Beowulf: A theorical approach

[Greg Lindahl]

> Just as a matter of curiosity -- Once upon a time some two or three
> years ago I suggested on the list that a development company consider
> building a network communications device that plugged into the second
> CPU slot of a dual CPU board.

It's hard to build something that plugs into an Intel-designed CPU bus.
Scali tried it and it didn't work so hot.

You could do it for the Alpha/AMD cpu bus, but it's a high speed design, and
the estimates I got (I was seriously considering this) was 12 months and $2
million.

In 12 months, you'll be able to get either PCI-X machines or Infiniband
machines. PCI-X has split transactions, and Chuck Seitz, who knows more
about networking than all of us combined, says that PCI-X will get rid of
most of the PCI latency.

So, sit back, pop open a cold one, and wait.

-- greg