Saturday February 11, 2012 5:26 AM AEST

Big Iron Secrets

By Jake Carroll
15:20 Nov 3, 2008 | 3 Comments
Tags: Big | Iron | Secrets
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Big Iron Secrets

Think your computer is a beast? Think again, as Jake Carroll takes us on a journey into the mysteries of serious corporate computing power.

As an Atomican, you generally push your rig hard. You clock it up, you tighten the timings and you cool the bejebus out of it. You stand back and watch your buddies drool at the quad GPU meltdown.

The data centres of the world are playing a very different game however. ‘Big Iron’ is a term of respect for extremely large, powerful computing infrastructure.

Leave your desktop at the door.

The technology found in a typical high performance computing (HPC) environment is alien to desktop computing. We’ll break it down into a few sections for easy digestion:

* CPU engineering
* Networking
* Storage
* Graphics/GPU/SPU
* Hardware management techniques
* Software (OS/architecture)
* Filesystems

Read on to find out all about the ultimate in big boys’ toys!

 
 »
 
This article appeared in the October, 2008 issue of Atomic.

Behind the scenes with Mass Effect 3! GTX 560 VGA round-up! Essential Skyrim tweaks to improve your game! Plus reviews, news, hardware, more games, and easy to following modding guides for PC builders. ON SALE NOW!
3 Comments
Fat_Bodybuilder
Nov 3, 2008 8:14 PM
Have to say this was an AWESOME read in the mag, loved it.
Athiril
Nov 3, 2008 8:42 PM
"Guitar Hero-obsessed JB-Hi Fi employee mates" < they talking about morris?
SceptreCore
Nov 4, 2008 3:43 PM
I loved it, great read... I thoroughly enjoy it.

Except for the server errors I kept getting when trying to read it.

Damn Faldo, most likely his fault! :P
Comments have been disabled on this article.
 
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Atomic Magazine

Issue: 133 | February, 2012

Atomic is a magazine aimed squarely at computer enthusiasts, gamers, and serious PC upgraders.

Every month we bring you the latest reviews of new technology and PC components, in depth features on everything from overclocking to console hacking, and gaming previews and interviews.
 
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