Power consumption of large computers.

A thread of 2 messages, 18 November 1993 to 19 November 1993, in the order they were sent.

#6346 Power consumption of large computers.

Steve Gibbons · 18 November 1993

This is a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but:

The latest MP Crays will have up to 1024 (2048?) DECchip 21064s (AKA Alpha) in
them.  Each chip draws about 30 watts, as I remember.  Serious computational
abilities, and serious energy consumption...  :)  Big bucks, too (about $30M, I
think, for the fully loaded model.)

Don't forget to include ancilary power consumption (dedicated air-conditioners,
terminals, storage-media, etc.)  Even with all of that factored in, The numbers
from GDW seem kinda high to me.  (by an order of magnitude or two.)

- --
[email removed]

#6349 Re: Power consumption of large computers.

Eric Edward Moore · 19 November 1993 · reply to #6346

Steve Gibbons [email removed] writes:
> The latest MP Crays will have up to 1024 (2048?) DECchip 21064s (AKA Alpha) in
> them.  Each chip draws about 30 watts, as I remember.  Serious computational
> abilities, and serious energy consumption...  :)  Big bucks, too (about $30M, I
> think, for the fully loaded model.)

Apparantly the Cray Y-MP has a far higher power consumption than the
new many-alpha cray (T3d?)....

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