[Axatax]

> 16/32 CPUs on a single instance.  I know they're here, and I know there is a real-world cost to running this stuff. 

Maybe something can be worked out, like one or two days a week -- for getting our new distro off the ground.  I would also throw into a kickstarter for something like this, or a Paypal bucket.

[Raion]

I have a 4 CPU Onyx2, but my home internet connection and power setup are far from ideal.

I have an Origin 2k deskside I've been trying to get rid of, but it's dual CPU only. Someone would need to buy new nodeboards for it, and preferably I would rather pay a web business around here to share their internet connection instead of using my own. A deskside can do 8 CPUs.

I know a few users have racks here.

For those who are curious, we're not interested in cross-compilation.

Alternatively, we could get a money pool going and one of us could buy a few origin 300/350 racks. I have one I would put on the pile.

[Irinikus]

16 to 32 CPU's only make sense if they're all running at 1GHz or if they're at least 700MHz R16K's, as the performance of MIPS CPU's is a direct function of MHz, so 16 to 32 R10K's, R12K's or R14K's, for that matter, really don't add up to much, except a huge waste of fossil fuel!

[jan-jaap]

I've used my 8 CPU O350 for a *lot* of builds (this thing ran automatic regression builds for gcc-TRUNK for a couple of years, for example), and in my experience not many builds need more CPUs than that. In then end you'll just have CPUs idling, you're bottlenecked on I/O or similar. The system will essentially idle while you're sorting out bugs. The operational cost of large systems only make sense if you can keep them fully loaded all the time.

I think I measured my O350 at a little over 250W / module. That means a dual module O350 costs more than € 1000,- / year to run in electricity alone (at €0,24 / KWh). Now you know why I had mine hosted at work in exchange for letting the company use it from time to time...

[Raion]

Yeah, Europe has very expensive power compared to North America.

I would use my 4-CPU Onyx2, but I can't run any other PCs on the circuit at the same time, and I can't sleep with it running.

[Irinikus]

Yeah, Europe has very expensive power compared to North America.

I would use my 4-CPU Onyx2, but I can't run any other PCs on the circuit at the same time, and I can't sleep with it running.

Why the Onyx2 and not the Tezro? The Tezro will be allot more energy efficient!

[Raion]

Why the Onyx2 and not the Tezro? The Tezro will be allot more energy efficient!

Repair costs, mostly. If the Tezro breaks down, it's gonna cost me a fortune to replace.

[Raion]

Terrh has gladly offered a 8x195MHz Origin for our use. While not the fastest or most ideal, I'm grateful to him for providing it.

[kaigan]

If you're looking for fast, high-end processors, I could offer up remote use of my Tezro. It's a quad 1GHz model with 8 GB of RAM and a 300 GB HDD. Since I don't have the full panel set for it, I run it skinless and I haven't had any issues with cooling.

I'll need to figure out a good way to provide secure VPN access to my network, but once that's taken care of, I can let the system be put to use. I have a residential gigabit connection (not symmetric, but around 500 Mbit upload is probably good enough ), so it should be fairly snappy for access.

[Terrh]

I've got 14 cpu's now, 2 more should be on the way shortly, I just need to get it configured w/ craylink cables and then it should be good to go!


If someone knows where more compute bricks/node boards can be had and can help get them to me, I'd gladly try and get a 24/32 cpu setup running. I think that beyond 16 cpus I'd probably need to find the MMSC front panel to configure the system as well. I've got the actual MMSC computer but not the LCD display/panel that goes in the front of the rack. Maybe there's another way to talk to it I'm not aware of?

Feel free to shoot me a message on here or Discord (Terrh#0780) to discuss further.