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3U Xserve?
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Why bother with air/air cooling
You guys have appeared to miss the point a bit. It would make sense for the use of a water-cooling solution if the heat were that much of an issue. Plus the water-cooling systems are much smaller and quieter than the air/air units not including the external radiator of corse. This relates to smaller cases, even a 1U since water units can be made of almost any size, and the cooling efficiency remains about the same.
Who could deny the silence and cooling potential, not to mention the performance increase form one of these babies?
You guys have appeared to miss the point a bit. It would make sense for the use of a water-cooling solution if the heat were that much of an issue. Plus the water-cooling systems are much smaller and quieter than the air/air units not including the external radiator of corse. This relates to smaller cases, even a 1U since water units can be made of almost any size, and the cooling efficiency remains about the same.
Who could deny the silence and cooling potential, not to mention the performance increase form one of these babies?
Re: Why bother with air/air cooling
Water cooling sounds like a good idea, but the cost is just absurd. Even closed-loop cold plate cooling, which can use tap water instead of Fluorinert, requires a ton of infrastructure that most equipment rooms just don't have. There's the plumbing, first of all, but then there's the heat exchanger, a sizable investment for somebody who just wants to have a render farm for After Effects or whatever.
A few years ago, SGI came up with a plan to use cold-plate liquid cooling to increase the processor density of their Origin 2000 server. This was a machine that already had an entry price in the low six figures, and could easily scale up to millions of dollars, and SGI still rejected the idea because it was going to be too expensive for most of their customers. And SGI isn't known for being a cost-conscious company, you know?
Me.
Water cooling sounds like a good idea, but the cost is just absurd. Even closed-loop cold plate cooling, which can use tap water instead of Fluorinert, requires a ton of infrastructure that most equipment rooms just don't have. There's the plumbing, first of all, but then there's the heat exchanger, a sizable investment for somebody who just wants to have a render farm for After Effects or whatever.
A few years ago, SGI came up with a plan to use cold-plate liquid cooling to increase the processor density of their Origin 2000 server. This was a machine that already had an entry price in the low six figures, and could easily scale up to millions of dollars, and SGI still rejected the idea because it was going to be too expensive for most of their customers. And SGI isn't known for being a cost-conscious company, you know?
G5s aren't that hot
Apple could easily put dual G5s in a 1U enclosure.
This is why we have copper heat sinks and 7000 rpm fans.
Real server rooms have chillers anyway. If you can actually work at a console in your server room, it's too damn warm in there.
Even the 2.0 GHz G5s are quite a bit cooler than Athlons or Pentium 4s and there are hundreds of dual processor, 1U Athlon and Pentium 4 servers to choose from.
Apple could easily put dual G5s in a 1U enclosure.
This is why we have copper heat sinks and 7000 rpm fans.
Real server rooms have chillers anyway. If you can actually work at a console in your server room, it's too damn warm in there.
Re: G5s aren't that hot
You could run them in thin box with small heatsinks and fewer, but more powerful fans. Now if they only come out with 2, 4, 6, and 64 processor versions. hehe not that I'd buy one, but it would cooool.
Right... Apple's Massive heatsinks an 9 fans were to minimize the overall heat and to move as much air as possible to keep the noise to a minimum or below 30db's.Originally posted by ffakr
Even the 2.0 GHz G5s are quite a bit cooler than Athlons or Pentium 4s and there are hundreds of dual processor, 1U Athlon and Pentium 4 servers to choose from.
Apple could easily put dual G5s in a 1U enclosure.
This is why we have copper heat sinks and 7000 rpm fans.
Real server rooms have chillers anyway. If you can actually work at a console in your server room, it's too damn warm in there.
You could run them in thin box with small heatsinks and fewer, but more powerful fans. Now if they only come out with 2, 4, 6, and 64 processor versions. hehe not that I'd buy one, but it would cooool.
I thought this was posted here already,...
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,60733,00.html
Apple, AMD, and Intel are already on the bandwagon. I've read their concepts and they seem realistically implementable.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,60733,00.html
Apple, AMD, and Intel are already on the bandwagon. I've read their concepts and they seem realistically implementable.
Re: I thought this was posted here already,...
Blue-sky projects are really neat. But it's a long way from three guys at Stanford to your desk, and a lot can happen along the way to derail the operation.
