University of Antwerp does it again!

[Luke122]

http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/14/university-of-antwerp-stuffs-13-gpus-into-fastra-ii-supercompute/

Fastra II... the Ultimate Desktop Supercomputer.

6 (yes, six) GTX295's and a single GTX275 = 12 teraflops of processing power.

Maybe someone should build a few of these for folding..

[Technochicken]

That's pretty rediculous. In my opinion, the only major flaw to it is that they did not use 6 HD 5970's and a 5870 :P:D

According to my rough calculations, the current setup 104k PPD in folding@home :eek:

[Oneslowz28]

WOW! Wonder if it will run Crysis on MAX.....:p

[mDust]

WOW! Wonder if it will run Crysis on MAX.....:pNo.

I have trouble believing that they have 13 GPUs in that small of an area and they stay under 63C...I guess ambient was -10C. I honestly would expect meltage. (And yes, I just invented a new word.)

[blueonblack]

That's pretty rediculous. In my opinion, the only major flaw to it is that they did not use 6 HD 5970's and a 5870 :P


Second that!




I have trouble believing that they have 13 GPUs in that small of an area and they stay under 63C...I guess ambient was -10C. I honestly would expect meltage.


And this. Those cards intake top and bottom, but they're packed in way too closely to get airflow, and what little they do get will be superheated by the cards above and below. To get these results they've got to be either testing in a cryogenic chamber or the results lasted for about twelve seconds.

[Luke122]

Dont forget that the gpus are all connected to the mobo with riser cables.. there's a few inches of clearance between the cards and the motherboard, meaning you basically have airflow on both sides of the card. Combine that with the front mount fans on the case pushing through the cards, plus the fans on the cards themselves, and I could see it working..

Yes, ambient temp is probably a bit lower than regular anyways (18'C maybe), but I dont see any reason to fake this!

Also, perhaps the calculations they are doing are less intensive than graphics? I have no idea about that.. just a thought. :)

[mDust]

Dont forget that the gpus are all connected to the mobo with riser cables.. there's a few inches of clearance between the cards and the motherboard, meaning you basically have airflow on both sides of the card. Combine that with the front mount fans on the case pushing through the cards, plus the fans on the cards themselves, and I could see it working..

Yes, ambient temp is probably a bit lower than regular anyways (18'C maybe), but I dont see any reason to fake this!

Also, perhaps the calculations they are doing are less intensive than graphics? I have no idea about that.. just a thought. :)
I'm not calling fake...I just don't believe the temps. A single air-cooled card could hit 62C by itself pretty easily with good airflow. Multiply that by 13 and it should be much, much hotter...especially with restricted shroud intakes. Also, if the calculations were less intensive, I'd suspect they wouldn't need the 13 GPU's.

[x88x]

That's pretty rediculous. In my opinion, the only major flaw to it is that they did not use 6 HD 5970's and a 5870 :P:D

My guess is that the stuff they needed to do was already coded using CUDA, not OpenCL or such.

It's good to know this does actually work though.... :twisted:

[mDust]

It's good to know this does actually work though.... :twisted:
It does as long as you're inside an industrial freezer and have a custom bios.:whistler:

[Luke122]

One thing that I've just thought of, the temps we are seeing in the thermal video are external temps on the card shrouds, the cores are likely well above those temps! :D

[mDust]

One thing that I've just thought of, the temps we are seeing in the thermal video are external temps on the card shrouds, the cores are likely well above those temps! :DHmmmm...when you're right, you're right...and you sir, are right.:)

[Luke122]

I need one of those T-Shirts!
http://www.zazzle.ca/im_right_t_shirt-235697518217762763

[Technochicken]

My guess is that the stuff they needed to do was already coded using CUDA, not OpenCL or such.

It's good to know this does actually work though.... :twisted:

True. Also if they used 5 series card they would not be able to fold on them ;)