i want a Mac Mini server/supercomputer

[Scarlet Fever]

I've been thinking how cool it would be to have a stack of about 5 to 10 Mac Minis connected together to form a very small server/supercomputer (not sure of which word would be more appropriate). I just want it to do relatively CPU-hungry tasks such as movie and music editing.

First off, what would i need to make this work? eg would i need OS X Server or could i just do it off the standard OS, and how would i connect the computers together, and to a monitor?

Second, how much would it cost? four, five figures?

Thanks for answers

 

[batman123]

How bout just buying a PowerMac. Same thing...but better...

Batman.

 

[Scarlet Fever]

How bout just buying a PowerMac. Same thing...but better...

or even better, a cluster of them... haha i wish money was no object...

 

[netdog]

One might actually be a decent low-load server.

 

[robbieduncan]

You are talking about a cluster. If you want to do this then your apps have to be cluster compatible. XCode has built in support to distribute compile tasks to other machines on the network. Apple also provide XGrid for this sort of thing but you need XGrid compatible apps.

No consumer level Apple apps support this. Shake does. I though Final Cut Pro might, but the bandwidth required to move all the data around probably limits the chances of this.