[Beowulf] 96 cores in silent and small enclosure

[Jon Tegner]

Have done some preliminary tests on the system. Indicates a CPU 
temperature of 60-65 C after half an hour (will do longer test soon). 
Have a few questions:

* How high cpu temperatures are acceptable (our cluster is built on 6 
core AMD opterons)? I know life span is reduced if temperature is high, 
but due to performance reasons life span of a CPU is pretty short anyway.

* I used lm-sensors to check the temp, how accurate is that?

* There are two fans in the system, noctua NF-P14 FLX

www.noctua.at/main.php?show=productview&products_id=33&lng=en&set=1

according to the specifications their acoustical noise is 19.6 dB. Are 
there some simple guidelines of how the noise "adds up", i.e. what would 
be the sound level of two fans, or three?

* Would there be a market potential for a system like this? I naturally 
tend to think this is a very "cool" computer, but maybe that's just me? 
After some optimization (and a bit of CFD) I'm sure I could make it a 
bit smaller.

Regards,

/jon