>----- Original Message ----- >From: "Rahul Nabar" <rpna...@gmail.com> >To: "Beowulf Mailing List" <beowulf@beowulf.org> >Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 2:19:33 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central >Subject: [Beowulf] recommendations for cluster upgrades > >I'm currently shopping around for a cluster-expansion and was shopping >for options. Anybody out here who's bought new hardware in the recent >past? Any suggestions? Any horror stories? > >We've been using Dell SC1435's with Quad-Core AMD 2354 Opterons @ >2.2GHz. 16 Gig RAM.
The Nehalem-based Xeon 5500 series of native quad-core processors from Intel with a 3 channel DDR3 memory controller on-chip, cc-NUMA capability supported by Intel's response to AMD's HT, QPI and with an on-chip Power Control Unit that actively manages idle and active power consumption is a dramatic leap forward for Intel in this space, eliminating most (all?) of the micro-architectural advantages that AMD since it introduced Opteron. This is especially true if you have bandwidth heavy applications because, as has been discussed here already, Nehalem has 3 faster DDR3 memory channels on-chip. Most benchmarks I have seen put Nehalem ahead of AMD's comparable Shanghai native quad-core, although you could wait for the 6-core AMD Instanbul which does somewhat better than Shanghai even with its further strained and somewhat lagging DDR2 memory subsystem. Does a socket upgrade make since with the boards that you already have? This is the choice that AMD hopes you will make. Intel, on the other hand, wants to look at the Xeon 5500's performance and power management, and go for the forklift upgrade. rbw -- Rahul _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin Computing To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
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