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What's a beowulf cluster?
Posted: 2003-05-24 11:30pm
by Hamel
Thread inspired by
The PS2 cluster story on Slashdot
Jeeves can't help me, but hopefully YOU can.
Posted: 2003-05-24 11:43pm
by Hamel
*informative BUMP*
Space Cowboy wrote:The PS2 has 2 vector units (VU's), each does a 4-way (xyzw) floating point vector dot product with another vector in a single clock cycle, with 4 cycle internal latency. The chips are pipelined, so you can just keep feeding any 4-cycle instructions into it (90-odd% are 4-cycle, matrix deconvolution will take it more
and you get the answers 4 clocks later...
That's 8x2 (16
float multiply ops per clock, at 300 MHz if you keep the pipeline going.
The performance of a 700MHz Celeron doesn't even come close, it's roughly 1/8th the speed...
Posted: 2003-05-24 11:47pm
by Beowulf
A cluster of me.
Seriously, it's a cluster of identical machines running special software that allows the user to act as if it's one machine, kinda sorta.
Posted: 2003-05-24 11:50pm
by Hamel
Beowulf wrote:A cluster of me.
Seriously, it's a cluster of identical machines running special software that allows the user to act as if it's one machine, kinda sorta.
Essentially how modern supercomputers are designed, then?
Posted: 2003-05-24 11:53pm
by Crayz9000
Along the same principles, yes.
The whole Beowulf thing is a running joke on Slashdot. Any time some new computer device comes up, someone is bound to ask "But can you make a beowulf cluster out of it?"
Posted: 2003-05-25 12:05am
by phongn
Hamel wrote:Essentially how modern supercomputers are designed, then?
In a very rough sense, yes.
Posted: 2003-05-25 12:13am
by phongn
Hamel wrote:*informative BUMP*
Space Cowboy wrote:The PS2 has 2 vector units (VU's), each does a 4-way (xyzw) floating point vector dot product with another vector in a single clock cycle, with 4 cycle internal latency. The chips are pipelined, so you can just keep feeding any 4-cycle instructions into it (90-odd% are 4-cycle, matrix deconvolution will take it more
and you get the answers 4 clocks later...
That's 8x2 (16
float multiply ops per clock, at 300 MHz if you keep the pipeline going.
The performance of a 700MHz Celeron doesn't even come close, it's roughly 1/8th the speed...
I'm not sure how accurate SC's post is (and remember, this is Slashdot, home of FUD). The two architectures are wildly different, and he's doing an apples-to-oranges comparison with his vector/float comparison.
Posted: 2003-05-25 01:11am
by Einhander Sn0m4n
Crayz9000 wrote:Along the same principles, yes.
The whole Beowulf thing is a running joke on Slashdot. Any time some new computer device comes up, someone is bound to ask "But can you make a beowulf cluster out of it?"
Actually the phrase is "Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these!"
Posted: 2003-05-25 02:38am
by Yogi
Posted: 2003-05-25 02:40am
by Hamel
I would kill to be in Largo's shoes
GAINAX NEEDS TO MAKE AN ANIME OUT OF IT, STAT!
Posted: 2003-05-25 02:55am
by Alan Bolte
In that case, how would you define a Beowulf Clusterfuck?
Posted: 2003-05-25 02:56am
by Hamel
Alan Bolte wrote:In that case, how would you define a Beowulf Clusterfuck?
A cluster of PS2s running DOA3?
Posted: 2003-05-25 02:57am
by Yogi
Would be interesting as an Anime, but how would 133t $p3@|< be handled?
Posted: 2003-05-25 03:22am
by Beowulf
Alan Bolte wrote:In that case, how would you define a Beowulf Clusterfuck?
Me screwing a bunch of girls at once.
*hides from GF*