Supermicro Announces Quad-Opteron 1U Motherboard 158
hpcanswers writes "Supermicro, a producer of systems for the high-performance computing market, has announced a 1U-sized quad Opteron motherboard for the OEM market. The product, which is on display at CeBIT this week, supports both HyperTransport and PCI Express. It also consumes 1000 watts of power. Supermicro's announcement is all the more interesting because the company has historically only supported Intel processors."
Historically huh? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Historically huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
There AMD64 boards and systems can be found at http://www.supermicro.com/aplus [supermicro.com]
I personally have one of these http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/Optero n/nForce/H8DCE.cfm [supermicro.com] and it is a quality product.
Re:Historically huh? (Score:2)
I wonder if they have a marketing agreement with Intel.
Re:Historically huh? (Score:3, Informative)
That's a lot of HP (Score:2, Interesting)
1 horsepower ~= 746W.
The horsepower of our computers has gone from figurative to literal.
One rack of these could theoretically consume more power than this: http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/coupe/112_0107 _2000_mini_cooper_sport/ [motortrend.com]
Will noone think of the salmon? http://riversideca.apogee.net/foe/fgphe.asp [apogee.net]
Re:Historically huh? (Score:2)
Are you sure you read researched your statement? From TFA:
"Supermicro continues to hide its Opteron-based gear. You won't find any mention of the boxes on Supermicro's homepage or product page. It's an all Xeon affair.To dig deep on the Opteron front, you need to head here. A-plus, ya'll."
Re:Historically huh? (Score:2)
1000 Watts of power!??!?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:1000 Watts of power!??!?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:1000 Watts of power!??!?! (Score:1)
That would be a Kibiwatt, which would just be stupid to use.
Kilo=1000. Kibi (kilo+binary) = 1024
Re:1000 Watts of power!??!?! (Score:1)
By convention, only because computers are binary, when we refer to memory, we use kilo to mean 1024 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilobyte [wikipedia.org]). But kilo comes from the Metric System (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilo [wikipedia.org]), and means 1000. A kilowatt is most definitely exactly 1000 watts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilowatt [wikipedia.org]).
Re:1000 Watts of power!??!?! (Score:2)
Re:1000 Watts of power!??!?! (Score:2)
Even though the new units were introduced years ago, they have been taken up quite slowly. However, I believe if you look closely you'll find that some manufacturers do use the new units, and that it regresses back in incorrect usage downstream
Re:1000 Watts of power!??!?! (Score:2)
Re:1000 Watts of power!??!?! (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, right. That's what the power companies want you to believe.
Re:1000 Watts of power!??!?! Not really! (Score:2)
Re:1000 Watts of power!??!?! (Score:1)
Well, isn't that equals to one mega shames on slashdot?
Re:1000 Watts of power!??!?! (Score:2)
Re:1000 Watts of power!??!?! (Score:2)
Of course, I'm just being anal again. We all
Space heater (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Space heater (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Space heater (Score:2)
And if it doesnt consume 1KW, why does it need a 1KW psu? 20% or so headroom are sensible, of course, but 4 opterons dont even burn 300W in worst case situations...
Re:Space heater (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Space heater (Score:1)
A few SCSI hard disks that may use as much as 30W at startup
True enough. To avoid the power draw of a handful of drives starting at once, most (all?) mid-to-high performance RAID systems offer staggered spinup on drives.
Re:Space heater (Score:2)
Parallel ATA does not have this capability (drives spin up the instant the power is turned on). I don't know how SATA handles this....
(For the uninformed, hard drives require a significantly higer amount of power to initially turn on than they need to operate once the platters are spinning. A h
drive spinup (Score:2)
hawk, who still has his
Re:Space heater (Score:2)
Re:Space heater (Score:4, Informative)
No, NO, NO, NO, NO! It doesn't matter if you have a 10% effecient power supply, or a 100% effecient power supply. A 1000WATT power supply will OUTPUT 1000WATTS. The difference in effeciency is how much INPUT power it will need to do that, and how much waste heat it will produce in the process.
Power supplies are not, and have never been, rated by their INPUT. That would be just stupid, as it would seriously penalize those companies that make more energy-effecient units.
Re:Space heater (Score:2, Interesting)
Just because this device says it will deliver 1KW at peak I don't expect that was a design parameter. Most interesting is that it fits into a 1U profile, I expect this is a tiny little beast.
