Well.. I am designing my own cluster, hopefully for sale when it is done. I
am planning to put some ThunderBirds in when it is complete. From what I can
tell right now a ThunderBird 800 has the biggest bang for a buck. For about
$3000US I could make a 4 node diskless cluster with 4 TB chips, 256MB RAM
and 100 MB NICs.
If you or anyone else is interested feel free to contact me, I am working on
my web site where I hope to have a "build your own cluster" interactive
flash page. I will post a link when it is done.
Jason Wylie
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Matthew Fesinmeyer" <rmf_at_u.washington.edu>
To: <amber_at_cgl.ucsf.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 09, 2001 1:50 PM
Subject: Bang for the Buck
> This question is primarily for the x86 hardware geeks on the list.
>
> My research group will be purchasing a system or systems to be used for MD
> calculations and trajectory analysis. We primarily look at small
> peptide/waterbox systems using sander in Amber6. Our primary system
> currently is a 1 year old dual P3 650 running RedHat 6.2 that cost ~$2000
> built from off-the-shelf parts.
>
> In looking at new hardware, our one of our interests is, as the subject
> suggests, "bang for the buck". For the $2000 spent last year, we could
> currently purchase a dual 1 GHz P3 machine using PC133 SDRAM (Via
> chipset).
>
> Is there anything likely to be gained (given our uses) from RDRAM, Xeon P3
> processors, P4 processors, or even Alpha-based systems? My impression is
> that for the cost of each of these improvements, the "better" answer is
> simply purchase an additional dual 1GHz system and run the 1 calculation
> on X machines (or alternatively, run X calculations on X machines).
>
> Thank you for your comments.
>
> Robert Fesinmeyer
>
> _________________________
> R. M. Fesinmeyer
> rmf_at_u.washington.edu
> Department of Chemistry
> University of Washington
>
>
Received on Fri Feb 09 2001 - 14:33:44 PST
