On Apr 7, 2006, at 9:11 PM, Hawaii Linux Institute wrote:
Jim Thompson wrote:
There has been a lot of recent discussion about "what to do with
PII machines". Lets build a cluster. (Where can we find the
room/power/AC?)
You can do a rough and tumble calculation. To match a lowest-
powered (& cheapest) Sempron you can find in the market, you will
need at least 10 PII's clustered together. Here on the island, we
are paying $0.21 per KWHr. At 150 W per PII, we are talking about
7 bucks a day, or more than $2,500 a year for the utility bill.
And this is just one of the (more manageable) problems; the parts
cost additional money, and servicing such a monster will be worse
than a nightmare.
Dude... they're providing their own power.
You can find a Sempron/MB combo for around $100. So, is it worth
the effort? The key issue should be how to design an optimized
system, sell the idea, and help getting the fund (a Niagara would
be ideal for the Isle). Of course, fund-raising is much easier
said than done, and you won't get the same kind of instant
gratification as collecting used PCs would give you. Wayne
If you're going to go all "MIPS/watt" on us, I'm going to start
talking about reconfigurable computing.
