6 M-ATX comps, 2 PSU's 1 Cabinet. Cluster anyone?

[acctoon]

Just moveing this from ~ wrong forum.

Warning: Long post follows

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Hi

I have been thinking of building a "cheap" cluster/rendering computer

My plan is:

6 x CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 640 3.0 GHz £88.00
6 x Motherboard: Asus M5A88-A £82.50
12 x Memory: 16GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333MHz £33.00
6 x Harddrive: Corsair SSD Nova Series 2 60GB £75.00
6x PSU: Fortron Source 250W £32.50

~ Total £344 x 6 = £2064 at todays prices

Been thinking of going for 8GB of mem as it saves me £198 and should be more the enough I belive?

For powersupply's I havent decided yet, been thinking of useing 6 x 250W powersupplys, but that is kind of boring imo and wont look that good

Sooooo, I have been thinking of 2x750W/800W PSU's and extendig the 24-pin connectors so that I have 3 motherboards on eatch power supply. I have search alitle and found a few that have been thinking about the same thing, but not much info and in this scale.

Im thinking these m-ATX motherboards cant really be that power hungry and I have no intention of doing any OC, and sins the CPU gets the power from a seperate 12V line, I would think 2 x 750W/800W PSU should be able to run them with a stable power? Anyone else tried this or in that same line?

Been thinking about the on-board graphic cards, maybe they will increase the power consumption even thou there shouldnt be much activity on them.

If not, the multi PSU solution actually save's me £2.20

Anyways, for a case im thinking something like this:


Quick draft of what im thinking with a 6 x PSU solution.

Its based on the reale measurments from an IKEA cabinet, the mobo and PSU's are also scaled.

BUT if I get to the conclusion that 2x750W will be able to run it, I may think about puting it in to a glass cabinet.....

Can it be done?

* Gonna look around and see if I cant get my hands on some old tech and put it to the test...


Any ideas/suggestion?

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Ok

After looking at diferent glass cabinets I have come to the conclusion that cooling will become an issue as most cabinets to day is made from tempered glass means cuting/drilling etc. will be out of the question.

Sooooo, I have decided on a steel cabinet wich I will be the base for the build. Gonna be over a week befor im back from work and get going on the project.

But I have already done some ebaying and ended up with:

10 x Sunon 120mm 4000RPM 48V/20W Fan
2 x 150W 48V power supply

And alot of braided sleeving

I think I have some 12 AWG wires, and most of the connectors I need at hand home, but I will need to order some extra 24-pin connectors I guess

Sins the server will be in its own room, away from people, noice wont be an issue. And if its going to grind at 100% for hours, possibly days
I guess some good airflow will be needed and 10 x ~20W fans should atleast generate som noise

And the PSU for the fans has some voltage controle, so hopefully I can keep it below talking level

Only thing I need to think about is how I will keeping the room cooled

Good thing its winter....

Ohwell, looking forward to geting home and possibly beginning to draw out some basics for the build.

If anyone actually reads this long post, any suggestion/ideas are welcome with open arms =)

 

[Proximon]

Sorry haven't read the entire thing but I doubt very much if that will work. Modern PSUs only grow in 12V wattage as they get higher... the +5VSB, for instance, does not supply enough power to run all those comps in stand-by.

Perhaps consider Pico PSUs?

 

[g-unit1111]

Intriguing idea - yes, but I'm not entirely sure it could properly work without some serious power, I don't think 2 x 750 watt PSUs would cut it. Especially since each motherboard requires its' own power source and 12V connector, and most PSUs only have one each, no matter what wattage you use.

 

[mrwhit30ut]

Out of curiosity, how do you utilize all these computers to render a project?

 

[acctoon]

Hmm.

No cant say I have, tho they would be a possibility.

Event tho, I really didnt think the motherboard required that much power when in stb, as long as there are no USB devices with stb power on that requiers power, the only thing stb really does is to keep the memory powered and charge the bios battery. And some power to the LAN port for WOL etc, and from what I can find, we are talking mA. And the 5V stb amp on the PSU I have decided on is rated to 2.5A.

And if everything else fails, just disableing the standby all together will be a solution. Tho that would kill my WOL plans.

Sins I have already ordered the PSU's I guess I will give it a go

 

[acctoon]

And if all *** hits the fan I could just put in a separate 5V supply on stb circuit

 

[acctoon]

Found this about the different standby states:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/omars/archive/2004/05/11/129553.aspx