Very Computer

by **Edwa** » Sat, 26 Jan 2002 08:51:06

Hi all,

I have no experience with multiprocessor linux boxes, but at work we
want to set up a multiprocessor linux box to run IC Design Engineering
Software like Mentor Graphic's circuit design tools. We are planning
to run Red Hat 7.2 because that is what Mentor Graphic's will support.

We want to get rack mounted systems, we want at least 2 to 4
processors and a couple Gig of RAM. And we want to maximize our bang
for the buck and reliability. Any and all recommendations are
welcome, processor (Intel, Xeon or P3) (AMD Athalon), RAM type, MB,
vendor, ... anything.

Thanks in advance,

Ed

by **John-Paul Stewar** » Sat, 26 Jan 2002 09:38:27

> Hi all,

> I have no experience with multiprocessor linux boxes, but at work we
> want to set up a multiprocessor linux box to run IC Design Engineering
> Software like Mentor Graphic's circuit design tools. We are planning
> to run Red Hat 7.2 because that is what Mentor Graphic's will support.

> We want to get rack mounted systems, we want at least 2 to 4
> processors and a couple Gig of RAM. And we want to maximize our bang
> for the buck and reliability. Any and all recommendations are
> welcome, processor (Intel, Xeon or P3) (AMD Athalon), RAM type, MB,
> vendor, ... anything.

> Thanks in advance,

> Ed

For 2 CPUs any of those processors will do. For 4
processors, AFAIK you'll need P3 Xeons. Nobody does quad
Athlons nor have I heard of 4-way capable P4 Xeons (the ones
labelled just Xeon). Beyond that, any vendor with a
background in high-end systems should do. I hear
SuperMicro's quad P3 Xeons with the ServerWorks chipset are
pretty sweet. Intel, Compaq, and a few others offer quad P3
Xeon systems, too.

by **Frit** » Sat, 26 Jan 2002 10:47:25

I've also heard of some 8-way intel boards but can't rember where or by
whom.
ALso it has recently come to light that there is a bug in the 2.4.x kernels
that will sometimes cause hangs on AMD chips because of a page size problem.
The solution being running the kernel with the mem=nopentium option

> > Hi all,

> > I have no experience with multiprocessor linux boxes, but at work we
> > want to set up a multiprocessor linux box to run IC Design Engineering
> > Software like Mentor Graphic's circuit design tools. We are planning
> > to run Red Hat 7.2 because that is what Mentor Graphic's will support.

> > We want to get rack mounted systems, we want at least 2 to 4
> > processors and a couple Gig of RAM. And we want to maximize our bang
> > for the buck and reliability. Any and all recommendations are
> > welcome, processor (Intel, Xeon or P3) (AMD Athalon), RAM type, MB,
> > vendor, ... anything.

> > Thanks in advance,

> > Ed

> For 2 CPUs any of those processors will do. For 4
> processors, AFAIK you'll need P3 Xeons. Nobody does quad
> Athlons nor have I heard of 4-way capable P4 Xeons (the ones
> labelled just Xeon). Beyond that, any vendor with a
> background in high-end systems should do. I hear
> SuperMicro's quad P3 Xeons with the ServerWorks chipset are
> pretty sweet. Intel, Compaq, and a few others offer quad P3
> Xeon systems, too.

by **M?ns Rullg?** » Sat, 26 Jan 2002 18:13:23

> I've also heard of some 8-way intel boards but can't rember where or by
> whom.

I think Dell sell such things.

--
M?ns Rullg?rd

by **Petter Gusta** » Sat, 26 Jan 2002 19:17:45

> Hi all,

> I have no experience with multiprocessor linux boxes, but at work we
> want to set up a multiprocessor linux box to run IC Design Engineering
> Software like Mentor Graphic's circuit design tools. We are planning
> to run Red Hat 7.2 because that is what Mentor Graphic's will support.

I don't have very much experience with Mentor software so i might be
wrong, but my experience with most simulators and synthesis tools
(mostly Cadence and Synopsys tools) is that they don't support
multiprocessor systems(1).

You are much better off setting up a simulation farm of single node
machines since most PC based multiprocessor systems scale very poorly
with the number of CPUs (compared to SUN's etc.)

There has been a thread in comp.lang.verilog about this issue.

Petter
1)One exception is the Provis Z01X http://www.provis.com/logic_sim.html
--
________________________________________________________________________
Petter Gustad 8'h2B | (~8'h2B) - Hamlet in Verilog http://gustad.com

by **Joshua Baker-LePai** » Sat, 26 Jan 2002 23:14:17

> We want to get rack mounted systems, we want at least 2 to 4
> processors and a couple Gig of RAM. And we want to maximize our bang
> for the buck and reliability. Any and all recommendations are
> welcome, processor (Intel, Xeon or P3) (AMD Athalon), RAM type, MB,
> vendor, ... anything.

