Dual socket APU motherboards

[latinny]

Hello,

Why doesn't AMD compete with Intel on a Price/performance /watt basis using dual/quad socket APU motherboards. The expense of ECC RAM and the overhead of connecting the APUs would be offset by the low power consumption and higher performance. Sandia Lab already has a cluster using APUs for HPC.These boards be great for rendering.

 

[PassMark]

Lots of reasons. Quad socket boards are much more expensive. Also in no way will this achieve lower power consumption compared to 1 CPU. Finally most software can't use the 32 CPU cores you would end up with in this configuration. So most of the cores would be idle and used most of the time.

 

[proton007]

Hello,

Why doesn't AMD compete with Intel on a Price/performance /watt basis using dual/quad socket APU motherboards. The expense of ECC RAM and the overhead of connecting the APUs would be offset by the low power consumption and higher performance. Sandia Lab already has a cluster using APUs for HPC.These boards be great for rendering.

Multi cpu / multi core is only useful for applications that are designed to run on as many cores as available. Rendering is one of them. So are simulations.

Most user applications do not scale automatically to that level.

 

[dreamer77dd]

Maybe if everybody ended single motherboards and went to dual socket motherboards that developers would create software for them. If you make it, they will come? Thinking of a 4GPU plus 2 Apu, Thats a lot of GPU. I would like a motherboard with dual APU support. Intel can do this with CPU, what is stopping AMD from doing it besides cost. What would they need to do to make the APU speak and connect and work together? It is a nitch market i know but still wishing for one. ARM could probably do one also, who says it needs to be high performance, no body did. i would like to see a lot more PCI 3.0 slots on a motherboard though. And a lot more Ram but thats just me. Forget about the size of the board it could be the size of a coffee table i do not care but I still would love all the power. My house has enough electricity, why not? crazy but awesome.

 

[PassMark]

Cheap dual sockets were done back in 1999 with the legendary totally awesome BP6.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABIT_BP6
Those where the days......

Most CPUs now more CPU cores that most software can use, so the need for dual sockets is a lot less than it was in 1999.

You can already get high end server motherboards that do most of what you want. Or you can build a cluster. You can do it now, no need to dream, you have electricity!!

 

[dreamer77dd]

Cheap dual sockets were done back in 1999 with the legendary totally awesome BP6.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABIT_BP6
Those where the days......

Most CPUs now more CPU cores that most software can use, so the need for dual sockets is a lot less than it was in 1999.

You can already get high end server motherboards that do most of what you want. Or you can build a cluster. You can do it now, no need to dream, you have electricity!!

Well since AMD needs some help with CPU and i love more GPU, why not have a dual socket.
Wait server boards are different in what way to mainstream boards like EVGA's Dual-Socket LGA 1366 Motherboard?
Are drivers and support different?
Can they be over clocked or take the same RAM speed as other motherboards?
I do not know how to make a cluster? Thinking super cumpting now.

 

[latinny]

Best answer selected by latinny.

 

[latinny]

Maybe if everybody ended single motherboards and went to dual socket motherboards that developers would create software for them. If you make it, they will come? Thinking of a 4GPU plus 2 Apu, Thats a lot of GPU. I would like a motherboard with dual APU support. Intel can do this with CPU, what is stopping AMD from doing it besides cost. What would they need to do to make the APU speak and connect and work together? It is a nitch market i know but still wishing for one. ARM could probably do one also, who says it needs to be high performance, no body did. i would like to see a lot more PCI 3.0 slots on a motherboard though. And a lot more Ram but thats just me. Forget about the size of the board it could be the size of a coffee table i do not care but I still would love all the power. My house has enough electricity, why not? crazy but awesome.

A dual socket APU board would be supported by MSWindows. You would not need a network OS if you only use one board. You would have 8 cores and 2 GPUs. A Trinity based board would not consume an unreasonable amount of power. This kind of board would be ideal for building
low cost render farms and HPC clusters. The APUs would be connected via HyperTransport links. AMD's is using gating as a way to cut down on power usage. The APUs and parts thereof will be used only when needed by the application running. I suspect a dual Trinity FM2 board would compete with an Intel's i72600k. It is too early to make predictions as benchmarks of Trinity are not available yet.

However, by using multiple dual APU boards is a sure way to build some low cost render farms, HPC

Sandia Lab has the first cluster of AMD APUs.

You may want to Google "helmer cluster" and read These links:
http://helmer.sfe.se/

http://blogs.amd.com/work/2011/11/01/big-things-come-in-small-packages/

http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2011-11-02/first_hpc_cluster_with_amd_fusion_chips_debuts_at_sandia.html