Project Housecat - High density version of Dashcat2 Project

MisterDNA

MisterDNA

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Feb 8, 2004
Messages
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As mentioned in the Dashcat2 build thread, I'm taking on a simultaneous project involving a tightly-packed cluster which will yield 2.5 times the compute performance of Dashcat2 per unit of rack space. It's going in my shorter rack. At the moment, I'm taking a break from, yet again, moving stuff around in my workshop to accommodate the gear. Where the original plan was to pack the tall rack full of compute nodes and a console while the small rack held the server and network gear, I can't have Project Housecat sitting back in the corner.

Project Housecat - When you're through screwing around and it's time to do the screwing, there is no substitute.

Back to work.
 
You need a bigger workshop. something about the size of a 2-car garage!!
 
Photo time:

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There remains much more to do.
 
how much does that enclosure cost then (if I might ask)... without the backplane it will not that much I suppose :?
 
lollysticky said:
how much does that enclosure cost then (if I might ask)... without the backplane it will not that much I suppose :?
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It didn't cost me anything, but the thing is they're rare as they were custom made for the company's blades and most of those clusters are still in use today despite being 2003 technology.
 
5k077 said:
Wow. Nice.

What do you do that requires all that?
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3D rendering. I'm still learning so it's like putting the cart before the horse. Thing is, I'm extremely impatient and don't like waiting for projects to render so I jumped into the investment. When completed, the combined power of the rigs will be close to that of the Shrek render farm. Each individual node is already 50% faster than the entire 300 machine Toy Story 1 renderfarm.

To put things in modern perspective, however, it's not all that powerful. WETA Digital of New Zealand (CGI house behind Avatar) is rocking over 59TFLOPs peak speed, while I'll barely scratch that at .8TFLOPs. Granted, I'm using old hardware here.

While Project Housecat isn't all that versatile in terms of future upgrades (small sacrifice in the name of density), Dashcat2 is.
 
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Did some work modifying the blade for the Opteron board.

The power port on the side had to go. It was keeping the motherboard from sitting straight.
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To cut, or not to cut...
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Gotcha.
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Those will do.
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It fits now. (I screwed the mobo down without adding the HSF backplates. The adhesive isn't wanting to stick so well.)
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Still to come, adding the backplates, changing the power supply and all that good stuff.
 
ZygoatD said:
how did you get a hold of all of them?
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Utah State University had a small cluster that they sold off at a surplus sale. I was lucky enough to grab it.

I'm glad I did. It had 16 1GB RAM sticks and 12 512MB RAM sticks in it, split among the nodes. Those are actually part of the larger system.
 
Uh oh. The only worthy PSU I have with a 24-pin connector is half an inch too long. I'm going to have to modify the case.
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Unless...

Haha! The HDAMA doesn't require the 24-pin connector. It runs just fine with the 20-pin connector on the Emacs PSU.
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zer0gravity said:
Whats the speed of those opterons...looks sexy!
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2.2GHz. Four cores per node. I'm doing this kind of on the cheap. The 2.4GHz versions were going to cost me almost four times as much so I said screw it and built more nodes as opposed to getting like 9% more speed per core.
 
Very awesome. It'd be nice to have that much firepower around the house ;)
 
Ah, finally an update.

For those who don't know, the primary project is Dashcat2. Housecat is an extension of that.

I just ordered another round of dual core CPUs that will complete this machine up to the point of having six quad-core nodes.

Further announcement: I'll be selling Housecat (if anyone's buying, of course). The purchaser will have an automatic, free noncommercial (I add that caveat because I don't want anyone making bank off my back unless I'm along for the ride (with the fire under my ass that comes with it) license to EVERYTHING I develop for Dashcat2.
 
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