[ Thanks to Low, Kuan
Loong for this link. ]
“A Penn State engineering professor says low-cost personal
computers linked to form systems with supercomputer-like
capabilities – popularly known as Beowulf clusters – can be a
faster, cheaper alternative for many chemists, physicists,
aeronautical engineers, electrical engineers and others who now
have to wait to use machines at national supercomputer
centers.”
“Dr. Lyle Long, professor of aerospace engineering, says,
“Lots of people who are using supercomputer centers are running
only 16 processors at a time. They may find it more convenient to
use these kinds of clusters and to leave the supercomputers to
those who need 200 or more processors.“
“There are some very important scientific questions in surface
chemistry, supercritical fluids, quantum Monte Carlo, chemical
kinetics and aeroacoustics that can be tackled using relatively
small-scale molecular dynamics, Monte Carlo, integral methods, or
finite differences codes,” he adds.”