Government CPU'S

[jkac123]

Is it true the Government gets the highest powered CPU'S 1st? That is for example, we are able to buy a 1.5 CPU they already have ,maybe a 2.0 gig?

[Stan]

Where did you hear/read that ?

[jkac123]

stan,
To be perfectly honest I cant remember exactly when or where, I just recall the topic coming up one time in a conversation. I kinda believed it at the time and never second guessed it. It seemed logical that they would have the best advanced technoligy before the rest of us. I was talking to my son about these new high powered units and this made me think of it. Interesting huh? I still would like to know!

[krusty the klown]

Who needs a 2.0GHz CPU when you can just network / cluster for more number-crunching??

This 64-node Athlon 700 Beowulf cluster would kick any 2.0G P4 if you need G-FLOPS... and if you want more power, just tack on a few more boxes!
http://arstechnica.com/cpu/2q00/klat2/klat2-1.html

Awwww... just look!! Innit cute??? Don't ya just wanna overclock em? http://www.sysopt.com/forum/biggrin.gif http://www.sysopt.com/forum/biggrin.gif

[Goldwingnut]

In my experience: no.

I've worked on government contracts continuously since 1973. In my experience, government buyers are extremely conservative. They won't spend money on something that isn't tried and proven. Better to spend taxpayer dollars on a proven "yesterdays news" product than on a new Intel chip that makes math errors.

These buyers want to make it to retirement without making any blunders that may cost them their job. They tend to pay high prices to vendors they know and trust, and buy things proven over time.

[Emc2]

If you go to the average military installation, you'll find that many computers they use are P-166, PII-233, or celeron 300. Perhaps in Nevada or Washington they use supercomputers, and maybe for a server on each base, but not for regular computers.

Do you know how much manpower it would take to install new stuff in order to keep up with the growing technology?

[jkac123]

Allllllllllrighty then, I guess that makes it clear. I have to thank you all for clearing this up. THANK YOU.

[jpheg]

Computer hardware is often custom-designed for the needs of particularly large organizations, such as the US military. I have an uncle in Seattle who got a big vat of leftover parts from just such systems. It seems that there is considerable demand for these surplus components, such as chips, because they are often built with higher-than-average minumum specs. When the gov't needs to stay ahead of the regular industry, they take no chances on any unproven technology fouling-up. That's one reason why government contracts cost the taxpayers so much, particularly in the high tech weapons development field.
...
It would really suck if your Jet Fighter's comp locked up while under fire. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[Bob The Great]

hahahahaha!!!! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif I'm part of a military family. So I'm on base allot. All you ever here is comlaint about how painfully slow everything is! Sure some lucky (and high ranking) people get cely 600's. But the normal Military Joe gets about a 100-300 mhz machine. Allot have dumbell terminals, and a few still have old 486's, 386's, and (I've seen it with my own eyes) 286's! It is sad!

[This message has been edited by Bob The Great (edited 04-08-2001).]

[Richard_Cranium72]

I work for one of the largest employers in the US.

We just got rid of our Dell 166's

Our "New" machines are Celery 600's

This might not sound too bad, but consider our system in my location has about 35 background running programs.

So, they are soooo slow it's pitiful.

Not Govt. buy our buyers do the same thing, CYA

DrVette

[jkac123]

Thinking back now I recall where all this started. It came up regarding the high intelligance departments getting there hands on the latest, greatest processors to stay ahead of everyone else. that is why it made since to me, and never second guessed it. I am not speaking so much of the office employees.

[torskdoc]

lessee....I work at Naval Academy for last 12 years.
No I wouldn't say that the Government gets the fastest computers before everyone else UNLESS it was as described above for special ops or something that takes an ungodly amount of power.

These are what I have had in office in last 10 years.
KLUDGE!
Zenith z286 1991
Everex 486DX-33 1993
Micron Pent 166 1997
Micron P-III 450 1999

Barebones units No more than 64mb ram, 2G HD, 4mg savage video cards.

And the middies here get ZAPPED up the KA-ZOO for a computer. $2200, for a P-III 700 with bare minimum **** on them.

Government contracts.....PHOOOOOEY!

Give ME $2200, and I could BUILD a Killer system. (or two!)

Larry

[This message has been edited by torskdoc (edited 04-09-2001).]

[chuckiechan]

Hey, I work for a cheepie private construction company that still uses 5 1/4 floppies & owner's wife drives a Lexus!

In fact, they still are using Win 3.1!

It is slow, and it ain't pretty, but it works!

[CMonster]

My best and oldest friend works for a company that produces radar imaging equipment like what was in the US plane which is now the center of so much controversy -I can tell you for a fact that these are the kind of systems that the US government (and others) purchase. Currently his company is using multiple CPU G4 systems - these units can easily have as many as 120 CPUs. When it comes to these applications stability and efficiency is of utmost concern so although they use relatively lower mhz range, they make up for it by SMP and the fact that the G4 can do more MFLOPS per watt of power consumed than a much faster x86 chip for example.

[captpete]

What government (fed, state, county), what agency (re feds) and the region of the country determine the level of power, just like anything else in government. Those without any budgetary accountability (CIA, MI)have the best - stuff we haven't even heard of. But most government agencies are scandalously underpowered because they buy under our bid laws, which guarantees mediocrity because most government agencies don't know how to write a computer bid. They end up with discontinued and/or obsolete units with the cheapest components like 16 MB of p66 and think the higher the nanoseconds, the better.

[jkac123]

captpete,

So you agree that the CIA or others do you stuff we may not even heard of?

[skuz]

I sometimes do computer deliveries for the government (Canadian), they get about the same thing we would buy at the time, but they pay MUUUUUUCH more than we do.

