Project "True 4x4"

[jcool]

Hey fellas,

I am sure everybody remembers AMDs "4x4" marketing paper launch back in the day, where they would have two Dual-Core Athlon FX Processors on a DP mainboard, sort of like what Intel did with SKulltrail a few years later.
They called it "4x4" because it had 4 cores, but it sucked really bad (mediocre performance, insane cost and extremely high power draw) and few people ever bought one. I always thought that crappy thing didn't deserve the name "4x4", because it was 4 cores but only 2 procs, so what's the second "4" stand for?

Soo.. I present to you: My first dedicated AMD cruncher in ages, and a true 4x4 rig - 4 CPUs x 4 cores each - 16 real Cores on a single system.






What's in it, you may ask? Here's the specs.

CPUs: 4x AMD Opteron 8347 HE (High Efficiency, sort of like LV and ULV Intel Xeons), 1,9Ghz 65nm Quadcore, Codenamed "Barcelona". 55W ACP, 68W TDP, 2MB of L3 made for up to 8-way servers based on the ancient socket F (LGA1207)



Unfortunately they are not all perfectly matched, despite the seller's promise they would be

Notice the odd-ball?



Since they are pretty close in manuf. date and have the same stepping (AAAWB) it should work with no problems.

Motherboard: Supermicro H8QME-2

Ram: 4x1GB Kingston DDR2-800 Reg ECC (minimum ram config for 4 CPUs )

PSU: Enermax Pro82+ 385W

GFX: onboard crap

HDD: Savvio 15k.1 2,5" 73GB SAS drive (still got one lying around doing nothing)

Case: uhm yeah.. no normal case can fit this monster, it's 16x13" SOlution: Sawed-off CS601 mobo tray with PSU-bracket mod known already from the Dual Gainsy thread

Will it work? I don't know yet... CPU coolers are due to arrive tomorrow.

Stay tuned

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It works!!!

Moar pics











Awesome options for a SM Quad Socket if you ask me. A LOT of ram settings, and even Vcore up to 1,45V (can it be true?). Only HTT ref. clock options missing, but that should be doable by software.

[Particle]

I'm excited to see this one progress. I expect some Cinebench runs.

[jcool]

Hey Particle,

I'm afraid it's gonna suck at CB10, because (as you may have noticed) the program is very poorly optimized for more than 8 threads. Probably not even 20k, but that also depends on whether I can OC it or not.
Got any clue as to how I might be able to raise HTT clocks on this one?

[Jaco]

thanks for the pr0n pics

[mreuter80]

[Chumbucket843]

what a beastly mobo! good to see use of energy efficient cpus. gainestown isnt going to cut the mustard in this area. you definitely need more ram but awesome cruncher none the less.

[jcool]

what a beastly mobo! good to see use of energy efficient cpus. gainestown isnt going to cut the mustard in this area. you definitely need more ram but awesome cruncher none the less.

Huh?
A Dual Gainestown is the most energy-efficient rig you can build at the moment. Nothing can match it in terms of PPD per Watt.

Also more than 4GB of Ram is totally useless for a dedicated cruncher.. 4x512MB would have cut it too, but I had 2x1GB lying around so I got another 2. It's only running single channel, but like we found out a hundred times already, this doesn't affect WCG in the slightest.

[CaptMorgan]

Good Luck my friend and most of all have fun with it

[Chumbucket843]

Huh?
A Dual Gainestown is the most energy-efficient rig you can build at the moment. Nothing can match it in terms of PPD per Watt.

i havnt seen any reviews on how well k10 and nehalem perform in WCG but k10 is designed around efficiency. nehalem's pipeline is a lot longer than AMD's and it breaks down instructions into a lot more microops. although nehalem will probly win in energy efficiency in floating point any day i guess.

[jcool]

Well, my Dual X5570 does close to 50k/d at 16*3Ghz in WCG at 275W from the wall. And these are early B0 step CPUs, current D0 use even less. As we know from the Phenom II X4 crunchers, they do around 13-14k/d at 3Ghz. Even if we assume that a Dual Shanghai at 3Ghz will take less than 250W (which is unlikely), it still would have no way of competing with the Gainestown.

Now as to Istanbul, I have no idea. If particle could provide some numbers here that would be helpful, probably gets pretty close to the Gainstown in terms of efficiency.

By the way, this build is projected to do 32-34k/d at around 300-320W from the wall. So not really that efficient, but given its age that's still not bad.

[Particle]

Hard to say since I have the client paused for a lot each day while I game, but I'd say 30K/day for 12x2508 is doable. As for getting HTT up, yeah, that shouldn't be a problem. Your maximum stable HT ref clock will probably be your limiting factor.

[v0dka]

Also more than 4GB of Ram is totally useless for a dedicated cruncher.. 4x512MB would have cut it too, but I had 2x1GB lying around so I got another 2. It's only running single channel, but like we found out a hundred times already, this doesn't affect WCG in the slightest.

I think you need a server OS for this thing, dont know how much is free when you boot into the OS. But 512Mb for a quad sounds low, really low.

[jcool]

Hm yeah, 4x512MB would have been a little close. However 4x1GB is plenty. I'm gonna use XSOS, as always, which is Server 08 Datacenter. Only needs a couple hundred MB to run, and then maybe 16*100MB for 16 threads WCG. I won't be over 2GB total usage.

