The chassis of the ESC 1000 is the size of a desktop computer, at 445mm x 217.5mm x 545mm, according to a spec sheet supplied by Asus. The memory capacity of the ESC 1000 is 24GB, while the product will come with a 1,100 watt power supply.
The hardware supports 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2008 and 2003, Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS5.0, and Suse Linux Enterprise Server 10.
Asus told ZDNet UK on Wednesday that the ESC 1000 would cost $24,519 (£14,968) over five years per unit, which includes power and maintenance costs. No UK-specific information was available at the time of writing.
Asus added that various internet reports stating the ESC 1000 was developed in conjunction with National Chao Tung University in Taiwan were incorrect, but added that the product had been launched at the university as part of a press event.
Talkback
so by the looks of things the cost of creating a local super computer have fallen then, mind you where this stands up against renting a slot on virtual cloud processing unit I'm not sure if it's intended to or not.
Came across this article the other day that might be of some interest to people, by the looks of things both Intel & AMD are going to have some competition soon, which not a bad thing.
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/Tilera-Talks-100Core-Processor-376613/