I have searched the archive and several sites but I have not come across an definitive answer. We are going to build a new cluster out of standard HP desktop hardware. The cluster will have dual purpose as computer cluster 80% of the time and the remaining time to be used as PC training computers. We have existing Linux cluster of 8 nodes (8 x 2CPU) so Linux clusters are not new to us. We will run Centos 3 or 4 on them (or maybe ROCKS). The computers we are looking at have integrated Broadcom GB BCM5755 NIC. This NIC will be use for NFS or MPI traffic (to be decided based on test). We will be using MPICH and HP-MPI. The main application will by ls-dyna.
As these computers will already have Broadcom NIC, should the second NIC also be Broadcom? From a performance/stability point of view, does it make a difference if the second NIC is Broadcom GB PCI-E or Intel GB NIC? I believe Intel GB NIC is already in the kernel and is a "favorite" amount clusters so I probably could not go wrong with Intel. On the other hand, the system would only need to load the tg3 driver for both cards instead of tg3 and e1000 driver. Our existing cluster costs of four computer with the same NIC (Intel e1000 cards) and another with NVIDIA NIC and Broadcom NIC (nvnet and tg3). The Intel NIC cluster has been the most stable but I do not belive any problems on the other nodes were NIC related. We are looking at the following NIC: Intel Pro PCI-E Gigabit 82572GI Ethernet or Broadcom PCI-E Gigabit BCM5751 Ethernet The motherboard chipset is Intel 975X North Bridge/ICH7R South Bridge with Intel Core 2 Dual CPU's Thanks any advance, Marcelino The detailed spec are as follows (if it matters): Intel ----- Controller Intel 82572GI Gigabit Ethernet Controller Memory Integrated Dual 48K configurable transmit receive FIFO Buffers Data path width X1, 250MB/s, Bi-directional interface Broadcom -------- Controller Broadcom 5755 PCI-E LAN Controller Memory Integrated 64KB receive buffer and 8KB transmit buffer Data path width X1 Data path speed 2.5Gbit/s direction transfer rate _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
