custom cluster cabinets (was Re: 1U P4 Systems)

[Kevin Facinelli]

If the entire top of the case was a heatsink many
other variable come to mind....what happens when you
stack or rack??? how thick will the lid be?  How would
you get air across the lid in a racked configuration. 

Let's think about this??? why does it have to be
1U??...think a little bit outside the box...if the
unit could be any shape would it be thin and narrow
creating a terrible aspect ratio for air
movement...NO.

Take a look at the ingenious approach of this product:

http://www.crystalpc.com/products/computers/cs300.asp

The cooling and space advantages are easy to see.

Kevin
--- Josip Loncaric <josip at icase.edu> wrote:
> Bari Ari wrote:
> > 
> > I did a quick compute of the P4 thermal design and
> it would be possible
> > to put 8 P4s into a 1U if you could use the entire
> surface area of the
> > top of the enclosure as a heat sink [...]
> 
> A neat idea.  However, one would also have to
> justify its cost.
> 
> How large would the market be?  Deep pocket
> customers only?  Then, the
> price will be high, and all but the most space
> constrained users will
> flee to cheaper alternatives.  The same reasoning
> applies to the
> discussion concerning 1U vs. commodity cases.
> 
> Technical computing users used to be kings of the
> computing jungle, but
> that was decades ago.  A few of them still have deep
> pockets and the
> ability to buy exactly what they want.  The rest are
> using mass market
> leverage to buy compute cycles at a discount. 
> Unless some day mass
> market switches to high density packaging, this
> feature will continue to
> cost extra.
> 
> I see the Beowulf concept of using commodity
> components as a way of
> establishing the base price of computing.  I'd be
> willing to pay more,
> but only if this alleviates some critical
> constraint.  Then, the price
> of non-commodity extras (Myrinet, high density
> packaging, etc.) can be
> justified.
> 
> Sincerely,
> Josip
>  
> -- 
> Dr. Josip Loncaric, Research Fellow              
> mailto:josip at icase.edu
> ICASE, Mail Stop 132C           PGP key at
> http://www.icase.edu./~josip/
> NASA Langley Research Center            
> mailto:j.loncaric at larc.nasa.gov
> Hampton, VA 23681-2199, USA    Tel. +1 757 864-2192 
> Fax +1 757 864-6134
> 
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=====
Kevin Facinelli
www.colosource.com
webmaster at colosource.com

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