That's not what the article says. It says they "cooperated," meaning they probably provided equipment to use for testing.
Blue-sky projects are really neat. But it's a long way from three guys at Stanford to your desk, and a lot can happen along the way to derail the operation.
Re: Re: Beyond the hardware what do you think xGrid is?
So do you think this represents Apple's attempt to make a stab at corporate environments once again? Tech companies looking to maximize ROI can leverage unused processor cycles from all over the company to run design simulations...meaning that putting an eMac on every person's desk turns out to be a great investment, and a few xServes in the back end organize it all. End-to-end solution sounds pretty compelling. Does Apple have the brawn to pull this off, however?
It also sounds like a great way to reinvigorate university sales. Researchers who already favor macs will certainly pressure IT managers to buy them computers that will be useful beyond the relatively "dumb" features, like e-mail and web surfing and WP, which don't require most of the processing capabilities available on any platform.
Personally, I think that watching Apple position itself under Steve Jobs' direction is fascinating. I can't wait to see where they are headed and what they pull off.
So do you think this represents Apple's attempt to make a stab at corporate environments once again? Tech companies looking to maximize ROI can leverage unused processor cycles from all over the company to run design simulations...meaning that putting an eMac on every person's desk turns out to be a great investment, and a few xServes in the back end organize it all. End-to-end solution sounds pretty compelling. Does Apple have the brawn to pull this off, however?
It also sounds like a great way to reinvigorate university sales. Researchers who already favor macs will certainly pressure IT managers to buy them computers that will be useful beyond the relatively "dumb" features, like e-mail and web surfing and WP, which don't require most of the processing capabilities available on any platform.
Personally, I think that watching Apple position itself under Steve Jobs' direction is fascinating. I can't wait to see where they are headed and what they pull off.
Re: Re: G5s aren't that hot
I believe the G5 has 3 coherent Processor Interconnects. That means an 8-Way SMP is the limit (2^3=8). After that you need to go into a grid formation.
I personally feel that Apple will not enter an already saturated server market in the 2U space and higher. Initially I thought a 2U G5 would be cool, but open further examination of Apple's previous practices, it doesn't make sense. Apple needs to innovate when it comes out with a new line. I believe the xServe RAID is the model Apple will follow.
Can Apple fit G5's in a blade configuration in a 3U form-factor. I think they can, but it will require some significant engineering changes. Cooling is a factor of course, but the G5 generates less heat than it's XEON Blade competitors. A fan right on the processor will cool it and allow it to be in a smaller form-factor. Since the servers are in a headless environment without the need for expansion slots a lot of economy can be achieved. This goes for storage as well, Apple Firewire technology can be used to share a common disk subsystem that would serve each blade its OS X image for start up. Connectivity to an xServe RAID box over a SAN switch would provide all the storage any blade would need and leveraging SAN switching would allow for unlimited dynamic storage expansion. Communications between the blades can be facilitated over Apple's proprietary low latency FireWire Extreme (800, 1600, 3200) IP connectivity, going to a 1GB to 10 GB Ethernet port to the rest of the Ethernet world.
It would make for a truly innovative, super high performance Server system at Apple's normally reasonable prices. And, it would be truly an awesome server system.
I believe the G5 has 3 coherent Processor Interconnects. That means an 8-Way SMP is the limit (2^3=8). After that you need to go into a grid formation.
I personally feel that Apple will not enter an already saturated server market in the 2U space and higher. Initially I thought a 2U G5 would be cool, but open further examination of Apple's previous practices, it doesn't make sense. Apple needs to innovate when it comes out with a new line. I believe the xServe RAID is the model Apple will follow.
Can Apple fit G5's in a blade configuration in a 3U form-factor. I think they can, but it will require some significant engineering changes. Cooling is a factor of course, but the G5 generates less heat than it's XEON Blade competitors. A fan right on the processor will cool it and allow it to be in a smaller form-factor. Since the servers are in a headless environment without the need for expansion slots a lot of economy can be achieved. This goes for storage as well, Apple Firewire technology can be used to share a common disk subsystem that would serve each blade its OS X image for start up. Connectivity to an xServe RAID box over a SAN switch would provide all the storage any blade would need and leveraging SAN switching would allow for unlimited dynamic storage expansion. Communications between the blades can be facilitated over Apple's proprietary low latency FireWire Extreme (800, 1600, 3200) IP connectivity, going to a 1GB to 10 GB Ethernet port to the rest of the Ethernet world.