[Andy_L]

Simply because of budgets, some of the Government agencies have the newest most powerful systems, but we are talking mainframe grade machines, not PCs.

[Shadowhaxor]

Well, i work for a Government agency, and i can tell you one thing. It depends on what branch or the Gov, and how much the equipment is. I work in a 2 man IS department, and we have the lastest and greatest (helps when there is no overhead, with 2 workers). We have about 11 HP Netservers with P3 xeon 700, and 3 Kayaks. The rest is pretty updated, like p3 650-800. But the lower end is usually a p2 450. So it depends alot.

[Emc2]

Well, if you think about it, if every computer were 1 GHz PIII's with 32MB video card and 128-256MB of RAM, what do you think the average guy who used it would do?

I'd take that sucker and turn it into a private gaming machine at work, for those "leisure" times. While playing online with my games, I might get a virus. This virus could very easily spread throughout my military installation.

Hence, there are really crappy computers with about 35 background programs running for the average guy.

[captpete]

jkac123,

Yes, I would think so. For instance, back in Desert Storm, our guys were using handheld GPS's that did more than the best you could buy for your boat. And of course they were more accurate by design. So imagine what they are doing with, say, PDA's?

[MadMatt]

Wow, I feel really lucky and spoiled after hearing people complain about their work computers. Sometime next month the company will be replacing my current system (PIII 650, 256mb, 15GB, 17" monitor, NT4) with a brand new P4 1.5Ghz, 256mb RDRAM, 40GB, 19" monitor, Win2K pro system. Didn't even ask for it... No Geforce3 tho - I guess we all have our crosses to bear.... :P

[jpheg]

Intelligence, eh?

[U-96]

...there is also a very specialised market in providing "ruggedized" components. My dad spent much of his career in the air force as a test engineer approving such components with destructive and non-destructive testing.
Coming up with a CPU that can withstand the EM pulse from a nuke or a fuel fire is expensive and time consuming, hence most stuff is perhaps one or two generations behind, but it will be the only stuff left when someone presses the big red shiny button... http://www.sysopt.com/forum/biggrin.gif

[jkac123]

EMc2,

I would like to think that if we are talking about the CIA, Etc. that these folk's would not be goofing off all day playing games, and this would not be a concern weather or not they have enough balls in the PC.
After all they really should have their minds on something a little bit more important, like world Peace.I agree that you make a good point with what you say regarding your everyday office worker or Avg. worker.

[jkac123]

Captpete,
I like to here your input on this. You pretty much make it clear with the couple points you have made. I am glad to see so much reply to this and finally get an answer. I can now feel confident in speaking about this. I truly was not sure at the begining of this topic. Now that you brought it up, I have a friend that was in the STORM. He maybe able to also put some light on the subject! After all , if you ask me it just makes a lot of since that the CIA etc. would have the upper hand on this sort of technololgy. I am all for it. If this is what it takes for our freedom, then I am glad to wait a short period of time to catch up with whatever advanced technology they have.

[costerjr]

I submit to all that the "government" is just like any other community of computer users.

There are those that NEED the latest, bestest and baddest stuff AND CAN GET IT....and then there are the schmo's that just need something to play "Solitare" on that do little more than wait for the end of the work day.

Some that would need the baddest: Intelegence, Cryptography and "Brute Force" password cracking takes allot of processor time. But, after doing a little reading, they may choose to use a "distributed" computing system...spread the work out through a LARGE network of CPU's...no need for the biggest and baddest there.

Hell, when you think of it this way, who needs a BIG BAD CPU? Little guys like us, that need to pack as much punch as we can in ONE box...cause we can't afford the technical genius and toys to do REALLY BIG stuff.

CAD Drafting, 3D Modeling etc...

Consider too the space programs; I'm sure they all START with the LATEST AND GREATEST, but by the time the equipment is actually put to use in critical applications, it is dated...old...and trustworthy.

Tis one big cycle...

[BUMTY]

hey jkac the government are ahead of the game - beleive me

as an American senater stated in public quote ( what the government has now, the public will not know about for 100 years )

a good example is the hunble VCR it was invented in the early 1930's we in the UK did not get it till the mid seventies. OVER HERE IN THE THIRTIES THE GENERAL PUBLIC DID NOT EVEN HAVE TELEVISIONS. and of course technoligy is now advancing at a much faster pace, so you would probably not even be able to imagine what they have.

[BC]

there are lots of other places that get there hands on the newest tech before the rest of us as well. But as far as the Gov getting it before us is just wrong. I think it used to be that way. in the days of mainframe and cold war era. Just to try and break the Enigma machine http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[jkac123]

costerjr,

You bring up a good point regarding the space program! That opens another can of worms. Now i have to believe if anyone out there would have the latest, greatest technology, it would be NASA!

[LemonHead]

well a guy i know's brother works at oracle and he has a spiffy laptop for his job (his job is to get into hacker's computer, say if they breach US military computers' defence, and find what software they are using). He doesn't even know what he's using. He just sends it on to the "yanks" (he lives in canada) and they put loadsa stuff on it.

muchos funkios...

[cedar2]

You guys are all mistaking high technology for efficent use of that technology. A 10 gig processor isn't going to make the person using the processor any better at their job but it sure will be giving all you gamers hot flashes.

[turbo]

When we were all sprouting about our i266 with a wopping 32 Meg ram and 2.2 Gig Hdd.

The tracking station 20 Kilometres out of town were running 50 - 60 Gig machines with 1 Gig ram 450 MHz Cpu's 21 inch monitors. This place we nicknamed the spy base is a combined opperation between Australia & America. I know this because one of the towns first and better Techs worked out there. He wasn't giving away any secrets.
So what are they using today?

wishful turbo http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[jkac123]

turbo,

You kinda sum up my original ?.