Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Super Computers.. What You Need To Know!!

Supercomputers at NASA Ames Research Center.

You obviously know what a computer is capable of doing by now, I don't expect you to know it inside out but at least some idea about it..! Computer is now a necessity in every home. It makes our life so simple and with the evolution of internet its now a machine that people can't live without. You basically have a home computer to play games, log into facebook and other social sites, chat with friends neglecting home work, download and watch movies and simply something to do when your plain bored.

So What is a Super Computer anyway..?!  And why were Super Computers made..?! 

Super Computers is a computing machine that has a far greater processing  power than others of its day; typically they use more than one core and are housed in large clean rooms with high air flow to permit rapid cooling of many heated systems and processors. Super computers were made for advanced calculations and forecasts ranging from research to design flaws. But many of Super computers powers are also used for climate modeling, renewable energy, materials science, fusion, combustion, nuclear  simulations  and animations.

The Top Ten Super Computing Super Powers;

1. USA
2. China
3. Germany
4. UK
5. France
6. Japan
7. Russia
8. Sweden
9. Canada
10. Switzerland

So what is the fastest Super Computer Out there..?!

The fastest Super Computer system ever made is called the "Jaguar" which belongs to the "Cray XT" system family. The system model is known as "Cray XT5-HE". Cray Jaguar XT5-HE supercomputer is built by Cray Inc. at Oak Ridge National Laboratory  in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. The Cray XT5 Jaguar system has 224,256 Opteron processor cores, and operates with a version of Linux called Cray Linux Environment.. It has a top speed of 1.75 petaflops.One petaflop is the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second. It is used by scientists conducting research in astrophysics, climate science and nuclear energy.

Jaguar XT5 Super Computer

The Jaguar supercomputer performs 1,750 trillion calculations a second. So in other words for "1 Second" of calculations made by the Jaguar it will take your PC over 10 hours (time taken for a trans Atlantic flight). Which means for a "Day" of calculations by the Jaguar, it will take your PC over 100 YEARS..!!! Beat that.!!!

Already a new XT-6 is under development. There is a possibility that it could be in use already..!

Simple Facts;
  • No.01 use if Super computers are for research purposes.
  • Most Super computers are based on a Linux based operating system
  • US is the largest manufacturer and user of Super computers.
  • Super computers are widely used to forecast damage and evacuation plans for major natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunami's, hurricanes, or tropical storms.
Further reading: 

1 comment:

richie007 said...

nice post.

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