It would make for a truly innovative, super high performance Server system at Apple's normally reasonable prices. And, it would be truly an awesome server system.
Re: Re: I thought this was posted here already,...
I didn't specify that my information came from that article alone. Cooligy has made it clear that they will be supplying qualification systems to participating computer systems developers and manufacturers by Q4. Obviously this isn't set in stone, but the concept and development have been underway for quite sometime, and it seems plausible that this is possible solution.
Also, of similar note, Hitachi has water-cooled notebook computers already on the retail market, and a standard water-cooling kit can be purchased for about $99 retail. Granted, that's a bit more than the $.30 all the cooling fans would cost OEM, but I would think it would be worth it for the noise factor.
I didn't specify that my information came from that article alone. Cooligy has made it clear that they will be supplying qualification systems to participating computer systems developers and manufacturers by Q4. Obviously this isn't set in stone, but the concept and development have been underway for quite sometime, and it seems plausible that this is possible solution.
Also, of similar note, Hitachi has water-cooled notebook computers already on the retail market, and a standard water-cooling kit can be purchased for about $99 retail. Granted, that's a bit more than the $.30 all the cooling fans would cost OEM, but I would think it would be worth it for the noise factor.
Well, crud.
We're looking at getting an Xserve RAID and accompanying server in the next couple of weeks. I was really hoping that G5 Xserves would be right around the corner -- in that case, the choice of server machine is obvious. But this article makes it sound like Apple is still in the design/prototype phase, which means a G5 Xserve is probably still several months out.
Right now, I would have to choose between a G5 desktop or a G4 Xserve. The G5 would be cool, but since it'll be controlling the Xserve RAID, it can't exactly sit in someone's office as their workstation. Which means it'll probably go largely unused except for remote command-line processing of data. Seems like a bit of a waste.
The Xserve of course is more of a server and geared for this application, plus it comes with Panther Server, which may turn out to be a nice bonus. But it's only G4, with the lower system bus speeds... Darn! What to do, what to do??
I suppose it's not the worst dilemma to have, though...
We're looking at getting an Xserve RAID and accompanying server in the next couple of weeks. I was really hoping that G5 Xserves would be right around the corner -- in that case, the choice of server machine is obvious. But this article makes it sound like Apple is still in the design/prototype phase, which means a G5 Xserve is probably still several months out.
Right now, I would have to choose between a G5 desktop or a G4 Xserve. The G5 would be cool, but since it'll be controlling the Xserve RAID, it can't exactly sit in someone's office as their workstation. Which means it'll probably go largely unused except for remote command-line processing of data. Seems like a bit of a waste.
The Xserve of course is more of a server and geared for this application, plus it comes with Panther Server, which may turn out to be a nice bonus. But it's only G4, with the lower system bus speeds... Darn! What to do, what to do??
I suppose it's not the worst dilemma to have, though...
People worrying about G5's being too hot for a 1U are just not thinking this through very well. Its not a laptop, nor a desktop, its a server. If it's loud, ugly, and hot to the touch noone really cares. (Not to mention, the G5 really isn't breaking any new ground as far as massive heat production goes.)
ffakr:
stingerman:
ffakr:
Its not clear if this is true at all. To my knowledge, neither IBM nor Apple has ever said what the maximum heat output of a G5 is. They've stated "typical" numbers, but thats stupid because who knows what "typical" use is. Intel/AMD usually declare the max output of all their products, and its these figures that invariably end up being compared to Moto/IBM's vague "typical" figures. So at this point it is really not known if the G5 uses less power than, for example, an Opteron.
stingerman:
You seem to be thinking on the Opteron, which scales more smoothly than the G5 does. Each G5 connects to the system controller, not to other G5's. An 8-way G5 would require an insane system controller, or a series of them linked together. Neither option is cheap.
He's right; AMD Opteons can easily be configured into 8-way systems because of the Hyper-Transport technology between each Processor and each processor's individual RAM. The G5 architecture requires that each processor must first communicate with the NorthBridge then to the communal system memory or another processor. Not so in the AMD architecture, since many of the traditional NorthBridge functions are undertaken on the CPU itself. Resulting in less bottlenecking at the NorthBridge itself.
