I spent some time tabulating all of the data. I initially planned to take an average of the benchmarks to find the best performing processor for value but without normalising the values, the parameters are just too far apart to take an arithmetic mean.
The Athlon X4-620 just owns in every category.A few points I've noticed... Intel's pricing strategy makes sense in that you're paying an increasing premium for the highest end processors, whereas AMD's pricing strategy seems fairly linear - pay more, get more.
The best processor to use for a supercomputer project based on COTS nodes at the moment seems to be the Athlon X4-620. What's not pointed out in the list is that power consumption and operating temperatures also very important for a supercomputer project. And based on the reviews I could find, the X4-620 performs very well in terms of power consumption and operating temperature when loaded. My Q6600 2.4ghz/core heats up to 80 deg C when running 2 MATLAB PDE simulations at the same time, while the X4-620 2.6ghz/core only heats up to 42 deg C when fully loaded! What a massive difference, even if you take it that my CPU has poor fan management.
Next on the shopping list: micro-ATX motherboards, memory, power supplies. The rest of the costs are actually negligible. However, a point to note, it seems like a 4-node system will cost around US$1.5k at this stage, with S$600 to be poured into processors alone. Running at the present supercomputing minimum standard of 2GB memory/core => 32GB memory (see: http://www.beowulf.org/archive/2008-July/022327.html for great discussions), then we'll need 16 sticks of 2GB ram which will cost a staggering S$1216 at the moment. Maybe some compromise has to be done... at 3GB/S$99, Team Elite's memory is actually the best priced. What about 1.5GB/core... 8 sticks of 3GB = S$792. Sounds like the best deal.
Lastly, I think I will center the cluster around these 4 main nodes... so I thought of a project title... m4nifold... something. Lol.
Credits for benchmarks: guru3d.com, cpu-world.com, Bell Systems Electronics.
Next on the shopping list: micro-ATX motherboards, memory, power supplies. The rest of the costs are actually negligible. However, a point to note, it seems like a 4-node system will cost around US$1.5k at this stage, with S$600 to be poured into processors alone. Running at the present supercomputing minimum standard of 2GB memory/core => 32GB memory (see: http://www.beowulf.org/archive/2008-July/022327.html for great discussions), then we'll need 16 sticks of 2GB ram which will cost a staggering S$1216 at the moment. Maybe some compromise has to be done... at 3GB/S$99, Team Elite's memory is actually the best priced. What about 1.5GB/core... 8 sticks of 3GB = S$792. Sounds like the best deal.
Lastly, I think I will center the cluster around these 4 main nodes... so I thought of a project title... m4nifold... something. Lol.
Credits for benchmarks: guru3d.com, cpu-world.com, Bell Systems Electronics.
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