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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>As i'm not a complete layman in fluid dynamics
software i'll make a few assumption to advice a choice:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>assumptions:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>a) that gigabit is enough for you and that you
don't need bandwidth to other nodes</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>b) that you are interested in having a huge amount
of RAM at each compute nodes</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>c) that price is important as you probably want to
put there a lot of nodes</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>d) that your code usually runs single cpu and uses
all RAM</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>In that case perhaps an idea is getting a new dual
opteron mother board and put inside</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>a single core opteron 2.6Ghz or 2.8Ghz if they are
there. That's unbeatable in terms of</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>latency to RAM.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Those new boards sometimes support up to 16 DIMMs.
That might be very interesting for you.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>If you put in 2x166Mhz (PC333) 2GB dimms * 16 ecc
registered CL2 = 32GB.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>That will be faster for you than PC3200 (as it
might get clocked back to pc2700 anyway) cl 2.5</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>for latency.</FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Probably this is very interesting for you. At least
1 manufacturer i saw (tyan) has a dual opteron board that</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>supports 16 DIMMs. Perhaps there is others
manufacturers which offer 16 dimms. I can't recall</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>manufacturers offering more DIMMs than
that.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Perhaps certain quad boards do?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Note that there is 1 solution not so cheap that
offers 32 DIMMs. That's creating a 8 core machine.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Iwill and Tyann should both have a solution there.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Put in cheap single core 8xx chips (which are there
especially at ebay cheap as everyone wants to</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>get rid of them and get dual cores for codes that
need the cpu speed instead of huge RAM).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>And fill it with 32 DIMMs PC2700. That would give 1
compute node a 64GB ram.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I'm not sure whether pc2700 cl2 or pc3200 cl2.5 is
faster in latency at those quads. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Could be pc3200 cl2.5 wins it there. It's a lot
more expensive though.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Good luck,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Vincent</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=amjad11@gmail.com href="mailto:amjad11@gmail.com">amjad ali</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=beowulf@beowulf.org
href="mailto:beowulf@beowulf.org">beowulf@beowulf.org</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, June 15, 2006 9:02
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Beowulf] Slection from
processor choices; Requesting Giudence</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">Hi ALL</P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">We are going to build a true Beowulf cluster for
Numerical Simulation of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models at our
university. My question is that what is the best choice for us out of the
following choices about processors for a given fixed/specific
amount/budget:</P>
<OL>
<LI>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">One processor at each of the compute nodes</P>
<LI>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">Two processors (on one mother board) at each
of the compute nodes</P>
<LI>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">Two Processors (each one dual-core processor)
(total 4 cores on the board) at each compute nodes.</P>
<LI>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">four processor (on one mother board) at each
of the compute nodes.</P></LI></OL>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">Initially, we are deciding to use Gigabit
ehternet switch and 1GB of RAM at each node. </P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">Please guide me that how much parallel
programming will differ for the above four choices of processing
nodes.<BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in">with best regards:<BR>Amjad Ali.<BR></P>
<P>
<HR>
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