Problem is this: There's a growing drive here in Europe towards "green" computing. A well designed micro-cluster of nano form factor boards can be
Re:Space heater (Score:3, Interesting)
My guess is the designers want to ensure excellent peak current capability. Maybe when the board switches on the transient power draw troubles lesser power supplies that nominally cover the steady state power demand. Certainly if what I've read about hi-fi amps is at all representative you are better off with plenty of headroom when trying to drive speakers with a spiky signal (that is, music), and so it seems to me a server would enjoy better reliability
Re:Space heater (Score:3, Interesting)
C//
You're a moron (Score:3, Informative)
F
Re:You're a moron (Score:2)
Re:You're a moron (Score:2)
VIAs are good for only a few things
1. Text processing [e.g. email, web, usenet]
2. Low power NAT/dhcp/dns server for a house [which is what I use mine for]
I have Gentoo Linux installed on mine and my AMDX2 while taking 9 times the power [or TDP] can usually finish emerges in a very small fraction of the time the C3 takes.
This is like the Crusoe vs. Rest debate. Their CPUs would run with
Re:You're a moron (Score:2)
It takes a little bit of time to get setup, but it quickly pays for itself. I do the same thing here, I have a SH3 box that I build packages for on this dual Xeon. If I tried to build them on that box, it would probably take weeks to build the system.
emerge crossdev, and read the docs
Re:You're a moron (Score:2)
Point is I don't really have a lot installed so doing a weekly [re: monthly] update isn't a significant problem.
Mostly my point was even though the C3 lacks ALU horsepower it's more than enough to act as a highly flexible NAT/router/etc box. Certainly more flexible than say a $100 linksys router and only costs slightly more anyways.
Tom
Re:You're a moron (Score:2)
If uptime is essential, then you'll be using a Tier-1 8U cage with hot-swappable RAM CPUs. SPARC, POWERx or some such, running Solaris, AIX, Tandem, etc.
Re:Space heater (Score:5, Informative)
You never know what an enterprise user is going to stick in the expansion slots.
Re:Space heater (Score:2)
If you mean 2 1000W psus, then you are posting bullshit.
Re:Space heater (Score:2)
Just because there's a 1000 watt supply in there doesn't mean the machine is pulling 1000 watts. Without any a
Re:Space heater (Score:2)
Re:Space heater (Score:2)
Their dual Xeon 1U servers have 550W, with the option of dual 550W.
Another one here
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/common/ssi/rep_sp/n/XSD 00361USEN/XSD00361USEN.PDF [ibm.com]
IBM x server 1U, dual xeon.
Maximum offered PSU: dual 585W.
I think you generalisations "dual 1000W, some dual 750W, NEVER seen a brand 500W" are full of shit.
Re:Space heater (Score:2)
Hitting the 1000W mark allows them to use cool .13 micron.
new terms like '1KW'. It sounds more hip than 1000W.
Just like chip technologies, where 130nm sounds cooler
than
And what is with this term 'bubbler'? In my day we
called it a bong. First time I heard this I expressed dismay,
but the young people just laughed.
Kids today! If it wasn't holding up my onions,
I would use my belt to smack some sense into them.
Re:Space heater (Score:2)
You have
It all makes sense (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It all makes sense (Score:2)
"Tom."
"Yah, George?"
"I just got our quarterty inventory report--we've got TEN extra pallets of 1,000-watt power supplies! I'm steamin' mad about this--I want them priced to MOVE!!"
"Well... uh... I don't think there's much dema.."
"I don't give a rats tail about what you think. Do whatever it takes to move those power supplies!!"
Intel's dominance at play here (Score:5, Informative)
In fact, go to SuperMicro's home page [supermicro.com], and you'll notice no mention or links to their AMD based products.
This isn't the first time that this has happened. When AMD first shipped the Athlon, very few board makers dared to ship Athlon solutions [tomshardware.com] for fear of Intel shorting them on chipsets. I recall, but cannot substantiate, that Asus and Abit first shipped Athlon boards under a "shadow brand", much as Supermicro is doing here.
I, for one, cannot wait to buy some of the Supermicro^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h, um, Aplus gear.
Re:Intel's dominance at play here (Score:2)
Secret message (Score:2)
That's funny because A plus, in French, means "See you soon". This is probably a disguised message Supermicro is sending to Intel :-)
Re:Intel's dominance at play here (Score:2)
FINALLY. (Score:5, Funny)
A pizza box that will actually cook your pizza.
