There's still time to bid on this decommissioned petaflop supercomputer including 8,064 Intel Xeon CPUs but no cables—local collection only
We're always on the hunt for hardware deals here at PC Gamer, but this might be a bit much even by our standards. The US General Services administration is currently auctioning off a decommissioned 5.34 petaflop supercomputer, and although the starting price was a mere $2,500, the top bid is currently $280,085. A bargain, we think you'll agree, but it does come with the odd issue.
The Cheyenne Super Computer was originally operated between January 2017 and December 2023 at the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing centre, and at the time of its installation was ranked as the 20th most powerful computer in the world (via Ars Technica). Many moons may have passed since then, but according to Wikipedia it still counted as the 160th most powerful as of last November, so it's not exactly a slouch even by modern standards.
Specs? Oh, nothing too excessive, just 8,064 Intel Xeon E5-2697v4 CPUs, each with 18 cores, a Turbo frequency of 3.6GHz and a 145W TDP. That's a total core count of 145,152, in combination with a combined total of 313,344 GB of DDR4-2400 RAM. However, the listing warns that you might have to keep an eye on that memory, as over its 7 years of operation «Approximately 1% of nodes experienced failure…primarily attributed to DIMMs with ECC errors, which will remain unrepaired»
There's a few other small factors to take into account, too. For a start, it doesn't come with any fibre optic or CAT5/6 cabling, which may add up to quite the additional expense if you do decide to pull the trigger. The listing also warns that:
«Moving this system necessitates the engagement of a professional moving company. Due to their considerable weight, the racks require experienced movers equipped with proper Professional Protection Equipment (PPE) to ensure safe handling. The purchaser assumes responsibility for transferring the racks from the facility onto trucks using their equipment.»
Seems a bit excessive if you ask me, although I'm sure your pals would help out with the promise of
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