2 Apr
2013
2 Apr
'13
6:03 p.m.
On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 6:34 PM, Brian Roth <abacos_98 at yahoo.com> wrote:
As time goes on the density of the processors goes up but its not just
the CPU's. Its what goes on behind the processors such as SGI's MIPS
supercomputers of a few years ago. They used a distributed shared memory
that required circuitry that connected processors, local memory, a network
interface, and the
I/O. These systems can be difficult to add onto brick wise and the only
way to increase speed is to add racks which adds power consumption.
The other problem with Roadrunner was it was a hybrid design - AMD Opterons
combined with cell processors, like the one in the Playstation 3. At the
time these were screaming fast, but difficult to program.