Recent advances in general purpose GPU computing are beginning to shift perceptions in supercomputing applications. Belgian researchers have assembled a relatively simple enthusiast PC with an emphasis on graphics processing capability, which beats a multi-million dollar supercomputer in its target application. The desktop PC, called Fastra, was built with a focus on the development of new computational methods for tomography.

Tomography is a technique used in medical scanners to create three-dimensional images of the internal organs of patients, based on a large number of x-ray photos that are acquired over a range of angles. As these 3D images can be quite large, advanced reconstruction techniques can sometimes require weeks of computation time on a regular PC. Which means that supercomputers are usually required to process computer tomography (CT) images.


The research group Vision Lab at the University of Antwerp came up with a different solution and constructed a PC that integrates four GeForce 9800 GX2 graphic cards (with a total of eight GPU cores) that runs CUDA-optimized tomography applications. The specifications include a MSI K9A2 Platinum motherboard, an AMD Phenom 9850 CPU, 4 x 2 GB Corsair TWINX DDR2 PC6400 memory, a Samsung Spinpoint F1 750 GB hard drive, a Thermaltake Toughpower 1500W Modular power supply unit as well as four MSI 9800GX2 cards. The researchers said that the cost of the system was less than 4000 Euro or about $5300.

You can read the entire article at TG Daily.