Hitachi Ltd has announced five new models of its HITAC S-3800 supercomputer. The new models included two improved versions of existing models with enhanced memory – Models 470 and 270, two low-end models with enhanced scalar processing performance Models 162 and 142 – and a new entry-level Model 140. All went on sale in Japan from May 17. The top of the range remains the S-3800/480, upgradable to a maximum of 32Gb of extended storage and a maximum vector performance of 32 GFLOPS. A new machine, the S-3600/180, becomes an additional system for supercomputing services offered from Hitachi’s Omori Laboratory, near Tokyo. Prices go from $220,360 a month for the S-3800/140 to $883,650 a month for the S-3800/470.
