Supercomputer

[SpringWater]

Couldn't really find a good section for this thread so I decided to put it here, is it possible to build a supercomputer at home, I mean a single computer with multiple parallel computers in it? This is pure curiosity, maybe once I'm in college I will attempt doing this.

 

[salvage-this]

Sure if you have the cooling power and money.

The real question is why? What would you do at home that would need that kind of power?

 

[xxmorpheus]

The amount of cooling required is just too much. Bit coin mining perhaps?

 

[SpringWater]

I have no idea why I would need something like that, I would love to build it though just for the satisfaction. The only question remaining is can an average person set up multiple pcs running in a parallel setup or does that require over the average college-grade knowledge.

 

[salvage-this]

Knowledge is everywhere. Not just college. You just need to know where to look

https://computing.llnl.gov/tutorials/parallel_comp/#Whatis

I can tell you that if you want to link up a few computers and have them process together as one PC by the hardware, it would be nearly (if not completely) impossible.

However, PC clusters might be what you are looking for

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...inishes-PS3-Supercomputer-of-Epic-Proportions

http://www.webstreet.com/super_computer.htm

 

[SpringWater]

Thanks for the links, I'm gonna take a closer look at those.

 

[S.T.A.R.S.]

My opinion is that people today have too strong computers and they don't really need that kind of power.
My super old PC still works after almost 15 years of it's life and I am still using it for everything except playing games.
I know so many people who think they need a SUPER STRONG computer to...let's say...build simple application in Visual Studio.If you ask me...that's pure bullsh!t lol.
If I can make great apps in VS 2002 on 15 years old PC and some cannot do even half of it in VS 2012 on super strong PC...then WTF lol.

I mean...I don't know lol...that's just my opinion.

So building a super computer would be neccessary only for places like Pentagon lol.

Anyway here is mine:

A SuperComputer called HumanBrain...
The most advanced type of device that is known to exist...

 

[PCunicorn]

My computer is 13 years old and can just barley crawl through the Web even with a lightweight linux distro, and you can't even play Youtube videos. So I don't know, maybe you exclusively visit sites that are only 15 years old or are full of Crap just like with your "UAC".

 

[salvage-this]

Easy...

I upgraded my parents off of a 10 year old system. I just build one for a class and decided to give them an upgrade. I still boot it to play around on a few XP applications. Still works just fine. 13 years old.

 

[Geoff]

10+ year old machines will work fine if you used applications that came out around that same time period, but good luck getting current software to work well on it. As PCunicorn said, good luck using Flash, Silverlight, Java, etc. to work well on them - even something as simple as streaming HD video.

 

[spirit]

If you had the money and the time and knew where to buy the parts from, I'm sure you could build a supercomputer at home just like you would a normal desktop.

But yeah, you wouldn't need to spend your time or money on building one because even most of the highest-end consumer grade hardware out there at the moment is overkill for the vast majority of people who just want to play games and browse the internet.