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A lot has changed since IBM was releasing room sized computers with PC sized 1 GB hard drives. So much so, that IBM has unveiled their Power 575 Supercomputer, which runs off of one of the world’s fastest microprocessors, the Power6, and relies on an innovative cooling system to keep from exploding. More impressively, it all seems smaller than that original 1GB hard drive from way back when.
The design and hardware of the Power 575 requires 80% fewer air conditioning units, using its water cooling system to save energy consumption by 40%. IBM claims that the water system can be 4000-times more effective then traditional air cooling. The 575 monster has 448 processor cores per rack, making it 5 times faster the performance of its older brother. Each rack offers a whopping 14 2U nodes, each featuring 32 4.7-Ghz cores of Power6, and 3.5 TB of memory! — Andrew Dobrow
