Re: TerraSoft PPC Motherboard.
The real advantage of the PowerPC motherboard becomes much more apparent when
you...
(drum roll please...)
Imagine A Beowulf Cluster Of These
If you had a 72" rackmount cabinet fully populated with 1U x86 motherboards in
your home, I expect you would need to install special power and air conditioning.
You'd be much more likely to be able to do it without special installation
using PowerPC.
Although the extra services required for x86 might be cheaper to install at
first than the more expensive TerraSoft motherboard, the power bills you
receive would probably eat any savings in a few months.
I could tell the difference in my power bill when I started leaving a single
computer powered on all the time, instead of powering off all the computers
every night as I used to do.
Another advantage of using a PPC is for intensive numerical applications, using
the AltiVec instruction set would be advantageous. You'd need G4 CPUs for that
of course.
There's not much support for AltiVec in Linux yet, but I expect if you're going
to build a Beowulf cluster, you'll be writing your own software anyway.
I have plans to build a Beowulf cluster when I get the cash. I'll probably
start out with just a few CPUs to start, but would eventually build a full
rackmount cabinet of them.
Mike
--
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc. - Expert Software Development and Consulting
http://www.goingware.com/
crawford@goingware.com
Tilting at Windmills for a Better Tomorrow.
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