Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 10:37:13 -0400 From: "~/.signature" <hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu> To: "Charles Burns" <burnscharlesn@hotmail.com> Cc: vince@oahu.WURLDLINK.NET, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: the AMD factor in FreeBSD Message-ID: <200104231437.f3NEbDn25337@fac13.ds.psu.edu> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 22 Apr 2001 22:11:03 PDT." <F1471Np7vXee4fDGCl90000652f@hotmail.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Charles chirped, > >We also just specced out a server/computational platform, and found > >we could match $20k of RS/6000 with about $12k of Dell PIII with > >2G of Crucial memory and 3d party *big* drives--We'd have had about > >72 or 144G of storage from ibm/sun, > If you are going for price/performance Sun and IBM aren't really in that > market. They go more for the super ultra reliable extremely scalable systems > it seems. And that's where it bit :) dual processors isn't scaling very far :) > You may look into Alpha if you are after absolute max raw > computing power for the buck. At certain price levels, Alpha (at least did) > win hands down. The systems are made by Compaq, but their high-end systems > don't suck like their consumer systems do. We're looking at about $5,000 (for my desk). Alpha doesn't really show up at that level :) Maybe at the $15,000; I didn't check--but I doubt we would get a dual processor, and, power aside, I need two to talk to one anotehr for my research before sending it up to the beowolfs and SP2's. (I'm pushing hard enough at the edges of the complier that bringing down a system isn't out of the question.). > If you would like to build your own array from scratch, Seagate makes a > 160GB Ultra/160 SCSI drive. Those should do it. :-) Yikes. I don't want to think of the price on those . . . You can get the 73's for about $900, whcih means we can have a parity and a standby. > Don't bet the farm that AMD will have SMB boards by then. Chances are that > they will, but their roadmap, IIRC, says "2nd half" which just begins in > June. You may also want to consider that the boards will be first-generation > SMP. While they will almost certainly be far, far (FAR) better than the > average 1st gen board because it is using a chipset that is perfectly good > for single processor systems and because the boards are likely being > marketed as server/workstation class (hence the predicted $600+ price tag), We're assuming that range. But the current AMD boards only have 3 memory slots (or less), meaning a 512mb module (still about $800 for 266 ddr). Replacing that with a pair of 256's will pretty much pay for the more expensive board and the second processor . . . also means we can drop the pci u160 controllers. > they may have some problems to iron out. I don't know how important these > systems will be, but when I build one that needs 24/7 uptime I always use > parts that have been out and tested in the field for a few months. The server needs to stay up. For my desk, I'll happily trade a monthly lockup for 20% performance--my models run for days. > One example that further emphasized this strategy was when I read that > Anandtech used MSI K7T-Pro2 boards for servers that "worked fine" for a logn > time but had occasional hard lockups (i.e. system would not post unless > unplugged for several seconds). While Anandtech doesn't seem to be the > smartest when it comes to servers (They use Windows, for example) the > example still does apply. Sort of. Yeah, maybe it *wasn't* the board :) hawk -- Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq. /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign dochawk@psu.edu Smeal 178 (814) 375-4700 \ / against HTML mail These opinions will not be those of X and postings Penn State until it pays my retainer. / \ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200104231437.f3NEbDn25337>