[dsp-clusters] Question

Douglas Eadline deadline at plogic.com
Thu Aug 17 04:24:44 PDT 2000


On Wed, 16 Aug 2000, Eugene Leitl wrote:

---snip---
> 
> $2000/node? That's a lot, according to
> 	    http://www.pricewatch.com/1/234/2187-1.htm 
> I can get an Athlon 700 (admittedly, with only 32 MBytes RAM, but RAM
> is cheap nowadays) for $511. While in a real world case I'll be
> probably looking more at $1000, there's some definitive difference
> between $1000 and $1200 (plus the fractional cost of a 19", which can
> be up to $1000/nodes per rack).

I thought I would offer a bit of experience here for the
"do it yourself builders".

Unless you go direct to a DIMM manufacturer, RAM is a crap-shoot.
Bargain PC Shacks (like those on pricewatch) often have no
control of the quality or manufacturer of the DIMMs. Remember,
"cheaply made RAM" is cheap. Running Windows is very different
than running a floating point problem on a dual PIII system
for several hours, but to many PC Shack vendors Windows is what 
determines if RAM works!

Be careful of the cheap DRAM that has the 20% re-stocking fee.
These can blow your budget if you need to replace RAM.

Doug 
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