He's an actual picture of a 4-way Opteron system, showcasing the individual RAM of each processor
He's an actual picture of a 4-way Opteron system, showcasing the individual RAM of each processor
Attachments
That thing
That thing as you put it is a water cooler for a CPU. it's quiet, it's small, it costs a little more, and cools a hell of a lot better than an air/air system. Used mainly in 'extereme' overclocking situation, but since you probabley own a mac you would know about such things
Originally posted by Scottgfx
What the heck is that thing, a Jarvik-7?
That thing as you put it is a water cooler for a CPU. it's quiet, it's small, it costs a little more, and cools a hell of a lot better than an air/air system. Used mainly in 'extereme' overclocking situation, but since you probabley own a mac you would know about such things
Unless Apple's G5 technote is wrong, the HT bus is 3.2 GBYTES/s with the lower half being 1.6 GBYTES/s. So multiply by 8 before comparing to other technologies on the bus. Therefore, you have 25.6 Gbps to the PCI-X slots, leaving 12.8Gbps (PCI-X is 1GBps, not 1Gbps, for 133Mhz slots. For 100Mhz slots each card can use up to 800MBps, not certain if that is aggregate or if both can pull that much, my numbers are for each pulling that much). 12.8 Gbps happens to be just as much as we get from the lower half of the HT bus (1.6GBps). This is distributed as 1.5Gbps for each SATA drive, 1Gbps for each Ethernet, 800Mbps for each FW, and 240Mbps for each USB. Assuming 2 each of everything and 4 each of SATA that gives us 6+2+1.6+.48, which is about 10.1 Gbps - well under the 12.6 Gbps limit of the lower half of the HT bus.
First, the G5 doesn't need as much cooling as the PowerMac G5 implies. Two of them in the Dual 2 config consume only about 25% more power than a single high-end Pentium 4. (95ish watts in the G5 vs 80ish watts in the P4). do you see any P4 systems with those massive heatsinks? No! Why? Because those systems don't give a damn about how loud their fans are (remember - Apple's last G4 machine was nicknamed Windtunnel - I don't think they want to see another nick name like that...). So It is not cooling that would be keeping the G5s out of an Xserve, although it is probably an engineering issue in a 1U form factor. A 2U factor allows them to alleviate the cooling issue (they can use larger heatsinks) and gives them more room for CPUs too.
Now, I don't actually expect to see a Quad Xserve (although you could push me over with a feather if Apple made one). But I also don't see a 2U Xserve coming. At worse, I see the 1U G5 Xserve being pushed back until the 90nm 970s are available. But if Apple did decide to go 2U, then I think that they would have to go 4xCPU - it's one of the biggest advantages the Xserve has - density of CPUs. And with the VT cluster scoring 8.1 Tflops on 1056 nodes (no idea why they are missing 44...) for Apple to reduce their CPU density would be madness.
Sorry, but there is not the physical room for 4 processors in 2u. Servers that have 4 processors have memory riser cards and are in larger cases for a reason. In 2u there is not the room for one of these riser cards vertically. You would greatly limit the amount of ram you could fit in them. It would be a choice of RAM, Processors or Expansion. You can't have all 3 in a 2u enclosure. Thats why you don't see any quad 2u's. Apple 1u servers are just as processor dense as any other manufacturer who makes dual 1u boxes. More so, the Xserve, in its current form, is not comparable to the horsepower in 1u servers on the x86 side. Its a very attractive bundle, and I use one at work, but if you need a lot of proc power, you look elsewhere.
The VT cluster achieved 7.41TF with 1100 nodes. And holds the #4 position in the world, when the lists get updated the next time around.
The VT cluster achieved 7.41TF with 1100 nodes. And holds the #4 position in the world, when the lists get updated the next time around.
Rincewind42:
ColdZero:
I'm pretty sure if you look into your source for that info you'll find that it is unofficial. The version I've heard suggests that 90W is the max output for each 2.0ghz G5. That's perhaps not unreasonable if the "typical" output for a 1.8ghz model is 47W. It may also be the case that 90W is the maximum for any G5, and is what Apple designed to in order to handle faster speeds. Who knows... clearly noone here does.
ColdZero:
There's definately room, just little market for it. It would be an over $10k 2U box with few mounts for hard disks or anything else, cause it would be all full of heatsink and power supply, not to mention the mobo having to cover a large amount of the floorspace.
