Cray, Intel To Partner On Hybrid Supercomputer

An anonymous reader writes "Intel convinced Cray to collaborate on what many believe will be the next generation of supercomputers — CPUs complemented by floating-point acceleration units. NVIDIA successfully placed its Tesla cards in an upcoming Bull supercomputer, and today we learn that Cray will be using Intel's x86 Larrabee accelerators in a supercomputer that is expected to be unveiled by 2011. It's a new chapter in the Intel-NVIDIA battle and a glimpse at the future of supercomputers operating in the petaflop range. The deal has also got to be a blow to AMD, which has been Cray's main chip supplier."

Re:AMD worried?

[dreamchaser]

It's more about bragging rights and PR/marketing than about volume of chips sold. I doubt AMD is terribly worried as they have much bigger concerns right now.

Re:AMD worried?

[lakeland]

AMD might be worried. Cray and similar deals are all about bragging rights, not about sales.

Like that Fujitsu supercomputer... it makes you think 'hey, maybe there is something to Fujitsu more than photocopiers...'

I don't know what influences normal customer's perception of a company like AMD. I don't even know who AMD's main customers are - white-box manufacturers? enthusiasts? So while industry analysts put a lot of weight on these high-profile shifts, ... well, it might sway public opinion.

Re:AMD worried?

[Kjella]

Please make sure to make a "Supercomputers is an irrelevant little niche" comment in a thread about Linux in supercomputers. Let me know how the charred remains of your karma is doing afterwards. It's all about bragging rights, in particular "the world's most powerful supercomputer" title. Most of these are trying to run some O(ugly) problem and improving the model or algorithms probably means a lot more than just adding 10x more power.

And the cycle continues...

[Jesus_666]

A few years from now Intel will unveil their shocking new techology - they will build the floating point accelerator right into the CPU! For massive performance gains! And then a few years later they will move it out of the CPU for better performance. And so on, and so forth, etc. etc. etc.

Re:Most likely?

[dreamchaser]

Sure, but posting actual facts doesn't give the same cheap karma boost as posting something anti-war or anti-nuclear.

Then again, I'm sure people would rather see us blowing up actual bombs as tests rather than simulating them (sarcasm).