Re:Priorities.. (Score 5, Insightful)

Why do we need to have small, power-efficient supercomputers? Isn't the main goal of the supercomputer to be fast as hell? Granted, if this can be achieved while simultaneously minimizing power and size then by all means go for it. However, as stated by my parent, what sacrafices are being made?

You need small power-efficient supercomputers so that you don't need a dedicated 100MW coal-fired power plant next door for each 10 teraflop building.

Imagine the cooling system necessary for a building which dissipates the energy normally used by a small city!

This is why bluegene is cool; they realize that at the high end, power is going to become the limiting factor, and they designed their architecture accordingly.

Bobby