Larger cases yes, riser cards no. There are 4-CPU Opteron rackmount boards without riser cards. What was that company... Newisys? Someone was making such a system, anyway.
I'm not saying there isn't enough room, I'm saying that there isn't enough room for all the components of a general use server like the Xserve. The 4 way opterons you speak of need to have their drives stacked on top of eachother to fit 4 in there. The motherboard is physically too big to have in a 1u chassis with a powersupply, 4 drives, pci slots and such. I don't have measurements, but from pictures I've seen of a 4way opteron board, I don' think there is enough width in a 1u enclosure to fit even a powersupply besides the mobo and processors.
4 Way Opteron
Also the opteron has hypertransport links to each other processors memory. The g5 does not share memory like this. If that board had 4dimm slots per processor, a g5 could only access 4gb of memory using 1gb dimms. Where on the opteron each processor could access the whole 16gb of the server through the hypertransport links.
4 Way Opteron
Also the opteron has hypertransport links to each other processors memory. The g5 does not share memory like this. If that board had 4dimm slots per processor, a g5 could only access 4gb of memory using 1gb dimms. Where on the opteron each processor could access the whole 16gb of the server through the hypertransport links.
Re: That thing
Nor would most PC users, since they just buy systems from Dell/HP/etc and don't get all "extereme".
Originally posted by manitoubalck
That thing as you put it is a water cooler for a CPU. it's quiet, it's small, it costs a little more, and cools a hell of a lot better than an air/air system. Used mainly in 'extereme' overclocking situation, but since you probabley own a mac you would know about such things
Nor would most PC users, since they just buy systems from Dell/HP/etc and don't get all "extereme".
Re: Re: That thing
Hello Rower_CPU, If you've every looked passed the pictures in my posts you would know that I dislike DELL/HP/etc... for the same reasons I don't see apple as an economic computing choice. I built my PC from the parts I selected because they were the best for the I was able to spend($2200AUD.) I have had problems yes, but the defective part was swaped on the spot no questions asked. I could have bought a mac or a prebuilt PC for DELL/HP but I would have had to pay an extra $600 dollers in order to get a similar machine.
And more on the topic a water cooling solution all be it expencive would be the ideal solution, even you have to agree to that
Originally posted by Rower_CPU
Nor would most PC users, since they just buy systems from Dell/HP/etc and don't get all "extereme".
Hello Rower_CPU, If you've every looked passed the pictures in my posts you would know that I dislike DELL/HP/etc... for the same reasons I don't see apple as an economic computing choice. I built my PC from the parts I selected because they were the best for the I was able to spend($2200AUD.) I have had problems yes, but the defective part was swaped on the spot no questions asked. I could have bought a mac or a prebuilt PC for DELL/HP but I would have had to pay an extra $600 dollers in order to get a similar machine.
And more on the topic a water cooling solution all be it expencive would be the ideal solution, even you have to agree to that
Re: Re: Re: That thing
Water cooling and/or large heat sinks that require a screwdriver and thermal paste are less than ideal.
The ideal solutions are ones that don't require trained monkeys to accomplish, something that an intern couldn't even screw up.Originally posted by manitoubalck
And more on the topic a water cooling solution all be it expencive would be the ideal solution, even you have to agree to that
Water cooling and/or large heat sinks that require a screwdriver and thermal paste are less than ideal.
Re: Re: Re: That thing
That still doesn't invalidate my point that it's ridiculous to say a "typical Mac user" doesn't know about these things because typical computer users don't know about these things.
Would your average PC user be able to identify that picture as a water cooler? Don't think so.
Originally posted by manitoubalck
Hello Rower_CPU, If you've every looked passed the pictures in my posts you would know that I dislike DELL/HP/etc... for the same reasons I don't see apple as an economic computing choice. I built my PC from the parts I selected because they were the best for the I was able to spend($2200AUD.) I have had problems yes, but the defective part was swaped on the spot no questions asked. I could have bought a mac or a prebuilt PC for DELL/HP but I would have had to pay an extra $600 dollers in order to get a similar machine.
And more on the topic a water cooling solution all be it expencive would be the ideal solution, even you have to agree to that
That still doesn't invalidate my point that it's ridiculous to say a "typical Mac user" doesn't know about these things because typical computer users don't know about these things.
Would your average PC user be able to identify that picture as a water cooler? Don't think so.