@Particle: Sounds great, what tools do I need to overclock HTT? Does SetFSB work? Or ntune? What do you use on your Dual hexie?

[Duh]

j/k.. truly amazing my german friend pure pr0n.. really amazing

[Jaco]

looks like you're missing 1 cpu backplate?

[OldChap]

What cpu coolers are you getting???

[jcool]

looks like you're missing 1 cpu backplate?

Haha, neat spot. Indeed, I already unmounted it on CPU #1 to see whether it would come off.
It did, so I can install the Scythe backlate with AM2 retention bracket along with the coolers tomorrow (otherwise I would have had to use Socket F coolers which I didn't find for cheap).

@OldChap: Cheap ass Coolermaster ones that cost 3€ a pop
With 55W CPUs, anything goes.

[poke349]

Huh?
A Dual Gainestown is the most energy-efficient rig you can build at the moment. Nothing can match it in terms of PPD per Watt.

Also more than 4GB of Ram is totally useless for a dedicated cruncher.. 4x512MB would have cut it too, but I had 2x1GB lying around so I got another 2. It's only running single channel, but like we found out a hundred times already, this doesn't affect WCG in the slightest.

Depends on what type of cruncher.
Hint hint: my Avatar and my siggy.

Nice rig btw...
But wouldn't it be cheaper to just build multiple single-socket machines? For something that parallels as well as WCG... is there even a point to forcing it all into the same system?

As soon as you go more than one socket, price/performance skyrockets...

[jcool]

Well, I got a really good price on this one, and I can re-sell it for more than I paid at any time. Plus it's quad socket

As for the single vs. dual debate, well yes, initial cost is higher with the Dualies, but they use less W per PPD. Which in the end is the more important thing if you run a lot of them 24/7 and have high utility prices like we Europeans do.

And I meant WCG crunching, of course

[poke349]

Well, I got a really good price on this one, and I can re-sell it for more than I paid at any time. Plus it's quad socket

As for the single vs. dual debate, well yes, initial cost is higher with the Dualies, but they use less W per PPD. Which in the end is the more important thing if you run a lot of them 24/7 and have high utility prices like we Europeans do.

And I meant WCG crunching, of course

Good point, I didn't think about the power consumption...

And yes, bragging rights is always a bonus of shoving it all in one machine.

[jcool]

It's also easier to place less machines, unless you put them all in a 19" rack of course.. which I don't really like.
I don't think I can brag about the performance of this one, it's more because I've always wanted to have a quad socket again since I sold my Quad P3.. it just looks so awesome

I guess you'd have to be pretty messed up to buy something based on the fact that is has moar sockets, right?

[poke349]

I guess you'd have to be pretty messed up to buy something based on the fact that is has moar sockets, right?

Not really...

In some of the programming I do (and I'm not alone), I need to see how well a piece of code will scale to many cores.
This is especially the case when writing code for rack servers (say a 16 x Dunnington for example), but you only have physical access to a not-so-awesome computer.

In such cases, I want as many cores as possible - I don't care how slow they are, just as many as I can get... and as much ram as possible.

My workstation falls in that category. I use it for testing code that might be run on massive machines...So my "puny" 8 cores is hardly enough.

For that matter... the "puny" 64 GB of ram is insufficient too... but at the time, that's the most that could've been shoved into a single machine without breaking the bank.

[Particle]

Well, it's really going to come down to trial and error, jcool. While nVidia's Performance Tools or whatever do seem to work on this chipset, it's far from perfect. You have a better chance than I since you're using Tyan gear, however. On my Supermicro, once the nVidia crap has been installed I get fun system behaviors like hard lockup when a new user profile is created (ie: first time a user account logs in after the software is installed if they hadn't logged in already). It also has a tendency to lock up for no good reason like if one clicks on the performance profile tab. Ultimately, it should work though. You'll just have to tip toe through it when using it.

You also have the possibility of editing addresses via SMBus directly, which has come in handy for me for things like NB multiplier. Don't worry, we'll get you figured out.

[jcool]

Well, it's really going to come down to trial and error, jcool. While nVidia's Performance Tools or whatever do seem to work on this chipset, it's far from perfect. You have a better chance than I since you're using Tyan gear, however. On my Supermicro, once the nVidia crap has been installed I get fun system behaviors like hard lockup when a new user profile is created (ie: first time a user account logs in after the software is installed if they hadn't logged in already). It also has a tendency to lock up for no good reason like if one clicks on the performance profile tab. Ultimately, it should work though. You'll just have to tip toe through it when using it.

You also have the possibility of editing addresses via SMBus directly, which has come in handy for me for things like NB multiplier. Don't worry, we'll get you figured out.

Ok then, I'll just try to get it up and running tomorrow, then we can focus on overlocking.

Oh and, it's a Supermicro... not a Tyan.

[Duh]

It's also easier to place less machines, unless you put them all in a 19" rack of course.. which I don't really like.
I don't think I can brag about the performance of this one, it's more because I've always wanted to have a quad socket again since I sold my Quad P3.. it just looks so awesome

I guess you'd have to be pretty messed up to buy something based on the fact that is has moar sockets, right?

that is the attitude and the way of seeing it ( you´ve got it crystal clear, you could afford it and you can have fun with it, what else could, you ask life for ).

one of the things that pulls me back is that once accomplished I am afraid of saying this windows is still slow ( kinda deception like the first time you overclock a lady, but with the hope and the conviction you overclock the second one )