I liked SuperMicro... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, they had a white box label that did AMD stuff. Whatever. I'm glad to see the 'pro' brand get with the program.
how about 16 cores? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:how about 16 cores? (Score:1)
or maybe you meant just opterons
Re:how about 16 cores? (Score:2)
Re:how about 16 cores? (Score:2)
Re:how about 16 cores? (Score:2)
Is this Google's new brain? (Score:3, Interesting)
"There's some truth to the rumors" about Supermicro supplying gear to Google, the source said. "It was happy days around here."
On an unrelated note, did you notice the chipset is made by NVidia? Wow, they've come a long way! I'm impressed to see this kind of iron from a company that used to live off pimply gamers. With PCI-X supported, I can't help but wonder about what framerates one could get in a properly multithreaded game.
Re:Is this Google's new brain? (Score:1)
Re:Is this Google's new brain? (Score:2)
Re:Is this Google's new brain? (Score:2)
Re:Is this Google's new brain? (Score:2)
This is a server motherboard, not a workstation board. On a server board, PCI Express x8 slots (4GB/sec) are meant for things like dual port 4X Infiniband cards, dual channel Ultra320 SCSI cards, and 2GB/sec Fibre Channel cards. On a server board, PCIe x8 slots are not meant for graphics cards because most servers only need very basic integrated
Re:Is this Google's new brain? (Score:5, Informative)
what you don't realise is that it's not your regular NForce4 gamer's chipset. nVidia has a separate professional line, see here [nvidia.com] to which this one (nForce pro 2200) belongs.
Much better use of space (Score:4, Funny)
For example I could take out 8x 1U Intel based Dell web servers and replace it with 1 8way supermicro Opteron machine.
The Opteron server couple probably serve content faster than the 8 Intel based Dells plus with the additional 7u space I'll easily have enough space to put a saucepan on top to boil water for tea, thereby saving myself the 80p I normally spend in the data center vending machine.
Re:Much better use of space (Score:2)
Re:Much better use of space (Score:2)
It all depends on your web serving requirements, if you are big then the 8ways are better. You probably wouldn't actually remove older machines, but starting to use 8 way machines in a 1U slot does actually make sense if you are doing mass web serving. You want to cram in as much as possible since you are then maintaining less machines and have more cost effective use of space + more req/sec peak load handling per $$$. (of course
Off topic but... Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
What's more, most server rooms have a power backup unit, which converts from AC to DC and back to AC again, just so that the computers can convert it back to DC. This is terribly inefficient just in terms of electricity, and it also creates a whole lot of heat, just so that we can air condition these rooms with huge air conditioners!
It would just seem to make sense to me that the world of computing would come up with a standard for using DC, and then companies would build big power supplies that would offer redundancy, power backup, and current conditioning. It would save money, power and space.
Re:Off topic but... Why? (Score:3, Informative)
Even more off topic... (Score:2)
Re:Off topic but... Why? (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, in the telco world, this is exactly how it works. The standard is to use -48vDC. Sun (among other manufacturers) makes servers that run directly off of DC [sun.com] (the Netra 120 on the referenced page).
Re:Off topic but... Why? (Score:2)
At 40kW though (really anything over 25kW in the US), a single/redundant -48V converter for the rack makes a lot of sense : you need a bunch of small 30A feeds like the Sun 20k's (12 per machine!).
The trouble with 48V in high-power applications is that you need a lot of copper. A typical DC powerplant in the telecom world is good for a maximum of 400kW. That power plant is about 3,000 square feet (granted it i
Re:Off topic but... Why? (Score:2)
If the voltage weren't so low and the currents so high, this might be practical, but with the large currents typically flowing on a supply of 5 Volts or less, it wouldn't take much resistance in the cables and connectors to drop the voltage excessive
Re:Off topic but... Why? (Score:2)
That's just completely, totally, untrue. Converting from AC to DC and back causes nominal losses.
It's the conversion from 120v to 12v, then up to 120v again that is the real pr
I do this on a smaller scale. (Score:2, Interesting)
I have a VIA mini-itx board that I run as a Web, mail, and MySQL server in my basement. I got the board used, with the 12 volt dc power supply. I use one of these [astrodyne.com] with a small emergency lighting battery for a simple, efficient UPS. The board has a 1 GHZ processor, and draws on average about 3 amps at 12 volts. It should run for about an hour on backup; luckilly I haven't had to test that lately :).
