Link to full articleMicrowulf has been measured to process 26.25 gigaflops, or 26.25 billion double-precision floating point instructions, per second. It achieves this performance by relying on four dual-core motherboards connected by an 8-port Gigabyt Ethernet switch. The connected components form a three-tiered system that looks like a triple-decker sandwich.
Adams and Brom managed to build Microwulf so that it could plug into one standard 120V wall outlet. This feature only enhances the system’s portability, allowing it to be taken to classrooms and other research labs where large power supplies are unavailable.
It remains to be seen whether Brom will be able to get his wire-filled personal supercomputer past airport security next summer.
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Link to design articleFor our CPUs, we chose AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800 AM2+ CPUs. At $165 each in January 2007, these 2.0 GHz dual-core CPUs were the most cost-efficient CPUs we could find. (They are even cheaper now - about $65.00 on 8/1/07).
He also talks of using he new Quad core Athlons that should be compatible with the motherboards when they are released. How much that would boost the performance depends on whether it would saturate the Gigabit ethernet connections.
Obviously something similar could be built with the Intel chips. He chose the Athlons based on price/performance and power at the time he was designing it. The current optimal chip would be different naturally.
Topic: Portable supercomputer for $2500? (Read 1725 times)