Latest News and Financial Information | Reuters.com
http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuot...4238854_newsml

Here's some highlights:
> The deal also calls for the German luxury car maker to buy computers using only processors from the world's top chipmaker, which has come under increasing pressure from AMD.
>
> AMD has made inroads into the network computer market with its Opteron server processor, and in the laptop market with its Turion chip.

And let's not forget the really important aspects of racing, MP3 players:
> Under the deal, BMW and Intel will also work together over the next several years to develop a way to easily integrate consumer devices such as laptops, portable music players and mobile telephones into BMW cars, Lewnes said.

On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 22:40:11 -0500, Yousuf Khan <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Latest News and Financial Information | Reuters.com
>http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuot...4238854_newsml
>
>Here's some highlights:
>> The deal also calls for the German luxury car maker to buy computers using only processors from the world's top chipmaker, which has come under increasing pressure from AMD.
>>
>> AMD has made inroads into the network computer market with its Opteron server processor, and in the laptop market with its Turion chip.
>
>And let's not forget the really important aspects of racing, MP3 players:
>> Under the deal, BMW and Intel will also work together over the next several years to develop a way to easily integrate consumer devices such as laptops, portable music players and mobile telephones into BMW cars, Lewnes said.

I'm sure it will all be as successful and well-recieved as umm,
iDrive.<snigger>

--
Rgds, George Macdonald

On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 22:40:11 -0500, Yousuf Khan <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Latest News and Financial Information | Reuters.com
>http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuot...4238854_newsml
>
>Here's some highlights:
>> The deal also calls for the German luxury car maker to buy computers using only processors from the world's top chipmaker, which has come under increasing pressure from AMD.
>>
>> AMD has made inroads into the network computer market with its Opteron server processor, and in the laptop market with its Turion chip.
>
>And let's not forget the really important aspects of racing, MP3 players:
>> Under the deal, BMW and Intel will also work together over the next several years to develop a way to easily integrate consumer devices such as laptops, portable music players and mobile telephones into BMW cars, Lewnes said.

Well now, that's kinda of interesting because Sauber (the Formula 1
team that BMW just bought out a couple months ago to form the basis of
their own branded team) was something of a success story for AMD. A
quick Google search turns up this AMD press release from a year and a
half ago:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/V...~86604,00.html

Or more directly from Sauber's own site:

http://www.sauber.ch/en/sauber/albert/index.php

A whole big description of "Albert", their supercomputing cluster
based on AMD Opteron chips.

I wonder if this new BMW/Intel deal means that Albert will be
searching for a new employer in the new year? I hear Super Aguri is
hiring! :>

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 23:39:53 -0500, Tony Hill <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 22:40:11 -0500, Yousuf Khan <(E-Mail Removed)>
>wrote:
>
>>Latest News and Financial Information | Reuters.com
>>http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuot...4238854_newsml
>>
>>Here's some highlights:
>>> The deal also calls for the German luxury car maker to buy computers using only processors from the world's top chipmaker, which has come under increasing pressure from AMD.
>>>
>>> AMD has made inroads into the network computer market with its Opteron server processor, and in the laptop market with its Turion chip.
>>
>>And let's not forget the really important aspects of racing, MP3 players:
>>> Under the deal, BMW and Intel will also work together over the next several years to develop a way to easily integrate consumer devices such as laptops, portable music players and mobile telephones into BMW cars, Lewnes said.
>
>Well now, that's kinda of interesting because Sauber (the Formula 1
>team that BMW just bought out a couple months ago to form the basis of
>their own branded team) was something of a success story for AMD. A
>quick Google search turns up this AMD press release from a year and a
>half ago:
>
>http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/V...~86604,00.html
>
>Or more directly from Sauber's own site:
>
>http://www.sauber.ch/en/sauber/albert/index.php
>
>A whole big description of "Albert", their supercomputing cluster
>based on AMD Opteron chips.
>
>I wonder if this new BMW/Intel deal means that Albert will be
>searching for a new employer in the new year? I hear Super Aguri is
>hiring! :>

