“A new company thinks it has the answer to the complaints of scientists and engineers looking for high-performance computing (HPC) on the desktop. The Orion Cluster Workstation packs the power of a PC cluster into a desktop-size package using low-power chips and an innovative motherboard design.

Orion Multisystems Inc. will emerge from stealth mode on Monday with news of its workstation product. The Santa Clara, Calif., company hopes to bring back the days of the technical workstation, when engineers could have a computer at their desks that was far more advanced than the PCs of the time, said Orion president, CEO and co-founder Colin Hunter….

The Orion Cluster Workstation simply takes the idea of a cluster and puts it inside a desktop machine. The company’s first product, the DT-12, is a 12-node cluster that measures 18.4 inches long by 24 inches wide by 3.8 inches high (46.7cm by 61cm by 9.7cm), about the same as a conventional desktop PC.

But this PC puts out about 18 gigaflops of sustained performance, and 36 gigaflops of peak performance under certain conditions. Transmeta Corp.’s 90-nanometer Efficeon processors are the reason Orion can pack so much performance into a relatively small package, Hunter said. Hunter and Orion vice-president of engineering Ed Kelly are very familiar with Transmeta’s chips, having co-founded that company prior to joining Orion.”