Is this the same thing but $275 cheaper?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-POWERE...959406?pt=COMP_EN_Servers&hash=item3ccf5c21ae
What is the catch with these? Does the OS have to be a $2,000 Enterprise Server Linux OS?
Four computers - 64 threads in one box! And only like 450 watts from the wall? Very noisy though
🙁
Wish I had the internet bandwidth to support one of these ... and the funds.
The main 'catch' is that it's 4 different pc's in one box, so you can't run BigADV, and it's generally preferred to have a single 4p system with a total of 4 processors that are 8 core / 16 thread each. If you know that going in, though, there's not really a catch. Load Linux Mint or whatever you want to run on each node, install Teamviewer and stuff it as far away from sight(and sound) as possible. That's the other 'catch' is that the fans are supposedly EXTREMELY loud, and since the nodes are stacked on top of each other, you can't just run it open cased and replace the heatsinks with aftermarket ones, like some people do with 2u 4p machines. There are some threads at other forums where people are trying to make them run quieter, though. As far as I know these just recently hit the market as some datacenters and whatnot are upgrading to newer systems.
My understanding is each node, accounting for IPC differences between Nehalem and Sandy Bridge, and clock speed differences(but twice as many cores) should be at least as fast in heavily threaded work loads as a 2600k/3770k(not overclocked). So essentially you're getting the compute power of a 3770k and 24GB of ECC ram for ~$250(per node).
You have to really be careful with the eBay listings, though. Some are missing almost all drive cages, and they are expensive to purchase separately. Others(the ones that are like $700) only include 2 nodes. Some have a hard drive for each node, some do not. Some have both power supplies(there's a redundant one in them stock), most of the cheaper ones do not. I've even seen some without ram, but those seem few and far between.
I've really been itching to pick one up as it seems like a killer deal but sometimes it can be tough justifying dropping $1k on something you don't "need", although I could consolidate my file server, VM test box, etc all in just a couple of nodes and still have 2 left over to run distributed computing, encode video if need be, etc.
