Re: Ultra AXmp

[Matti Aarnio <matti.aarnio@sonera.fi>]

One "spelling" error buggers me major way:
... 
> you are correct.  If you take a high-end machine, like a Cray T90, over
> 50% of the total cost is the memory interconnection network, because it
> is so hard to provide almost a terrabyte of data/second spread over 32
> cpus.  :)

	There is no such multiplier prefix as "terra".  The one you were
	thinking about is "tera" (10**12 in Fortran notation).
	That is the multiplier that is meant when "T" is used -- thus
	"almoast a TB of data per second" (of course "TB" means something
	else too, but that goes way beside the point.)

	Although MicroSoft has a system called TerraServer(.microsoft.com),
	they do use the intentional misspelling of the prefix to refer to
	its size, although they also use the Latin "Terra" to mean "Earth"
	to refer to its contents...

> but the memory interconnect is always the sticky wicket on SMP machines,
> although for the PC, we simply dribble along at (now) 100mhz.  :)

Whatever systems we consider to buy/use, unless they are of commodity
type products, they will always cost way more than the commodity stuff.
Of course, nothing beats T90 in memory bandwidth per CPU :-)

/Matti Aarnio <matti.aarnio@sonera.fi>