JWSmythe's Journal: Densest CPU configuration motherboards??

What is the densest CPU configuration motherboard available?

    I know in the Linux kernel, it handles SMP from 2 to 255 CPU's.

    I was talking to a friend, and we were considering what the most CPU's we could stick into a server is. Anyone can buy older CPU's at budget pricing. From what I understand, most of the older Opteron's were limited by design to 1, 2, 4, or 8 CPUs in one machine. I don't know the limit on P4's, nor the newer Opteron's.

    Where could I find a motherboard a huge density of CPU's?

    Wouldn't a 128 CPU 1.5Ghz machine be just a little faster than a dual core 4Ghz, assuming multi-threaded processes?

    Besides the cool factor of having 128 CPU's running at once, this could make one hell of a server or virtualization environment.

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[OctaneZ]

It depends how you want to define density, is it on a Per-U, Per-Motherboard, Per-KwH, or even Per-$?
If you are looking Per-U, then I think the blade servers are your best bet. If you don't want to go the blade route, there are some 4-Socket Opteron barebones/OEM 1U systems out there, that would get you 16-cores in 1U of space, though the 2U/4-Socket systems are easier to come by.

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[JWSmythe]

    I was looking at some of those today..

    What I was thinking was older processors, and as many CPU's as I could hold. :) I know the motherboard would cost a few bucks, but if the savings was in the processors, then it could likely be worth it.

    The 16 core Opteron does look sweet though. :) The one I saw will hold 64Gb RAM too.

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[OctaneZ]

The 16 core Opteron does look sweet though. :) The one I saw will hold 64Gb RAM too.

Yes, but that's probably with 4GB Dimms (quite spendy).