Originally Posted by
johnny_trombone
The $33mil computer this supported is used by a national lab for all kinds of research, but basically is a huge number cruncher. The data is then offloaded to this storage farm. The lab has its own nuclear reactor and a magnet that is 8 stories tall! Pretty cool stuff goes on there.
My company builds smaller computer clusters that range from $100k to $2mil. The beefiest single computer (not a cluster) we build has 8 64bit quad core cpus (that's 32 cores!) and up to 256GB of ram (to put that in perspective: your home computer prob has 1-4 32bit cpu cores and 1-4gb of ram). The first cluster I worked on here had 128 nodes networked with low latency Infiniband (the switch alone was $120k! and was huge. the cables are ~$300 each)) for a total of 512 cpu cores, 1.2Terabytes of ram. It consumes the electricity of 80 average homes and is used by the Air Force for aerodynamic research.
Im kinda in geek heaven!