NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/comp/sys/super/1039

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-17 | 1.7 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!caen!uwm.edu!ogicse!borasky
From: [e-mail] (M. Edward Borasky)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
Subject: Re: What are people paying for when they by a supercomputer?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 17 Nov 92 15:18:38 GMT
Article-I.D.: ogicse.46021
References: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Oregon Graduate Institute (formerly OGC), Beaverton, OR
Lines: 20

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jason W Solinsky) writes:
>It seems to me that supercomputing power costs about $250,000 per GFLOP
>nowadays. It also seems to me that a company could sell a GFLOP box that
>has enough memory, I/O and internal bandwidth to support near peak
>performance at under $10,000 and have PLENTY of profit margin.
>
>My question is, when people buy supercomputers at $250,000 per GFLOP, what are
>they getting in addition to computational power?
I/O, SCALAR performance, compilers, an operating system, folks who live
with the system and fix it when it breaks, the ability to run major third-
party codes and get the right answers, help with porting YOUR applications, and
a CREDIBLE growth path -- confidence that the vendor will be able to grow a
system to meet your needs.

I'm sure in the next few years you will be able to buy a 1-GFLOP CHIP (i860 or
Alpha compatible) for a few hundred dollars; perhaps $10K for the board-level
version with some memory (will it be enough???) and some kind of I/O (is VME
fast enough????).  If cost per GFLOP is your criterion, you should be buying
an array processor board and putting it in a workstation.  But if you want to
do supercomputing, I'm afraid you're going to have to buy a supercomputer.