As somebody else mentioned, make sure that your application will actually
benefit from multiple processors. That being said, though...

If you want bang for the buck, don't go above 2 processors. The
premiums start getting *real* high. And, again, for bang for the buck
you can't beat dual Athlon systems. Xeons themselves are far more expensive
than Athlons, and you'd also have to pop for RDRAM.

Shop around online -- there are a lot of places that sell rack-mount
dual Athlon systems these days. You can find a lot of links on the
beowulf home page (www.beowulf.org), as lots of people use these in clusters.

Good luck.

--
Joshua Baker-LePain
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University

by **William Par** » Sun, 27 Jan 2002 06:21:46

>> I've also heard of some 8-way intel boards but can't rember where or by
>> whom.

> I think Dell sell such things.

Also, Compaq and IBM. It's price of a car, but you get pre-package
4-way and 8-way units. It's not a bad option, if someone else is
paying. But, dual-Athlon would be a better deal, I think.

--

8 CPU cluster, NAS, (Slackware) Linux, Python, LaTeX, Vim, Mutt, Tin

by **Christopher Brown** » Sun, 27 Jan 2002 07:02:29

> >> I've also heard of some 8-way intel boards but can't rember where
> >> or by whom.
> > I think Dell sell such things.
> Also, Compaq and IBM. It's price of a car, but you get pre-package
> 4-way and 8-way units. It's not a bad option, if someone else is
> paying. But, dual-Athlon would be a better deal, I think.

Sequent has traditionally been in this business; I believe they were
recently bought by IBM, so if you seek to buy, you might wind up
talking with IBM salescritters...
--

http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/lsf.html
"How much more helpful could I be than to provide you with the
appropriate e-mail address? I could engrave it on a clue-by-four and
deliver it to you in Chicago, I suppose." -- Seen on Slashdot...

by **rcarte** » Sun, 27 Jan 2002 12:04:33

We have a couple of Dell Xeon dual 1.7s each with 1GB memory, and three SCSI
disks 17,17,34GB. Set up with RH 7.1. They seem to really sing!

Quote:> Hi all,

> I have no experience with multiprocessor linux boxes, but at work we
> want to set up a multiprocessor linux box to run IC Design Engineering
> Software like Mentor Graphic's circuit design tools. We are planning
> to run Red Hat 7.2 because that is what Mentor Graphic's will support.

> We want to get rack mounted systems, we want at least 2 to 4
> processors and a couple Gig of RAM. And we want to maximize our bang
> for the buck and reliability. Any and all recommendations are
> welcome, processor (Intel, Xeon or P3) (AMD Athalon), RAM type, MB,
> vendor, ... anything.

> Thanks in advance,

> Ed

by **Adria** » Sun, 27 Jan 2002 13:35:25

As a couple other people alluded to, what you should get depends on what
you really want to do. I have an Intel SC450NX quad Xeon (2 infact,
4x450MHz 1MB cache, 2.5GB ram, up to 700MHz/4GB) and it really flies in
multitasking work. Best yet, these boxes are getting really cheap
nowadays. I'm not real familar with Mentor, but if your doing
auto-circuit routing on large boards AND Mentor is muti-threaded, the
SC450NX (or a SPKA4) would be ideal. The tight integration and high
inter-process communication will beat out a 1+GHz cluster of separate
boxes almost every time. On the other hand, if Mentor is not
multi-threaded, the quads won't really do you much good. A say, 1.5GHz
athlon would be a better option. If you've got a group of people who all
access this, then setup a cluster of athlons, running RedHat with MOSIX
kernel extensions and a single front end machine. That way, your users
can log into the front end machine and run their process, which will
transparently migrate to the most "available" athlons. It's automatic
load balancing thru the magic of MOSIX and yet looks like a single fast
machine to users.

Adrian

> Hi all,

> I have no experience with multiprocessor linux boxes, but at work we
> want to set up a multiprocessor linux box to run IC Design Engineering
> Software like Mentor Graphic's circuit design tools. We are planning
> to run Red Hat 7.2 because that is what Mentor Graphic's will support.

> We want to get rack mounted systems, we want at least 2 to 4
> processors and a couple Gig of RAM. And we want to maximize our bang
> for the buck and reliability. Any and all recommendations are
> welcome, processor (Intel, Xeon or P3) (AMD Athalon), RAM type, MB,
> vendor, ... anything.

> Thanks in advance,

> Ed

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