Two as One?

[Thorax_the_Impaler]

Hello everyone; I'd just like to put to rest an argument a friend of mine and I have had for quite some time now and these forums seem like just the place to get an answer we can trust.

Basically, a friend of mine and I are die-hard computer enthusiasts, to say the least. I should also point out that neither of us are experts by a country mile. However, I recall one time talking to him about two identical desktop PCs in his garage which were running at the same time. He told me that these two machines were basically connected so that they acted as one whole processing system. Two completely seperate desktop towers acting as one essentially. (He also made the claim the setup was, and I quote "powerful"). I called complete ******** on that as I personally have never heard of anything like that. Well after some research and very long conversations with techies I've never even met, I was told that it was possible but completely hypothetical and even moreso pointless. Taking all of the answers I've ever gotten about this topic, I've come to the conclusion that even if that was the case and the two towers were acting as one, sharing all processing tasks and whatnot, the speeds at which the motherboards would communicate would be so slow that it would defeat the purpose of trying to combine their processing power.

Again, I don't buy the notion of that setup nor do I believe it would function nearly as intended if it worked. So, to put a long-time argument to rest (and we are talking +2 years here), does the setup I've described even seem possible and if it is would it be even remotely useful?

 

[PP Mguire]

It is possible, but not for everyday tasks. If he is trying to say they are linked together to act as one for gaming then he is talking out his ass. If he means as a server cluster of sorts then sure, but again depending on the task or hardware in question still pointless.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Depends as PP said. If he is building a server cluster for something like F@H, and builds his OWN fully fledged operating system, then yea, they can act as "one" using a high speed network backbone.

It is similar to how a super computer is build, it's really thousands of smaller computers clustered together and linked via a network backbone at incredibly high speeds. At this point, a fully customized OS, and BIOS for each component tends to be needed in order for the entire system to function properly and share the load.

 

[Thorax_the_Impaler]

@PPMguire: He said it was setup for gaming; which was the main reason I assumed he was just spewing ****. That, and the fact he'd never let me examine it.

@c0rr0sive: No; the system it was running was a dual boot of Win. XP and what I would assume to be some earlier flavor of Linux. I'm confident nobody in that family has the know-how to do what you described; and even if they did, the hardware that SHOULD be in those towers (as they were prebuilt in a factory; and I know because I had one of that model) wouldn't produce a decent gaming experience even if combined.

 

[PP Mguire]

Haha yup, nothin but BS.

 

[Oreo]

I don't think you can really use two computers connected over a network for realtime computing tasks.. like games. The latency to split processing and send it over a network would be too high for that to work I suspect, and that is assuming you can do it, which you can't - as the other have said.

It's only possible if two computers say "I'll do this part, and you do this part, and we'll compile the answer when we are both done" such as calculating a very difficult maths problem.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Which, that is where a backbone built specially for such a purpose comes into play, as well as a operating system that can handle the task you described. But these computers, latency doesn't exactly matter after the tasks have been assigned, as it will take awhile for the results to become evident... Super computers and clusters only have one purpose, and that is never going to be gaming.