On Monday, Microsoft and supercomputer manufacturer Cray announced that they have teamed up to release the Cray CX1, the most affordable supercomputer that Cray has ever created. Prices start at $25,000 and range up to $60,000.

The CX1 will run Microsoft HPC Server 2008 and is purpose built for offices, laboratories and other non-traditional HPC environments. The system incorporates up to 8 nodes and 16 Intel Xeon processors, either dual or quad core, and delivers up to 64 gigabytes of memory per node. It also features up to 4 terabytes of internal storage. Cray says that it doesn't requires a dedicated computer room, special power or cooling requirements like typical supercomputers.

Scientists at the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging at UCLA plan to use a Cray CX1 with Microsoft HPC Server 2008 for mathematical modeling and visualization.

Over at the Windows Server division blog, Tina Couch explained that ordering a CX1 is "as easy as shopping on Amazon.com. Customers can go online, order the CX1 system using a configurator and pay with credit card. If that’s not making supercomputing mainstream, I don’t know what is."

We could not find the CX1 on Amazon, yet.

Posted: Sep 17, 2008 11:31 pm