My next motherboard
- Thread starter nitro
- Start date
Ja,
A Linux cluster just beat a Quad Opteron machine in a chess match:
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1875
Speaking of which, my Quad Opteron machine is comming, but now I need to find two matched (or four) used Opterons 800 series CPUs.
If anyone has a couple of spare matched Opterons 800s they are willing to sell, please contact me.
nitro
Just got the machine. I will be commenting on it as I get adquated with it, and maybe post some pictures.
Unfortunately, the CPUs have not arrived yet so I cannot fire it up. I will probably try to install 64-bit Linux or 64-bit FreeBSD, and Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition for Extended 64-bit systems. I want to see what snags I run into with drivers, etc. I may even try to runs Solaris 9 on it...
Then I plan to do some benchmarks on my own to see how this thing compares to my dual Xeon. I will test two processors against two, then load all four to see what extra oomph I get.
One nice thing that I noticed so far is that it comes with four Coolermaster fan/heatsinks - a nice touch.
nitro
Unfortunately, the CPUs have not arrived yet so I cannot fire it up. I will probably try to install 64-bit Linux or 64-bit FreeBSD, and Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition for Extended 64-bit systems. I want to see what snags I run into with drivers, etc. I may even try to runs Solaris 9 on it...
Then I plan to do some benchmarks on my own to see how this thing compares to my dual Xeon. I will test two processors against two, then load all four to see what extra oomph I get.
One nice thing that I noticed so far is that it comes with four Coolermaster fan/heatsinks - a nice touch.
nitro
Installed the two LVD Ultra 160 SCSI HDs (can handle 320s, but I already owned the 160s) - the bays took them in smoothly. My experience with other cases on this issue has not been as pleasant, one up for Tyan. One thing that I did not like is that the bay carriages have this glass stick attached to them that pass thru the light to give back feedback on HD activity. They are extremely fragile and one wrong move and you break them.
Also got 4 sticks of 512k each of DDR 400 (PC3200) Registered ECC Bufffered RAM for a total of 2GB. I learned some interesting things about the way AMD does things. Each CPU has it's own set of memory banks. That is why I got four memory sticks one per CPU, otherwise, if the memory has to be accessed thru the other CPUs (for example, if I put all four sticks on CPU0s banks,) the "bus" (interconnect) to that is much slower than the "bus" on it's own banks.
Also, I have taken the opportunity to learn more deeply about NUMA and about the MSFT equivalent - the SRATS table. It turns out that certain types of memory interleaving is incompatible with NUMA. I still do not quite have a picture of all of this or why it matters or why you would choose one over the other, but I am studying it.
Still waiting for the Opterons
nitro
Also got 4 sticks of 512k each of DDR 400 (PC3200) Registered ECC Bufffered RAM for a total of 2GB. I learned some interesting things about the way AMD does things. Each CPU has it's own set of memory banks. That is why I got four memory sticks one per CPU, otherwise, if the memory has to be accessed thru the other CPUs (for example, if I put all four sticks on CPU0s banks,) the "bus" (interconnect) to that is much slower than the "bus" on it's own banks.
Also, I have taken the opportunity to learn more deeply about NUMA and about the MSFT equivalent - the SRATS table. It turns out that certain types of memory interleaving is incompatible with NUMA. I still do not quite have a picture of all of this or why it matters or why you would choose one over the other, but I am studying it.
Still waiting for the Opterons
nitro
Just curious, what kind of program you are running that requires such tremendous computing power?