[rescue] high memory bandwidth machine?

[Brian Hechinger]

On Sun, Feb 03, 2002 at 07:38:11AM -0500, nate wrote:
> I figure you guys probably know more about this off the top of your
> heads than I can find searching product datasheets all day. Didn't find
> any nice comparisons of memory bandwidths searching google :( My Dad is
> asking me for suggestions for what sort of computer would be best for
> running his wonderful Fortran program on. Currently he uses X86 boxen (a
> P-IV at work because that's what they gave him, and Athlon with 200mhz
> ddr at home...). The bottleneck on every machine he's used since a 486
> has been the memory bandwidth - the only speed improvement since the 486
> has been exactly the same factor as the increase in memory bandwidth
> (no, the dataset doesn't come close to fitting in cache). I looked at
> the current RS/6's, but they only claim 100mhz x 128bit memory bus which
> by my calculations is half what 200mhz DDR in the Athlon does? Are there
> any fairly cheep (try $10-20k at the most) workstations that have
> significantly higher memory bandwidth than a current PC? Video is
> irrelevant to his app :)

you say memory bandwidth, and the first thing that pops into my mind is SGI
Origin or Cray.  a cray can be had for $20K or less, but they are expensive
to feed an maintain (if you can even get an OS for them and get them running)
and so an Origin of some sort would probably be more reasonable.

Origin 2000 would be my vote. big badass cluster one. :)

-brian