26.25 Gigaflop Super Computer – $1256

By on Nov 29, 1999 · 13 Comments 

I always feel the need to speed up the process of backup my my dvd’s and encoding them with DVD:RIP, I’m sure this bad boy would make it fly. Calvin College student Tim Brom built, from scratch, a 26.25 gigaflop supercomputer that runs off of a single wall outlet for about $1200. The supercomputer, called Microwolf, has 4 microATX motherboards, each with a dual core CPU and 2 gigs of ram, all connected with an 8-port gigabit switch. The entire thing also includes a DVD drive and a 250 gb hard drive, and runs Ubuntu.

Unfortunately the unit isn’t for sale, but if you want to build your own, there’s a complete write up on his website.

Frank's the editor in chief of tech.nocr.at. He can be found surfing the internet and playing with gadgets. Follow him on twitter @franklinhares

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  • Shit Poop

    This thing blows.

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  • me

    ‘shopped.

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  • pil

    as long as you run windows it will run slow no matter how many floppys you got

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  • milo balls

    definitely shopped the shadows are all wrong

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  • Anon

    This is definitely shooped, I can tell by the pixels, as well as having seen many shoops in my day.

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  • Brian

    Why is the date of this article 1999?

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  • jim

    Lame.

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  • ov3rcl0ck

    Supercomputer? A super computer has to have at least 8 nodes… this only has 4 mother boards, technically not a super computer.

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  • mike

    shopped? how exactly? and they show you how to build it in the link below the article so photoshopping it would seem completely pointless.
    don’t try and act “leet” by pointing out “shopped” in every news post. you aren’t cool =\

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  • itsalljustaride

    I doubt this rig would do anything for copying DVDs. Computers like this are designed to do many similar tasks in parallel. This means they’re mainly good for scientific applications. Not burning DVDs. Unless you were not being serious.

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  • http://www.job-interview-questions.biz Lori Cappozzi

    I can’t beleive this post has 10 years old!!! (November 29, 1999). So interesting

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  • meh

    meh even if it is 1999, this computer isnt worth 1200

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  • http://wtf Daren Schneider

    Seriously guys?

    “as long as you run windows it will run slow no matter how many floppys you got”

    First, Windows desktop operating systems won’t run on a cluster. (XP, Vista, etc). Windows Server, sure.

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    “I doubt this rig would do anything for copying DVDs.”

    Second, It’s DVD coding, not copying. DVD encoding would be improved greatly with a cluster such as this.

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    “his computer isnt worth 1200″

    This is basically compared to 2.5 Intel i7 Overclocked 920′s at 4.0ghz each. (10,000 megaflops : 10 gigaflops).

    http://www.maxxpi.net/pages/result-browser/top10—flops.php

    The orignial price was $2400. You can put this together for around $980 with similar parts.

    Considering 1 i7 920 Motherboard and CPU without memory run 2/3′s that cost, you get 2.5 times the processing power for a fraction of what 2.5 i7 920 systems would cost to build.

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    lol, I love the Photoshopped comments, wow… that’s just pure stupidity.

    I imagine you all think this guys goatee is fake too

    http://www.calvin.edu/~adams/research/microwulf/photos/Microwulf-Pages/Image0.html

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