“Terra Soft, the company behind the Yellow Dog and Black Lab
Linux PowerPC distros has released a supercomputer cluster based on
Apple’s iMac. They’re teaming up with Marathon Computers of
Nashville Tennessee, who have been building Apple PowerPC-based
racks for several years.”
“Each unit is comprised of eight of Marathon’s “iRacks”: an iMac
but without the monitor or casing. Marathon sells its tower Macs to
musicians, ISPs or for speciaised lab applications such as data
acquisition, the company’s marketing honcho Michael Roland tells
us, with the bulk of the business being G4s.”
“So we wondered if this could qualify as the world’s quietest
supercomputer cluster, as the iMacs are celebrated for not having a
noisy case fan. It’s not exactly silent says Roland, as Marathon
does provide a system fan for the cluster. But it’s still pretty
quiet for the MIPS you’re getting.”