December 23, 2011 11:43 pm EDT

VT nears completion of HokieSpeed, world's 96th most powerful supercomputer

If basking in the presence of a powerful supercomputer is on your list of "must-haves" when selecting a proper university, then you may wish to fire off an admissions application to the Hokies at Virginia Tech. The school's HokieSpeed system is now in its final stages of testing, which combines 209 separate computers, each powered by dual six-core Xeon E5645 CPUs and two NVIDIA M2050 / C2050 448-core GPUs, with a single-precision peak processing capability of 455 teraflops. To put things in perspective, HokieSpeed is now the 96th most powerful computer in the world, and yet it was built for merely $1.4 million in loose change -- the majority of which came from a National Science Foundation grant. As a further claim to fame, HokieSpeed is the 11th most energy-efficient supercomputer in the world. Coming soon, the system will drive a 14-foot wide by four-foot tall visualization wall, which is to consist of eight 46-inch Samsung 3D televisions humming in unison. After all, with virtually limitless potential, these scientists will need a fitting backdrop for all those Skyrim sessions. The full PR follows the break, complete with commentary from the system's mastermind, Professor Wu Feng.

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VT nears completion of HokieSpeed, world's 96th most powerful supercomputer originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Dec 2011 18:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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