Newsgroups: comp.parallel
From: rcarter@best.com (Russell Carter)
Subject: Re: Massively Parallel "Pizza Box" really the ICE box
Organization: Best Internet Communications, Inc. (info@best.com)
Date: 12 Sep 1995 13:28:17 GMT
Message-ID: <4341th$9pu@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>

In article <431kmn$2j9@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>,
Alberto C Moreira <alberto@moreira.MV.COM> wrote:

[stuff deleted]

>       The chip clocks at 40Mhz: 40 megaflops at one operation per cycle. 
>       ONE chip, mind you, not a SIMD array of them.
>       Your price range means 300x 40 = $12,000 for one chip. But 
>        ICE sells 32 chips for 50 grand, say 48, which is $1,500 
>        per chip. And that's the very first ramp-up. Just give it time...

Chips with this not-to-be-exceeded performance are obviously feasible,
but getting performance out of them on interesting problems is not.
It makes no sense to hype the chip without details on the memory
subsystem that is to be riveted to the thing, as IBM has (re)learned
with the 604.

The chip itself is also a small factor in system cost.

Russell

