Post by stormchaser on Apr 15, 2020 20:40:14 GMT -5
192 Cores? For less than $600? I'll take two please!
First of all this project is just for fun and for benchmarking... It may also provide features on the home network but that is yet to be determined. I have a wide verity of options with this machine. I wanted to go with AMD, and since I loved the Phenom II as a consumer chip, I had to take a look at AMD based servers that came stock with the Opteron 6100 series chips. This was the last family of the K10 - very similar to the Phenom II architecture, before the switch in the 6200 series to the horrifically under-performing FX line of processors. My intent is to fit it with as much 1600MHz memory as possible (it has 32 slots) and fit some solid state drives as well, plus some mechanical drives for storage. I have a budget of about $4,000 left for this build. And make no mistake, when finally set up and configured properly it will not just look "pretty", as we will be maximizing the theoretical performance and pushing all 192 Cores and it's infrastructure to the limit.
I lucked out on these two server acquisitions because both come pre-equipped with 8 of the highest performing K10 chips ever made, the venerable x12 6180 SE, at 2.5GHz. The servers do not come with RAM or HDD, so some of that is on my shortlist. I have a 64GB 1600MHz kit that I can harvest from another server here. Ideally, I want to have every single RAM slot populated, 32 in total, per server. So in my case that would be a total of 64 slots for DDR3 ECC memory.
Processor Specs (this is the highest performing K10 chip ever made): AMD Opteron 6180 SE, 12 cores, 2.5GHz
Dell specific server info:
The PowerEdge C6145 server ramps up the I/O with 40Gb/second throughput per x16 slot. Each node has five slots: three PCIe Gen 2 x16 slots, one dedicated x16 HIC slot and one x8 slot for a mezzanine card. With two nodes per server, 10 total PCIe slots, you can mix and match RAID controllers, Infiniband cards, 10GE cards, and HIC cards all in the same server. You can even drive your workloads to the cutting edge. For example, combine the PowerEdge C6145 server with the PowerEdge C410x PCIe expansion chassis and you can double the server to graphics processing unit (GPU) ratio to 1:8 to create a number-crunching powerhouse.
Hardware Specs:
The Dell™ PowerEdge™ C6145 server is the only server in its class with the performance of two 4-socket AMD Magny-Cours processor-based servers in a 2U. It has up to 128 cores, 1TB memory, and 40Gb/second I/O per card slot. It has six PCIe Gen 2 x16 slots, two x8 mezzanine and two dedicated x16 host interface card slots (HICs), so you have 10 total slots to flex with your needs. Best of all, it’s all in a hyper-efficient shared infrastructure 2U, so it saves space, weight and energy. Satisfy the need for speed The pure volume of calculations calls for performance, all the way from the processor to the I/O bandwidth. The PowerEdge C6145 is one of the highest performing 2U rack servers ever, with two 4-socket AMD Opteron® 6200 series processors. These processors have up to 84 percent higher performance with up to 73 percent more memory bandwidth. It’s not just the FLOPS in the PowerEdge C6145 server that make the difference. It can also accommodate up to 1T of memory.
Ideal scenario would require the purchase of the Dell PowerEdge C410x for cutting edge performance:
Designed with your needs in mind The results of your research, mapping, rendering or model simulation have the potential to impact the lives of millions. Yet, the required processing of massive amounts of data and computations takes time. Meanwhile, application and computing infrastructure demands increase while the budget remains the same. You can see results faster, while increasing efficiency with the Dell PowerEdge C410x PCIe expansion chassis. Loaded with NVIDIA® Tesla™ M2050 computing modules, it brings 16.5 TFLOPs of computing throughput in single precision performance to your fingertips in a 3U. The PowerEdge C410x PCIe expansion chassis does not have CPU or memory. It provides “room and board” for 16 PCIe devices to connect to 1-8 server host nodes.
So far I have not been able to locate one, very rare piece of hardware and very expensive. So I am searching far and wide for another suitable GPU solution here.
So this post will be my build log of sorts. Here is where we are at up to this point:
Day Two - 4/15/20
- Ordered a second Dell PowerEdge C6145 server with an additional 96 cores of Opteron 6180 SE number crunching power, effectively doubling our performance and bringing the total core count to 192.
-Researching PCIe GP-GPU enclosures for maximum performance at every level and engage a high performance GPU component solution for this build. Focused on the Dell PowerEdge C410X or similar 3U chassis for up to pcie16 GP-GPUs in total.
-Spec'd out the 1400W PSU... which is 220v only. So I've ordered four of the 110v 1100w PSU's that will work with the houses existing electrical system.
