JP
I don’t really do anything aside from gaming that requires massive amounts of computing power. Certainly nothing that would require the services of a supercomputer. However, if I were one day to find myself in need of such a system I would likely attempt to build one, rather than drop the fat cash generally associated with supercomputers. That’s exactly what one guy did, and he did it for dirt cheap.
I know that plenty of people will look at $1,256 and think that isn’t a budget computer. They’d be right too, but this is a budget supercomputer, and that’s about as cheap as they get. The system dubbed Microwulf is a Beowulf cluster that runs at 26.25 Gigaflops. That probably won’t mean much to the average user, but that’s just crazy in terms of price/performance ratio.
Here’s a little food for thought. Sun’s Sparc Enterprice M9000 supercomputer will cost you around $511,385 and will produce 1.03 Teraflops. While that’s a lot more power than the tiny Microwulf, let’s break it down in terms of cost. You’ll pay around $496 per Gigaflop for Sun’s machine, you’ll only pay about $48 per Gigaflop. Damn, that’s some cheap computing!
If you are interested in building your own pint-sized supercomputer, check out this awesome writeup of the Microwulf over at Cluster Monkey.
$1256 Microwulf Supercomputer Smaller Than Bread Box, Runs At 26.25 Gigaflops [via ohgizmo]
5 Responses to “Microwulf – The cheapest supercomputer money can build”
Ty September 4, 2007
Wow it is quite a big mess. I don’t know if I would want that in my office… :-)
+1Chris September 4, 2007
Yes, it does look a bit of a mess. I don’t think it would take a lot to put it in some kind of enclosure that would look better. I think they left it this way to show off the insides.
+1Morrey October 10, 2007
it is messy but comparing the price of that sc performance and its price i bet i can get a person to make it look alittle bit neater here in Kenya for an extra cost of home made casing
-1jim January 4, 2009
will it run apples server software? who care what it looks like that thing rocks
Neutral6364gg2 July 23, 2009
You call this cheap! HAHAHAHAHA! MY supercomputer is 20 DOLLARS! A HOBO CAN AFFORD IT! And NO MESS!
Neutral