is a 1500W Thermaltake unit working in tandem with the additional 3 single 450W units upfront.
The Fastra II, as far as consumer hardware goes, indeed needs a whole lot of power to run: 2850W in total.
The full specs of parts (for those mad enough to construct one and get a one-in-a-lifetime custom BIOS from Asus) can be found at their website under the "SPECIFICATIONS" heading on the "Specs & Benchmarks" webpage.
COMMANDER_COOK
December 14, 2009 at 10:06pm
Actually, it's a 2500W power supply. Watch the video on their site, which shows the boxes all the parts came in.
snapple00
December 14, 2009 at 9:08pm
No...
Did you check the spec page? If it took 2850W to run, then they would be pretty dumb to provide EXACTLY that number via 4 psu's to run.
imagonex
December 14, 2009 at 8:13pm
If one takes a good look at the front of the case (where the hard drives would normally be), you will notice they have installed 3 slim SLI power supplies (most likely 250W or so). Probably a Thermaltake Power Express unit. The cards are powered by these PSU's and not the Thermaltake 500W PSU installed at the top rear of the case.
It appears they need at least 750W alone just to run the GPU's. The 500W Thermaltake PSU is most likely relegated to running the CPU, RAM and mobo and/or other components.
Additional photos of the FASTRA II on their website illustrate this.
snapple00
December 14, 2009 at 7:26pm
Peak power consumption with all the GPUs stressed was only 1200W.
Just goes to show how no one really needs those 1000W power supplies for normal systems (just a few GFX cards).
klue22
December 14, 2009 at 7:09pm
apparently its the Ultra low power version of the cards, from the photo it apparently only takes a 500 watt PSU to run all 7 cards. =P
NeauxFear
December 14, 2009 at 7:55pm
It's probably a 1500W PSU, and the 1 is cut off in the picture.
ArrecBarrwin
December 14, 2009 at 7:03pm
It has to be asked....
Can it Play Crysis? 2560x1600 with 2x AA at over 40 fps? =0
nekollx
December 15, 2009 at 9:40am
Crysis only reconizes 4 GPU core so...could 4 of those run Crysis?
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
gendoikari1
December 14, 2009 at 9:37pm
They probably ran out of money there and just stuck an old Athlon or Core 2 Duo in there...
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