Supercomputer makes a PC look like a little baby! I don’t know how it is so powerful compared to its counterparts.
In: Technology
Some of the earliest supercomputers had specialized hardware for vector mathematics, and custom inter-connects for data transfer. With multiple CPU and vector processors, tasks (like modeling 3D space for nuclear explosions or weather systems) could be handled in parallel.
As general purpose CPUs improved and integrated floating-point maths coprocessors, it was easier to use multiple general purpose CPUs and network cards to interconnect elements. Commodity hardware running Unix and parallel task scheduling allowed the construction of large supercomputers. Multi-core CPU increased processing capacity.
Then the needs of modern gaming lead to the development of the GPU. At their core, these are effectively more advanced versions of the vector processing units used in early supercomputers, and because they had multiple processing pipelines, they were very quickly integrated into supercomputer design. In some cases, supercomputers were built with gaming consoles, because they included both general purpose CPUs and GPUs.
Modern supercomputers usually use multi-core CPUs and powerful GPUs, using modern OS’s and parallel task scheduling software. The speed is entirely due to the number of units processing in parallel, and using GPU pipelines to accelerate vector and matrix calculations.
Latest Answers