- Aug 4, 2001
- 789
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2 notes to think about in this note found at <A HREF="http://www.appleturns.com/" target="_new">www.appleturns.com</A>
YES i know its is a MAC loyal site... however everything is fact here.
its also yet another reason why Toms should look in to the G5.
1100 G5s destined for the Virginia Tech "Terascale Computing Facility" may not necessarily be promiscuous, they are undoubtedly cheap.
<A HREF="http://www.vt.edu/news/showitem.php?id=1062601746" target="_new">Virginia Tech G5 supercomputer</A> have finally been made public; <A HREF="http://www.thinksecret.com/news/virginiatech.html" target="_new">Think Secret</A> was right last week when it claimed there was a campus informational meeting about the project slated for yesterday, and <A HREF="http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/09/20030905004400.shtml" target="_new">Mac Rumors</A> points to detailed notes from the presentation available at <A HREF="http://www.chaosmint.com/mac/vt-supercomputer/" target="_new">Chaosmint</A>. Sadly for some depraved viewers, there's precious little about the licentious activities those G5s get up to behind closed doors, but Virginia Tech has revealed that it went with Power Macs because they were the least expensive available option; they provide the most (pardon the expression) "bang for the buck."
Strange but true! Virginia Tech considered <A HREF="http://www.sun.com/" target="_new">Sun's</A> SPARC systems, but not for long; a SPARC-based cluster with enough oomph would have "required too many processors" and been "too expensive."
How about <A HREF="http://www.ibm.com/" target="_new">IBM</A> systems running <A HREF="http://www.amd.com/ibmopteron/" target="_new">AMD's Opteron</A>, or HP units based on the <A HREF="http://www.intel.com/products/server/processors/server/itanium2/" target="_new">Itanium</A>? Nope; for the necessary performance, both options would have required double the number of processors and cost twice as much.
Even Dell was rejected as "too expensive," which is a little alarming given how far they've been willing to slash their prices to win contracts in the past. And don't believe for a second that Dell didn't try; reportedly the reason this whole project was top secret in the first place was because "Dell was exploring pricing options during bidding" ever since February. In the end, evidently they just couldn't get prices down far enough to close the deal.
Once the dust had settled, only one vendor was still standing: Apple, whose Power Mac G5 represented the "lowest price" available from a pure "cost vs. performance" standpoint. Even if Virginia Tech paid full educational price for those 1,100 Power Macs (and you just know they didn't), the bill would "only" come to a bit under $3 million; the school is paying $5.2 million for the entire project.
Did you ever think for even a split second that you'd live long enough to see Apple win a contract based on price?
ASUS P4S8X - P4 2.4B - 2 x 512M DDR333 - ATI 9500 Pro(Sapphire) - WD 80G HD (8M Buffer) - SAMSUNG SV0844D 8G HD - LG 16X DVD - Yamaha F1 CDRW - Iomega Zip 250 int.
YES i know its is a MAC loyal site... however everything is fact here.
its also yet another reason why Toms should look in to the G5.
1100 G5s destined for the Virginia Tech "Terascale Computing Facility" may not necessarily be promiscuous, they are undoubtedly cheap.
<A HREF="http://www.vt.edu/news/showitem.php?id=1062601746" target="_new">Virginia Tech G5 supercomputer</A> have finally been made public; <A HREF="http://www.thinksecret.com/news/virginiatech.html" target="_new">Think Secret</A> was right last week when it claimed there was a campus informational meeting about the project slated for yesterday, and <A HREF="http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/09/20030905004400.shtml" target="_new">Mac Rumors</A> points to detailed notes from the presentation available at <A HREF="http://www.chaosmint.com/mac/vt-supercomputer/" target="_new">Chaosmint</A>. Sadly for some depraved viewers, there's precious little about the licentious activities those G5s get up to behind closed doors, but Virginia Tech has revealed that it went with Power Macs because they were the least expensive available option; they provide the most (pardon the expression) "bang for the buck."
Strange but true! Virginia Tech considered <A HREF="http://www.sun.com/" target="_new">Sun's</A> SPARC systems, but not for long; a SPARC-based cluster with enough oomph would have "required too many processors" and been "too expensive."
How about <A HREF="http://www.ibm.com/" target="_new">IBM</A> systems running <A HREF="http://www.amd.com/ibmopteron/" target="_new">AMD's Opteron</A>, or HP units based on the <A HREF="http://www.intel.com/products/server/processors/server/itanium2/" target="_new">Itanium</A>? Nope; for the necessary performance, both options would have required double the number of processors and cost twice as much.
Even Dell was rejected as "too expensive," which is a little alarming given how far they've been willing to slash their prices to win contracts in the past. And don't believe for a second that Dell didn't try; reportedly the reason this whole project was top secret in the first place was because "Dell was exploring pricing options during bidding" ever since February. In the end, evidently they just couldn't get prices down far enough to close the deal.
Once the dust had settled, only one vendor was still standing: Apple, whose Power Mac G5 represented the "lowest price" available from a pure "cost vs. performance" standpoint. Even if Virginia Tech paid full educational price for those 1,100 Power Macs (and you just know they didn't), the bill would "only" come to a bit under $3 million; the school is paying $5.2 million for the entire project.
Did you ever think for even a split second that you'd live long enough to see Apple win a contract based on price?
ASUS P4S8X - P4 2.4B - 2 x 512M DDR333 - ATI 9500 Pro(Sapphire) - WD 80G HD (8M Buffer) - SAMSUNG SV0844D 8G HD - LG 16X DVD - Yamaha F1 CDRW - Iomega Zip 250 int.
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