[Beowulf] power supply/chassis for Opteron-based node

[Seth Bardash]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org 
> [mailto:beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org] On Behalf Of Vincent Diepeveen
> Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 12:29 PM
> To: Mikhail Kuzminsky; beowulf at beowulf.org
> Subject: Re: [Beowulf] power supply/chassis for Opteron-based node
> 
> Mikhail, not so much the wattage that the power supply claims 
> it has in 
> total is what you're interested in,
> as well as the wattage that it delivers effectively over the 
> rails in use 
> (+12V,+5V etc).
> 

SNIP


> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mikhail Kuzminsky" <kus at free.net>
> To: <beowulf at beowulf.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 4:19 PM
> Subject: [Beowulf] power supply/chassis for Opteron-based node
> 
> 
> >I looked to reccomendation of power supply/rackmount chassis 
> for Supermicro 
> >and Tyan dual Opteron motherboards based on nVidia Prof. 
> 2200/2050 chipsets 
> >(for example, Supermicro H8DCE-B). The recommended power for 
> power supply 
> >is about 650 W (or higher), what looks as too high for our 
> conditions.

SNIP

Gentlemen,

We have built many linux clusters based on Opterons.

1) You will need a power supply that has greater than 20 amps of  +12
volts. 
    This is the part of the power supply that is used to run the 2 or
3 or 4 phase 
    CPU on board power converter and the motor in the disk drives. 

	This is the main limiting factor in most power supplies

	We just finished qualifying a 500 Watt PS/2 power supply that
we found
	very inexpensively. It has an internal 120mm fan and no rear
fan so its
	fairly quiet. This supply only costs ~60.00 but it has a +12
volt rating of
	29 amps -> 14 amps on +12 #1 and 15 amps on +12 #2. This
supply
	works excellently and has capacity to spare.

	We have tried many supplies of differing power ratings but
pick them based
	on the +12 volt current ratings to make sure we can supply the
motherboard
	and the disks with enough +12 volts. (Disk spin up uses a lot
of +12 volts)

	We can put 500 watt "Server" (large 12 volt output) PS's into
any system 
	from a 1U on up in size. The key is the +12 volt design part
of the supply.

2) If you are going to be using an Opteron 248 you might want to use
DDR-400 RECC memory.
    This will allow the CPU to "talk" to memory at its full speed.
Opteron 246's and up will talk to
    memory at DDR-400 speeds.

3) A "Cheap Chenbro Chassis" will be fine if you have good
heatsink/fan assemblies and
    plenty of air flow through the chassis to keep the internal
temperatures down.

	We use all copper side-draft HSF's to make sure the CPU heat
is directed
	towards the exhaust fans and not down towards the motherboard.
We use Artic
	Silver 5 HSF thermal compound for good HSF to CPU
conductivity. Plus we 
	only use motherboards that are supported by lm sensors so that
we can test
	and burn-in our systems under full load and monitor the CPU
and Motherboard
	temperatures during and after burn-in.

If you have more chassis / power supply / cooling questions email me
directly or call me.

Hope this helps........

Seth Bardash

Integrated Solutions and Systems
1510 Old North Gate Road
Colorado Springs, CO 80921

719-495-5866
719-495-5870 Fax
719-337-4779 Cell

http://www.integratedsolutions.org

Failure can not cope with knowledge and perseverance! 
 

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