What do you guys thing about the P4

[Peter Kjellström]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Phillip D. Matz" <matz at wsunix.wsu.edu>
To: "Eddie Lehman" <elehman at sunflower.com>; <beowulf at beowulf.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 14, 2001 11:03 PM
Subject: Re: What do you guys thing about the P4


> Since most people building Beowulfs are doing so to achieve some set of
> performance goals - what does the cpu throttling do to a P4-equipped
> cluster's performance?

If one or more nodes in your cluster 'drops down' you'll probably see some
unpleasant behaviour. However, the P4 doesn't throttle down because of load
or heat dissipation, it does so because it's too hot. Bottom line, with good
cooling (may it bee quite alot more then intels 52W) the cpu doesn't get
overheated and therefore keeps working at full speed.
So, if you intend to build something yourselfs plan for some good cooling.
I'm quite sure that most OEM solutions will be well cooled.
On the clusters we have built so far (T-bird) I run lm-sensors to keep an
eye on the temperatur. If I had to deal with a P4 cluster the only diffrence
that I can see would be the effect of hot cpus.
hot AMD t-bird -> *hot* cpu = bad for the cpu
hot P4 -> slow cpu = bad for performance
Either way, something is wrong with the cooling, may it be room, box, or
cpu...

just my 2 c.

/Peter


--
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   Peter Kjellström
   National Supercomputer Center
   Linköping University
   S-581 83 Linköping
   Sweden

   Email:cap at nsc.liu.se
   Telephone: +46 13 281492 (office) +46 13 282535  (fax)
   http://www.nsc.liu.se
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