That *is* an interesting dilemma for BMW - maybe if they keep Albert
secret in future, nobody will notice.:-)

OTOH if McLaren got dumped by Intel -- the aborted announcement from Monza
where Intel was described as "incandescent with rage" -- they might be
inclined to wear the green logo next year. My opinion: it's quite likely
that BMW, Thiessen in particular, is going to **** it all up -- "use the
iDrive Jacques"<snigger> -- and Intel will have nothing to boast about in
F1.

--
Rgds, George Macdonald

Tony Hill wrote:
> Well now, that's kinda of interesting because Sauber (the Formula 1
> team that BMW just bought out a couple months ago to form the basis of
> their own branded team) was something of a success story for AMD. A
> quick Google search turns up this AMD press release from a year and a
> half ago:

Yes, it was, and that's partially why I brought it up too, because an
almost brand-spanking new multi-million dollar supercluster is likely
going to be mothballed for no other reason than sponsorship politics.
But I'm sure it's going to keep being used into this year, until Intel
gets enough parts together to get them a new Xeon cluster.

> I wonder if this new BMW/Intel deal means that Albert will be
> searching for a new employer in the new year? I hear Super Aguri is
> hiring! :>

Using a 4-year old Arrows chassis together with a top-line new Honda
engine, yeah, that'll require lots of computing power. The computations
of last place. :-)

Yousuf Khan

George Macdonald wrote:
> That *is* an interesting dilemma for BMW - maybe if they keep Albert
> secret in future, nobody will notice.:-)

Some enterprising reporter might get wind of it, and make some hay out
of it. ;-)

> OTOH if McLaren got dumped by Intel -- the aborted announcement from Monza
> where Intel was described as "incandescent with rage" -- they might be
> inclined to wear the green logo next year. My opinion: it's quite likely
> that BMW, Thiessen in particular, is going to **** it all up -- "use the
> iDrive Jacques"<snigger> -- and Intel will have nothing to boast about in
> F1.
>

McLaren just bought the Itanium cluster from SGI last year too,
replacing their Sun machines, while at the same time retaining Sun as
their sponsor all of that year. Sun must have been incandescent, waiting
for the opportunity to leave them this year. Sun won't need Intel's
sponsorship, they just picked off Vodafone from Ferrari.

Yousuf Khan

On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 09:53:45 -0500, Yousuf Khan <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Tony Hill wrote:
>> Well now, that's kinda of interesting because Sauber (the Formula 1
>> team that BMW just bought out a couple months ago to form the basis of
>> their own branded team) was something of a success story for AMD. A
>> quick Google search turns up this AMD press release from a year and a
>> half ago:
>
>Yes, it was, and that's partially why I brought it up too, because an
>almost brand-spanking new multi-million dollar supercluster is likely
>going to be mothballed for no other reason than sponsorship politics.
>But I'm sure it's going to keep being used into this year, until Intel
>gets enough parts together to get them a new Xeon cluster.

Makes you wonder just how the two cluster will end up comparing to one
another? Will last years 500 processor Opteron cluster be able to
compete with next year's 500 processor Xeon cluster? Will Intel need
to pony up a 1,000 processor dual-core Xeon cluster just to make it
fast enough to not be too embarrassed?

My understanding is that Computational Fluid Dynamics is an area where
AMD's Opteron chips tend to do VERY well relative to the Xeon. Going
to the Itanium (which I believe also does fairly well in CFD) is
probably somewhat undesirable due to all the changes in software it
would require.

>> I wonder if this new BMW/Intel deal means that Albert will be
>> searching for a new employer in the new year? I hear Super Aguri is
>> hiring! :>
>
>Using a 4-year old Arrows chassis together with a top-line new Honda
>engine, yeah, that'll require lots of computing power. The computations
>of last place. :-)

LOL! That's about it, I'm not sure they'll need a 500-processor
cluster to calculate that! For this year though it doesn't even look
like they'll make the starting grid, so I'd say that it's a bit of a
moot point.

