Forty Cores: Hands-on with the Tyan Personal Supercomputer
Tyan’s PSC comes packed with forty cores, Infiniband, and much more inside the cube than at first meets the eye.
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007
For those sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for more quad-core mojo, you’ll need to wait another month. What could be so important as to divert me from pushing the multi-core cluster envelope? How about if a truck pulled up to your house the Friday before Christmas and delivered a new Tyan Personal Supercomputer (PSC, http://www.tyanpsc.com), complete with forty cores, Infiniband, and lots of other goodies. Of course, everything else takes a back seat.
The first thing to do is thank the wife. “Honey, you shouldn’t have! I thought we agreed ‘No clusters over ten cores for Christmas this year.’” Coming back to my senses, I realized that the good people at Tyan promised me an evaluation version of the PSC. Darn. Eventually, I’ll have to send it back. And I’ll have to settle for new clothes (again).
What’s In The Box?
After I removed the system from its crate, I had a black box shown in Figure One. The PSC measures 21” x 14” x 28” (52.7 cm x 35.6 cm x 70 cm). Although the system is “personal”, it does weigh in at 150 pounds. The chassis has wheels and two large handles on the top in case you need move it. Two people are required to lift the system, however.
