On Mon, Feb 27, 2006 at 08:49:23PM +0000, Ricardo Reis wrote: > The target machine I was looking for was 8 node with > dual processor Opteron (16 CPU). The machine that was at the presentation > is > > http://www.cybernex.co.uk/tyan_vx50_quad_opteron_servers.htm > > which means 8 CPU, dual core. And all are connect with hypertransport > which meand I got ready of latency I figure. So...
> The professor head of the lab wants me to know "if that is so good why > isn't everyone buying one?" Where is the data suggesting that it's "so good"? And what do you want to use it for? > From: Joe Landman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > See page 2 of ftp://ftp.tyan.com/datasheets/d_s4881_104.pdf Ah. Apparently that box uses a Tyan S4881 4-socket motherboard which with a special M4881 add-on riser card, can be extended to 8 sockets. There are other 8-socket Opteron motherboards out there - Iwill makes one, there are probalby others as well. So you seem to want to compare a single big 8-socket ccNUMA Opteron box to a cluster of four 2-socket boxes. On a per-cpu or per-motherboard basis, the 8xx series Opterons and 4/8-way motherboards are going to be SUBSTANTIALLY more expensive than 2xx Opterons and 2-socket motherboards. How do the costs compare on an aggregate "per 8 sockets" basis? I don't know, get the prices and add them up. Do you NEED shared memory? Then the 8-way box (or SCI?) is probably the only way to go. Do you NEED low latency? The 8-way box PROBABLY has better latency, but perhaps Infinipath HTX adapters between 2-socket nodes would give similar (or possibly better in some cases?) latency - you need to compare actual performance numbers. Note that that Tyan 8-socket box does not have any extra HTX slots, so you if you wanted to cluster multiple such boxes you would have to do so over its PCI Express slots or built in Gigabit Ethernet. -- Andrew Piskorski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.piskorski.com/ _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, [email protected] To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