That being said, Sauber did demonstrate to the F1 world just how CFD
can really benefit things. With a budget of SIGNIFICANTLY less than
the big teams they were still able to field cars that occasionally
scored points (more so for 2004 than 2005). My understanding is that
their budget isn't THAT much bigger than Jordan or Minardis, yet they
were able to consistently outperform those teams. So maybe having a
decent computing cluster and CFD software is exactly what Super Aguri
will need if they hope to be anything other than bottom-feeders in the
next 5 years.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca

Tony Hill wrote:
> LOL! That's about it, I'm not sure they'll need a 500-processor
> cluster to calculate that! For this year though it doesn't even look
> like they'll make the starting grid, so I'd say that it's a bit of a
> moot point.

Well, it does look like somebody has noticed Albert, and they're asking
Sauber to get rid of it.

BMW drops AMD supercomputer for Intel boxes
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28390

On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 10:02:24 -0500, Yousuf Khan <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>George Macdonald wrote:
>> That *is* an interesting dilemma for BMW - maybe if they keep Albert
>> secret in future, nobody will notice.:-)
>
>Some enterprising reporter might get wind of it, and make some hay out
>of it. ;-)
>
>> OTOH if McLaren got dumped by Intel -- the aborted announcement from Monza
>> where Intel was described as "incandescent with rage" -- they might be
>> inclined to wear the green logo next year. My opinion: it's quite likely
>> that BMW, Thiessen in particular, is going to **** it all up -- "use the
>> iDrive Jacques"<snigger> -- and Intel will have nothing to boast about in
>> F1.
>>
>
>McLaren just bought the Itanium cluster from SGI last year too,
>replacing their Sun machines, while at the same time retaining Sun as
>their sponsor all of that year. Sun must have been incandescent, waiting
>for the opportunity to leave them this year. Sun won't need Intel's
>sponsorship, they just picked off Vodafone from Ferrari.

You mean McLaren "won't need...." of course. But the Vodaphone deal starts
Jan 2007 - AFAIK it's still not clear who will be the title sponsor for
McLaren for 2006?

It's also not clear how much advertising real estate Intel gets on the
BMW-Sauber. Just 3 weeks ago Petronas signed up as the title sponsor... or
is this just more Intel dirty play?

--
Rgds, George Macdonald

On Sat, 17 Dec 2005 18:45:55 -0500, Tony Hill <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 09:53:45 -0500, Yousuf Khan <(E-Mail Removed)>
>wrote:

>>Using a 4-year old Arrows chassis together with a top-line new Honda
>>engine, yeah, that'll require lots of computing power. The computations
>>of last place. :-)
>
>LOL! That's about it, I'm not sure they'll need a 500-processor
>cluster to calculate that! For this year though it doesn't even look
>like they'll make the starting grid, so I'd say that it's a bit of a
>moot point.
>
>That being said, Sauber did demonstrate to the F1 world just how CFD
>can really benefit things. With a budget of SIGNIFICANTLY less than
>the big teams they were still able to field cars that occasionally
>scored points (more so for 2004 than 2005). My understanding is that
>their budget isn't THAT much bigger than Jordan or Minardis, yet they
>were able to consistently outperform those teams. So maybe having a
>decent computing cluster and CFD software is exactly what Super Aguri
>will need if they hope to be anything other than bottom-feeders in the
>next 5 years.

I don't think Sauber "demonstrated" anything at all - CFD has been is use
in racing car design for several years now... as a pre-design step to wind
tunnel testing. Ron Dennis has been quoted as saying that F1 is years
ahead of the aircraft industry in aero design, though that may be a bit of
stretch.

--
Rgds, George Macdonald