Apple has started to market a low-cost iMac 20" for students and schools. Sold to 899$, it has a 2 GHz processor, a hard drive of 160 GB and only one GB of memory. The remainder is similar to the 20" entry line machine, with the Geforce 9400M that plays the role of the conductor of the orchestrates and integrated video. Until it is available on the French education Store éducation, you will be able to check his existence in a PDF.
In practice, the price difference with the entry-level iMac is weak, and it will really only interest those which will set up a cluster of many of these machines.
Nehalem EX in Action
During the IDF 2009, Intel made a demo of a hardware based on Nehalem EX. The current Xeon Nehalem powering the new Mac Pro belongs to the EP series. The Nehalem EX will be available up to 8 core CPU, but one can install 4 or 8 units on the same motherboard. Hereafter is the task manager on Windows for a computer powered by four Octo Core Xeon Nehalem EX; in other words, 32 physical cores or 64 logic cores thank to hyperthreading. In order to feed such CPUs, there are interconnected with 4 QPI link, and each CPU is able to manage simultaneously 4 RAM modules (for a total of 16 in the current example)
One can now better understand the dilemma and the problem currently faced, and to be a growing concern in the forthcoming months, for application and OS developers: how to code and/or design their software/OS in order to fully benefit from such raw power? It will also be true for Larrabee, the graphical solution developed by Intel, initially based on 8 to 64 cores, and which will need to be managed and feed with data/request to be fully effective and to fully deliver.
Apple markets a 20" iMac for $899 for students and schools
Apple has started to market a low-cost iMac 20" for students and schools. Sold to 899$, it has a 2 GHz processor, a hard drive of 160 GB and only one GB of memory. The remainder is similar to the 20" entry line machine, with the Geforce 9400M that plays the role of the conductor of the orchestrates and integrated video. Until it is available on the French education Store éducation, you will be able to check his existence in a PDF.
In practice, the price difference with the entry-level iMac is weak, and it will really only interest those which will set up a cluster of many of these machines.
Nehalem EX in Action
During the IDF 2009, Intel made a demo of a hardware based on Nehalem EX. The current Xeon Nehalem powering the new Mac Pro belongs to the EP series. The Nehalem EX will be available up to 8 core CPU, but one can install 4 or 8 units on the same motherboard. Hereafter is the task manager on Windows for a computer powered by four Octo Core Xeon Nehalem EX; in other words, 32 physical cores or 64 logic cores thank to hyperthreading. In order to feed such CPUs, there are interconnected with 4 QPI link, and each CPU is able to manage simultaneously 4 RAM modules (for a total of 16 in the current example)
One can now better understand the dilemma and the problem currently faced, and to be a growing concern in the forthcoming months, for application and OS developers: how to code and/or design their software/OS in order to fully benefit from such raw power? It will also be true for Larrabee, the graphical solution developed by Intel, initially based on 8 to 64 cores, and which will need to be managed and feed with data/request to be fully effective and to fully deliver.
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