If you call 4 quad zeons a supercomputer, you're in for a surprise. I use more than 450W - and I know of plenty of groups at my company that have specialized build servers that use plenty themselves. HDs aren't free, memory isn't free...and SLI isn't free. Tesla pushes 800W, and who knows what Fermi based Tesla GPGPUs will use. It's wholly possible...were you to say that 1KW was insane in a PC, sure...but not 800W.
Just to give you an idea of a supercomputer, there's one in China that uses 7 thousand of AMD's processors, and 3 thousand of intel's. All combined.
AFAIK, it's not possible to use more than 4 cards in tandem. So nothing will run Crysis on Scripted high quality settings, DX10.1, 16xAA/AF. Though 2x Hd5970 might, :p.
Uuuh....I ran it on high with my GTX280. The 4870X2 did better, but I ran it on high/ultra high with no issues. Mind you, I had to OC my Q6600 to keep up with my GTX280...
You are not reading my posts. A normal blade might have the 4 xeon setup. There are about 14 blades in one bladecenter. You have 4 or 5 of those in one Rack. And then a room full of those racks. That is one type of supercomputer. I know what I'm talking about. Also those setups need a different approach to power supply. It has to be redundant and as cool as possible. Supercomputers wouldn't run at all because of the heat if you just stuffed way too big PSU into them. Thankfully those guys have to use a bit common sense to make their computers work, the just put the biggest number into the machine and see your epenis grow won't work there.
I edited their options to put it mostly into very high, while dropping a few hidden settings to high. The files are out there, I'd need to find them again. Using the settings panel, it is impossible to do very high on a GTX280. Using the config files (which look identical at the end of the day) made it possible. Heck, I played the first Crysis on my 8800GTS on high.
