Cray offers a supercomputer for the desktop

(TheForceField.Net ) September 22, 2008 —  Cray, the company with a name that is almost synonymous with the term supercomputer, has partnered with Intel and Microsoft to produce a supercomputer for the desktop.

The new supercomputer, called the CX1, uses Intel Xeon processors and either Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008 or Red Hat Linux. The CX1 is designed for small businesses, professionals and end users who would like a real supercomputer but can't afford one of the million dollar models. The Cray CX1 sells for a mere twenty-five thousand dollars.

A blog post on Cray's website last week stated the CX1 was designed in response to a growing need of application developers, small businesses and labs who need high performance or cluster computers but do not have a big budget. 

According to a company press release issued September 16, The CX1 is configurable to 8 nodes and 16 dual or quad-core Intel Xeon processors with 16 gigs of memory per node. The supercomputer can store up to 4 terabytes and is customizable to individual needs.

"Cray sees Microsoft Windows becoming an increasingly important force in the HPC market," Ian Miller, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Cray, said in the press release. "With the Cray CX1 high productivity system and Windows HPC Server 2008, we're bringing the power of Cray supercomputing to a much wider range of new users with an affordable and adaptable system that provides incredible value and is easy to install, program and use with a broad array of applications from independent software vendors (ISVs)."

The CX1 is the first Cray supercomputer to use Intel processors. It does not require special cooling or storage accommodations and plugs into a single standard 110/220v AC power outlet.

More information and specifications on the CX1 are available at http://www.cray.com

 

 

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