John R Pierce wrote:
On 03/08/12 6:33 AM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
ok, so 3 x 48/64 core servers uses the same power as 6 x 4/8 core ? thats still major win.
Um, no - that's what I'm saying is*not* the case. The new suckers drink power - using a UPS that I could hang, say, 6 Dell 1950's off of,*if* I'm lucky, I can put three of the new servers. And at that, if a big jobs running (they very much vary in how much power they draw, depending on usage), even with only three on, I've seen the leds run up to where they're blinking, indicating it's near overload, over 90% capability.
ok, how do you figure 3 48 core modern servers are not more powerful computationally than 6 8 core servers? the 1950's were "cloverton" which were dual core2duo chips, 2 sockets, at ~ 2-3GHz, for your 8 cores per 1U.
I'm sorry, but to me, the above is a non sequitur. I was talking about how much power the servers drink, and that the UPSs that I have can barely, barely handle half as many or less, and I'm running out of UPSs, and out of power outlets for them in such a small space (that is, a dozen or so in each rack), without trying to go halfway across the room.
now, I dunno what your 48 core servers are, if thats really 2x12 cores with 'hyperthreading', then those extra threads are NOT good for intense numerical compute work as they share the FPU, but even those 24 cores should be faster than twice as many 8 core systems.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819105264
mark