There is a link in the article. Here it is again: NAS Parallel Suite: http://www.nas.nasa.gov/Resources/Software/npb.html »

The simple answer is "it all depends on the application." The longer answer is contention for resources which in most cases is memory. Both Intel and AMD solve this in different ways right now, although Intel is moving toward the method used by AMD -- a fast memory sharing bus called hyperchannel. Think of it this way, before multi-core, processors were much faster than memory (which is why cache memory is used), but now you have more cores hitting the same memory. In some cases codes can run well in others there is a bottleneck, which leads back to my first short answer. »

You have a point about Condor. It can and is used as an effective cluster scheduler. However, the majority of cluster users tend to prefer most of the applications we mention in the article. Next time we will include Condor. As for BMC Control-M, this is the first time I have seen this mentioned in an HPC cluster context. We will definitely check it out. »

Seems like a lot of interest in this level of computing. While the PSC is not quite "personal" it does seem like there will be more of these kinds of systems in the future. (BTW, personal to me means I can lift it myself!) Software is, of course the key. I have since done some testing on the system and still have yet to post the data. I am curious, for what application areas would readers use this type of system? »