A 5970 is slightly faster than a 6990. (in mining)
Anyway, it would'nt be enough.
Maybe he means vectorbased processing power? ==>
The Earth Simulator with its vectorbased CPUs is still the fastest Supercomputer in the world measured per core performance and would even beat every GPU- or CPU-based Supercomputer if he had enough cores.
Here's an example:
1. RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS)
Japan K
SPARC64 VIIIfx 2.0GHz
Tofu interconnect / 2011 Fujitsu
548352 cores -> 8162.00 RMAX
2. National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin
China Tianhe-1A
NUDT TH MPP, X5670 2.93Ghz 6C
NVIDIA GPU, FT-1000 8C / 2010 NUDT
Cores 186368 -> 2566.00 RMAX
...
68. Japan Agency for Marine - Earth Science and Technology
Japan Earth Simulator
SX-9/E/1280M160 / 2009 NEC
1280 cores -> 122.40 RMAX
May the Earth Simulator have 70 x 1280 cores = 89600 cores => 8568 RMAX
This fictionary example shows that one NEC SX-9/E vectorprocessor rig would outperform any CPU- or GPU-based rig.
So, this would be the only solution for me in winning the race mining for Bitcoins.
But 15 Machines of this NEC SX-9/E may be more expensive than 70k USD i think.
So, tell us your solution!
He said that he's willing to learn mandarin? Hmm... There must be something going on in little China.
Edit: Even only one would be enough i think so... ->
http://www.nidokidos.org/threads/20389-NEC-Vector-Supercomputer-SX-9-Worlds-Fastest-Supecomputer