Comment Re:Every supercomputer should look nice . . . (Score 4, Informative) 68
Way back in '03, Virginia Tech built a cluster of 1,100 Mac G5's. It came in at #3 on the Top 500 list that year, and at $5.2M, it was a fraction of the cost of the next cheapest supercomputer in the top ten. And it was assembled by students in 3 weeks, using stock G5 towers fitted with InfiniBand cards.
It was later upgraded to G5 xServe boxes, and as of 2008, was still ranked 281 on the Top 500 list.
Here's a short promo film that VT produced: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLujLtgBJC0