New Intel-based server products introduced this year are delivering breakthroughs in technical computing. As a point of reference, 10 years ago, a supercomputer with 9000 Intel Pentium Pro processors took up 1,500 square feet, delivered 1.80 teraflops of peak performance and consumed some 800,000 watts of power. Today, the same level of performance can be achieved by a server cluster with 44 Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 5300 series, codenamed “Clovertown” and due to ship shortly, while taking up just 16 square feet and consuming less than 10,000 watts.
“The latest Intel technology innovations have enabled new computing models and form factors that were previously unavailable for high-performance computing which, in turn, hastens new scientific discoveries, product designs and simulations among many other discoveries around the world,” said Boyd Davis, director of marketing, Intel’s server platform group. “Over the past year we have seen the development of the first personal supercomputers, double-density rack mount servers and the increase of the industry’s largest, most scalable systems with dual-core Intel Itanium processors and Intel Xeon processors.”