very high bandwidth, low latency manner?

[Patrick Geoffray]

Steffen Persvold wrote:

>>I talked to a guy at SC2002 from Quadrics and he said
>>that list pricing on a Quadrics network was about $3500
>>per node when you are in the 100s of nodes and up.
>>The price includes the cards, cables, switches,
>>etc.  This doesn't include any sort of discount that you
>>might get.  Myrinet is about $2000 for an equivelent
>>network at list price.   Dolphin/SCI falls around $2245 list
>>per node (if the system is > 144 nodes and you have to get
>>the 3d card).
 >
> This is list prices for the cards only, right ? 

Not for Myrinet. Actually $2000 per node is the total cost 
(NIC/cable/port/software) for the high-end products (with L9/200 MHz), 
should be more like $1500 for low-end ones. Craig is spoiled, only buys 
the top stuff :-)

> What about the switches
> needed. AFAIK Quadrics and Myrinet both need switches, SCI don't (which
> makes the total system cost a bit lower doesn't it ?).

Dunno for QSW, but the NIC represent roughly 3/4 of the price per node 
for Myrinet. Sure, as the smallest switch has 8 ports (16 ports chassis 
and one blade with 8 fibers), It is not interesting for very small 
configurations, i.e less than 8 nodes, but I don't think it's Myricom's 
market.

It's a common mistake to believe that switchless solutions are by 
definition cheaper.

Patrick

----------------------------------------------------------
|   Patrick Geoffray, Ph.D.      patrick at myri.com
|   Myricom, Inc.                http://www.myri.com
|   Cell:  865-389-8852          685 Emory Valley Rd (B)
|   Phone: 865-425-0978          Oak Ridge, TN 37830
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