Not quite vintage but interesting: where government super computers go to die.

[hunterjwizzard]

This auction has been making the rounds at work:

Personal Property Management System

gsaauctions.gov

Cheyenne, ranked the 20th fastest computer in the world sometime in 2016, being decommissioned and sold. Kind of interesting since purely-CPU-based top500 systems are a thing of the past. There's still a few hangers on, but as of last year, Sunway TaihuLight's been knocked out of the top-10, and GPU-based super computers officially rule the roost.

 

[hunterjwizzard]

Sold for just $480,085.00. The CPUs alone sell for ~$50USD. Times 8,000 processors. Parting out old super computers could be a literal and figurative gold mine.

 

[krebizfan]

The glut on the market would cut the CPU price considerably. I doubt the buyer will manage to earn more than minimum wage for the time spent stripping the computer, especially factoring in shipping.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Even if you buy a Chinese X99 system for $100 or so. It has not only a motherboard, but a CPU from that family as well as a few tens of GB of memory... I doubt that the used CPUs themselves rise to $50 level.

Whoever won the bid is going to expend a fair amount of cash just getting the thing out of NCAR.

 

[hunterjwizzard]

8,000 additional CPUs hitting the market is not going to significantly impact prices.

Just parting it out for CPUs and RAM is only one option. The blades themselves probably have some value as aftermarket spares. A lot of that equipment is still in use all over the world. Its doubtful anyone bought it to use it as a super computer, but the parts will go see use.