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Hardware NVIDIA Launches Tesla Supercomputer
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - November 19, 2008 12:30 PM
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NVIDIA Tesla Personal Supercomputer  (Source: NVIDIA)
Tesla Supercomputer uses up to 960 parallel processing cores

When talking about supercomputers, the images that come to mind are those of massive computer systems with hundreds or thousands of individual CPUs taking up huge rooms and requiring millions to build and operate. Those mental images are correct for most supercomputers.

NVIDIA is looking to change the way people thing about supercomputing with the introduction of its new Tesla Personal Supercomputer. NVIDIA claims that its GPU-based Tesla Supercomputer is capable of delivering the computing power of a cluster at 1/100th of the price.

Tesla Supercomputers can be purchased for under $10,000 and offer 250 times the processing power of normal desktop workstations. Despite the massive processing power offered by the Tesla system it is housed in a standard desktop form factor system.

Microsoft Technical Fellow, Burton smith said in a statement, "We’ve all heard ‘desktop supercomputer’ claims in the past, but this time it’s for real. NVIDIA and its partners will be delivering outstanding performance and broad applicability to the mainstream marketplace. Heterogeneous computing, where GPUs work in tandem with CPUs, is what makes such a breakthrough possible."

The Tesla Supercomputer is based on NVIDIA's CUDA architecture allowing the system to be programmed in the C language. Up to 960 parallel processing cores can be placed inside the system. NVIDIA claims that Tesla Supercomputers are in use in major research environments like MIT, Cambridge and others.

Antonio Julio from Dell said in a statement, "Dell has led the workstation category for almost a decade and GPU computing represents a massive leap forward in performance that will bring supercomputer power to the masses,” said Antonio Julio, director, Dell Product Group. “The Dell Precision R5400 and T7400 will allow the scientific community to harness the capabilities of the NVIDIA Tesla C1060 GPU with up to two teraflops of computational power.”

NVIDIA announced its Tesla Personal Supercomputer days after the DOE announced its Jaguar supercomputer had reached record setting levels of performance.

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By Creig on 11/19/2008 2:27:29 PM , Rating: 3
This "supercomputer" is basically just a desktop PC with four Tesla C1060 computing processors (ie - GTX280) in quad-SLI.

http://www.dvhardware.net/article27987.html

The only difference between the Tesla C1060 Computing Processor and a regular GTX280 is that the C1060 has 4gb of memory while the GTX280 has 896mb.

Does this mean that a computer containing a pair of ATI 4870X2 in Crossfire should be called a "supercomputer" too simply because it has four RV770 cores that each does 1.4 TFLOPs? I mean, this would be an even faster "supercomputer" compared to Nvidia's four GT200 cores that put out 0.933 TFLOPs each.

I think the term "supercomputer" should be reserved for specialized high-end computers such as Crays & purpose-built weather analyzing computers and should not be used for desktop PCs.




By SlyNine on 11/19/2008 4:39:46 PM , Rating: 1
Yes but unlike the other supercomputers this one.. here it comes. Can play Crysis.


By Pavelyoung on 11/23/2008 8:26:40 PM , Rating: 2
No it can't, because once you configure the system to use the GPUs for graphical purposes, then its simply a desktop PC again.


By TennesseeTony on 11/19/2008 7:25:50 PM , Rating: 1
It was not until 1997 that the first 'supercomputer' was able to break the 1 teraFLOPS level of performance. It filled not only 2500 square feet of floor space, it covered it from the floor to the ceiling, with 110 cabinets/server racks.

Now that same level of power is available in a standard sized case. If it is NOT a supercomputer, than neither was the one described below, nor any of the Cray's before it.

I don't expect you to understand, because your juvenile statement reflects the mentality of one conceived and born AFTER the first teraflop machine was put into service. Now finish your homework, brush your teeth, and get ready for bed, 8pm is right around the corner, and you've got school tomorrow.

From Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCI_Red)

"It was a mesh-based (38 X 32 X 2) MIMD massively-parallel processing machine initially consisting of 4,510 compute nodes, 1212 gigabytes of total distributed memory and 12.5 terabytes of disk storage. The original incarnation of this machine used Intel Pentium Pro processors, each clocked at 200 MHz. These were later upgraded to Pentium II OverDrive processors. The system was upgraded to a total of 9298 Pentium II OverDrive processors, each clocked at 333 MHz. It consisted of 104 cabinets, taking up about 2500 square feet (230 m²)."


By foolsgambit11 on 11/19/2008 8:04:23 PM , Rating: 3
That's nothing. Do you remember the movie "The Last Starfighter"? I remember watching a 'making of' special on that where they talk about all the incredible work they did with their Cray getting all of the graphics made for that movie. They had to wait hours to get short scenes back, find the errors, and re-run the programs. It took them forever to get stuff done that now can be done on-the-fly by my laptop's nVidia graphics chip. That's what's amazing. That was less than 25 years ago.

