Fastest Desktop Computer To Date (I Think) Ships

May 4th, 2005 · No Comments · Cool Geeky Stuff, Hardware

Orion DS-96

The Register reports that Orion Multisystems is shipping the first 96-node desktop cluster. Excerpt:

Personal computer. Personal cluster. Call it what you will. Orion Multisystems is pretty sure it has the fastest PC around no matter the moniker.

Last week, Orion started shipping its long awaited 96-processor (Transmeta Tinside) deskside cluster. This box is the follow-on to a 12-processor desktop system that has been on the market for several months. With the new, larger system, customers get pretty much the most powerful computer around that can plug into a standard electrical socket.

“I was very pleased to see this thing ship,” said Orion’s CEO, Colin Hunter.

The first two 96-processor boxes went to an unnamed US defense contractor. The computers were assembled by hand at Orion’s Santa Clara, California HQ and sent on their way.

“About half the company came out and watched them leave the building on the FedEx truck,” Hunter said. “It may sound silly, but from an internal morale perspective, it was a big moment.”

The big daddy box starts at close to $100,000 and will likely make or break Orion. It’s this system that will gauge how much designers, engineers, artists and scientists are willing to pay for their own, easy-to-use Linux cluster.

According to the spec sheet, the DS-96 runs Fedora Core 2 and gets 110 GFlops sustained, 230 GFlops peak. Sweet sweet sweet. Just what my mother needs for reading email & browsing the web . Too bad the OS sucks though……..