Standby spare (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe I'm just sore because I've spent the last few weeks identifying the bad ram in last year's opteron rackmounts from Penguin. 2 gig ECC dimms and I'm seeing a 40% failure rate from multiple manufacturers. They stacked the damn chips one on top of another. There's no where for the heat to go. Of course they're going to fail.
Re:Standby spare (Score:3, Interesting)
A kilowatt in a 1U package is generally called a "Deluxe George Foreman Grill".
If you pack the front and rear panels with several high-speed ear-piercing fans, you could disperse that kind of heat. You'll need to wear hearing protection when you go into your server room, but it's certainly possible.
Still, these are the kinds of absolutely ridiculous s
Re:Standby spare (Score:2)
Cpnversely, one of the things that impressed me about the physical design of Sun's SunBlade-1500 was a shroud over the DIMM's to promote cooling of said modules - the other end of the shroud went to the chassis exhaust fan. Weird that we're having to worry about thermal management in memory - though the the in
"Consumes" 1000 watts "of power" (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:"Consumes" 1000 watts "of power" (Score:2)
1000 Watt power supply, NOT 1000 Watts of power (Score:3, Informative)
"It also consumes 1000 watts of power."
WRONG!
The board requires a 1000 Watt power supply, not neccesarily 1000 watts of power. The power supply is the upper limit of how much the board can consume. Most computers come with a 300 watt power supply even though they normally use only about 100 Watts.
That being said, this board probably consumes quite a bit of power (but much less than 1000 watts) if it needs such a heavy duty power supply.
electricity cost may approach $75/month (Score:2)
1000watts / 1000 = 1kW-hour to operate for one hour
( 1 kw-hour * 24hours per day * 365 days / 12 months ) * $0.10 == $73.00 / month
Re:Uh? (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:Uh? (Score:2, Informative)
If you actually built a
Recommed PSU rating (Score:2, Interesting)
Supermicro states quite high PSU requirements. I have few 1U systems that have only 250 W systems even if the motherboard spec says minimum 350 W. However, no stablity problems even with add-on cards.
I guess they only want to play safe and do not want anyone to complain about instability because of too weak PSU.
Re:Uh? (Score:2)
If we are going to run 1000W, EPS 12V etc.
Why not use a quad socket mobo that can have dual procs for 8 cores? Sun and Tyan [tyan.com] both have them. Supermicro is on the catchup.
Re:Uh? (Score:2, Insightful)
Supermicro Announces Quad-Opteron 1U Motherboard
Re:Imagine what a... (Score:4, Funny)
nothing - after they blow the breakers. 1 kw is a lot of juice. per 1U.
So quick - convince your boss he needs one of those for his desktop, and you'll "inherit" the dual cpu you conned him into buying a few months ago so you could "inherit" his last desktop.
Re:Imagine what a... (Score:2)
Even four of those 8xx series cpus don't consume that much, and they don't say that either, they just say it has such a psu. I don't think that even simultaenously having and using the 4 cpus, the 64 gigs of ram, the 2 scsi discs, the 4 sata discs, the 2xgig network ports and some cooling fans would consume that much.
Manufacturer says ... (.Score +2 Flamebait) (Score:1, Informative)
That's a LOT of juice!
Re:Manufacturer says ... (.Score +2 Flamebait) (Score:2)
Just for reference, a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 with 1GB of RAM and a single 7200 RPM hard drive draws a maximum of about 120W at full load. With a r
Re:Manufacturer says ... (.Score +2 Flamebait) (Score:2)
Antec PSUs used to cost more than others but not any more. They have strict tolerances to the specified voltages and they last a long time. An Antec Sonata II case for instance costs around 125$ and gets you a mid-tower case with a 80mm case fan and a [iirc] 400W or so power supply.
I use Sonata cases for all my boxes and they have high uptimes
Re:Manufacturer says ... (.Score +2 Flamebait) (Score:2)
My point was that is a LOT of juice. Its in a 1U unit. That's obviously going to need some seriously noisy cooling.
A lot of places, the problem now isn't space - its cooling.
I'd still take one if they gave it to me ...
Re:Boring - NOT! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Boring - NOT! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Boring - NOT! (Score:2)
Re:Boring (Score:1)
Re:"1U?" (Score:2)
Tom
Re:"1U?" (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"1U?" (Score:4, Informative)
Re:"1U?" (Score:2)
Are you feelin' lucky? Well, are you? Punk!