Ah, Wikipedia says it was a Cray X-MP - which peaks at about 400 MegaFlops. That's 5000 times slower than this 'supercomputer'. And it cost more than $10 million. How far we've come!


By Creig on 11/19/2008 9:22:28 PM , Rating: 5
Wow, is it your time of month or something? Loosen up a bit before you hurt yourself.

I've been in the IT industry for 17 years now and have been working with computers for even longer. The term "Supercomputer" is usually used to describe one of the fastest computers in the world AT THAT MOMENT . Yes, Nvidia's Tesla "Supercomputer" may be faster than the 1997 Intel TeraFLOP Supercomputer, but this isn't 1997, now is it?

http://www.answers.com/topic/supercomputer
quote:
Supercomputer - Any of a class of extremely powerful digital computers. The term is commonly applied to the fastest high-performance systems available at a given time; current personal computers are more powerful than the supercomputers of just a few years ago.

The term "Supercomputer" is relative to current computer technology, not obsolete systems.


By Storkme on 11/21/2008 7:09:44 AM , Rating: 2
Sorry gramps.


By Clauzii on 11/22/2008 12:17:58 PM , Rating: 2
ATI is on their way too:
http://ati.amd.com/technology/streamcomputing/prod...

Actually they are looking to be great contenders with about 240 GFlops Double Precision.

The nVidias are 'only' 78 GFlops DP:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/tesla_supercomputer_t...

The ATI card is set for 1Q, 2009.


supercomputer?
By Gul Westfale on 11/19/2008 1:07:46 PM , Rating: 1
really? when they say 960 cores they do mean cores, not chips. how would you fit 960 GPUs in a standard case?

so i'm guessing this is a simple desktop PC with a custom motherboard that allows for the use of quad-SLI... and that's about it.

here are two different pics directly from the nvidia website, showing machines built by partners. nvidia calls them "personal supercomputers":

http://www.nvidia.com/docs/IO/62722/TeslaPSC_image...
http://www.nvidia.com/docs/IO/62722/TeslaPSC_image...

velocity micro's website also confirms that these are just multiple-SLI PCs:
http://www.velocitymicro.com/wizard.php?iid=174




RE: supercomputer?
By FITCamaro on 11/19/2008 1:50:09 PM , Rating: 2
They're referring to the stream processors (shaders) in Nvidia GPUs.


RE: supercomputer?
By afkrotch on 11/19/2008 4:01:42 PM , Rating: 2
It's also possible that Nvidia might throw in specialized cards for it. Like a card with 6 GPUs on it and the ability to support 4-5 of these cards. Who knows, until someone gets their hands on this and opens it up for us.


RE: supercomputer?
By nafhan on 11/19/2008 2:20:49 PM , Rating: 5
Probably means it has 4 Tesla equivalents of the GTX280 since the GTX280 has 240 "stream processors".
240 x 4 = 960


RE: supercomputer?
By Gul Westfale on 11/19/2008 10:02:45 PM , Rating: 2
yes i know that, that is what i was pointing out. they are just normal computers.


Standard C or CUDA?
By dickeywang on 11/19/2008 1:02:34 PM , Rating: 3
I think there is a difference, isn't it?




RE: Standard C or CUDA?
By gramboh on 11/20/2008 12:12:00 PM , Rating: 2
Yep, you'd have to develop everything in CUDA, which from what I understand is not easy.


ATi
By FishTankX on 11/19/2008 5:13:22 PM , Rating: 2
Does ATi have a CUDA equivalent? I could see some really interesting setups with a bunch of 4870x2's all banded together with hypertransport links...




RE: ATi
By dsx724 on 11/19/2008 6:29:30 PM , Rating: 2
AMD Stream SDK? Brook+? CUDA isn't new or revolutionary. Brook+ came out long before CUDA. AMD hardware has slightly less performance on anything other than MADD though.


The Incredibles
By Subzero0000 on 11/20/2008 4:43:05 AM , Rating: 3
"I'll sell my inventions so that everyone can have powers. Everyone can be super! And when everyone's super... no one will be."




Competition with IBM?
By TheHarvester on 11/20/2008 1:14:16 AM , Rating: 2
I was just wondering if anybody has any idea what this means, if anything, for IBM and its line of Blue Gene computers. I'm not incredibly technical, but my understanding is that those computers do use cluster technology. Is it possible to carry over this non-cluster technology into some of the big-time supercomputers IBM puts out? Or is that entirely different technology?




Progress
By Jeff7181 on 11/20/2008 12:02:40 PM , Rating: 2
I can't believe anyone who reads the stories on this site would question the usefulness of a machine like this. True Tflop computing in what's basically a desktop form factor is a HUGE leap forward.

The question is not what can I do with this today , it's what can I do with this tomorrow ?




Glorified PC
By goz314 on 11/19/08, Rating: 0
Yeah but...
By FaceMaster on 11/19/08, Rating: -1