***The main focus of this project is to reveal the full potential of two PowerEdge 6145's and then apply that computational power to something meaningful in the real world.***
Total cost invested up to this point: $600
First of all this project is just for fun and for benchmarking... It may also provide features on the home network but that is yet to be determined. I have a wide verity of options with this machine. I wanted to go with AMD, and since I loved the Phenom II as a consumer chip, I had to take a look at AMD based servers that came stock with the Opteron 6100 series chips. This was the last family of the K10 - very similar to the Phenom II architecture, before the switch in the 6200 series to the horrifically under-performing FX line of processors. My intent is to fit it with as much 1600MHz memory as possible (it has 32 slots) and fit some solid state drives as well, plus some mechanical drives for storage. I have a budget of about $4,000 left for this build. And make no mistake, when finally set up and configured properly it will not just look "pretty", as we will be maximizing the theoretical performance and pushing all 192 Cores and it's infrastructure to the limit.
I lucked out on these two server acquisitions because both come pre-equipped with 8 of the highest performing K10 chips ever made, the venerable x12 6180 SE, at 2.5GHz. The servers do not come with RAM or HDD, so some of that is on my shortlist. I have a 64GB 1600MHz kit that I can harvest from another server here. Ideally, I want to have every single RAM slot populated, 32 in total, per server. So in my case that would be a total of 64 slots for DDR3 ECC memory.
Processor Specs (this is the highest performing K10 chip ever made): AMD Opteron 6180 SE, 12 cores, 2.5GHz
Dell specific server info:
The PowerEdge C6145 server ramps up the I/O with 40Gb/second throughput per x16 slot. Each node has five slots: three PCIe Gen 2 x16 slots, one dedicated x16 HIC slot and one x8 slot for a mezzanine card. With two nodes per server, 10 total PCIe slots, you can mix and match RAID controllers, Infiniband cards, 10GE cards, and HIC cards all in the same server. You can even drive your workloads to the cutting edge. For example, combine the PowerEdge C6145 server with the PowerEdge C410x PCIe expansion chassis and you can double the server to graphics processing unit (GPU) ratio to 1:8 to create a number-crunching powerhouse.
Hardware Specs:
The Dell™ PowerEdge™ C6145 server is the only server in its class with the performance of two 4-socket AMD Magny-Cours processor-based servers in a 2U. It has up to 128 cores, 1TB memory, and 40Gb/second I/O per card slot. It has six PCIe Gen 2 x16 slots, two x8 mezzanine and two dedicated x16 host interface card slots (HICs), so you have 10 total slots to flex with your needs. Best of all, it’s all in a hyper-efficient shared infrastructure 2U, so it saves space, weight and energy. Satisfy the need for speed The pure volume of calculations calls for performance, all the way from the processor to the I/O bandwidth. The PowerEdge C6145 is one of the highest performing 2U rack servers ever, with two 4-socket AMD Opteron® 6200 series processors. These processors have up to 84 percent higher performance with up to 73 percent more memory bandwidth. It’s not just the FLOPS in the PowerEdge C6145 server that make the difference. It can also accommodate up to 1T of memory.
Ideal scenario would require the purchase of the Dell PowerEdge C410x for cutting edge performance:
Designed with your needs in mind The results of your research, mapping, rendering or model simulation have the potential to impact the lives of millions. Yet, the required processing of massive amounts of data and computations takes time. Meanwhile, application and computing infrastructure demands increase while the budget remains the same. You can see results faster, while increasing efficiency with the Dell PowerEdge C410x PCIe expansion chassis. Loaded with NVIDIA® Tesla™ M2050 computing modules, it brings 16.5 TFLOPs of computing throughput in single precision performance to your fingertips in a 3U. The PowerEdge C410x PCIe expansion chassis does not have CPU or memory. It provides “room and board” for 16 PCIe devices to connect to 1-8 server host nodes.
So far I have not been able to locate one, very rare piece of hardware and very expensive. So I am searching far and wide for another suitable GPU solution here.
So this post will be my build log of sorts. Here is where we are at up to this point:
Day Two - 4/15/20
- Ordered a second Dell PowerEdge C6145 server with an additional 96 cores of Opteron 6180 SE number crunching power, effectively doubling our performance and bringing the total core count to 192.
-Researching PCIe GP-GPU enclosures for maximum performance at every level and engage a high performance GPU component solution for this build. Focused on the Dell PowerEdge C410X or similar 3U chassis for up to pcie16 GP-GPUs in total.
-Spec'd out the 1400W PSU... which is 220v only. So I've ordered four of the 110v 1100w PSU's that will work with the houses existing electrical system.
***The main focus of this project is to reveal the full potential of two PowerEdge 6145's and then apply that computational power to something meaningful in the real world.***
Total cost invested up to this point: $600
