<html><head><style type='text/css'>p { margin: 0; }</style></head><body><div style='font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000'><br>>----- Original Message -----<br>>From: "Rahul Nabar" <rpnabar@gmail.com><br>>To: "Beowulf Mailing List" <beowulf@beowulf.org><br>>Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 2:19:33 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central<br>>Subject: [Beowulf] recommendations for cluster upgrades<br>><br>>I'm currently shopping around for a cluster-expansion and was shopping<br>>for options. Anybody out here who's bought new hardware in the recent<br>>past? Any suggestions? Any horror stories?<br>><br>>We've been using Dell SC1435's with Quad-Core AMD 2354 Opterons @<br>>2.2GHz. 16 Gig RAM.<div><br>The Nehalem-based Xeon 5500 series of native quad-core processors<div>from Intel with a 3 channel DDR3 memory controller on-chip, cc-NUMA</div><div>capability supported by Intel's response to AMD's HT, QPI and with an</div><div>on-chip Power Control Unit that actively manages idle and active power</div><div>consumption is a dramatic leap forward for Intel in this space, eliminating</div><div>most (all?) of the micro-architectural advantages that AMD since it introduced</div><div>Opteron. This is especially true if you have bandwidth heavy applications</div><div>because, as has been discussed here already, Nehalem has 3 faster</div><div>DDR3 memory channels on-chip.</div><div><br></div><div>Most benchmarks I have seen put Nehalem ahead of AMD's comparable</div><div>Shanghai native quad-core, although you could wait for the 6-core AMD</div><div>Instanbul which does somewhat better than Shanghai even with its further</div><div>strained and somewhat lagging DDR2 memory subsystem. Does a socket</div><div>upgrade make since with the boards that you already have? This is the</div><div>choice that AMD hopes you will make. Intel, on the other hand, wants to</div><div>look at the Xeon 5500's performance and power management, and go for</div><div>the forklift upgrade.</div><div><br></div><div>rbw</div><div>-- <br>Rahul<br>_______________________________________________<br>Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin Computing<br>To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf<br></div></div></div></body></html>