Features of the Silicon Graphics Molecule concept include:

• High concurrency with 20,000 threads of execution — 40 times more than a single rack x86 cluster system
  
• High throughput with 15TB/sec of memory bandwidth per rack — over 20 times faster than a single rack x86 cluster system
  
• Greater balance with up to three times the memory bandwidth/OPS compared to current x86 CPUs
  
• High performance with approximately 3.5 times the computational performance per rack
  
• Greener with low-watt consumer CPUs and low-power memory that deliver 7 times better memory bandwidth/watt
  
• Innovative Silicon Graphics Kelvin cooling technology, which enables denser packaging by stabilizing thermal operations in densely configured solutions
  
• Operating environment flexibility, capable of running industry-standard Linux® implementations, with Microsoft® Windows® variants on some configurations
  

Classic problems appear to be solved. Speeds and feeds, heat and power. Not sure how they solve memory bandwidth bottlenecks at this density. Likely a NUMA (CC-NUMA?) architecture, but that would likely force memory down to the already improbably crowded processing modules. Cooling will be critical in a system such as this. Silicon Graphics® Kelvin™ cooling technology professes to solve this problem.

Granted, this is a prototype and may never be built for sale. It may never be built at all. I remain skeptical. I wish I were at SuperComputing 08 in Austin, TX this week to see it up close. If you are, please leave a comment.

(See also: SGI: a Glimpse of the Future)
(See also: Wired: SGI Creates 10,000-core Concept Computer)