

32 core virtualization cluster for £1300 - rwmj
https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2014/04/28/caseless-virtualization-cluster-part-5/#content

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DanBC
I love this.

Threaded rods with a couple of nuts and crinkle washers might be cheaper and
more adjustable than a lot of spacers.

As for power - you'll want some kind of industrial supply that can cope with
multiple motherboards. These will ne sold at places like FEC or RS or etc,
rather than computer parts suppliers.

And I freaking love "Ocha Ken".

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rwmj
Yes threaded rods were suggested by a commenter on the blog[0]. By the time he
had posted that comment I'd already invested in about 100 of those aluminium
stand-offs, so I decided to go with that :-)

[0] [http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2014/04/13/caseless-
virtualization...](http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2014/04/13/caseless-
virtualization-cluster-part-1/#comment-9476)

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valarauca1
Honest question, why are the computers connected with Ethernet as apposed to
PCIe wouldn't that allow faster communication between cores?

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rwmj
To be honest I didn't know that connecting them with PCIe was a possibility.
Now I see it is, I may try that, so thanks :-)

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valarauca1
when I say 'possibility', I should put more quotes around it. I know BlueGene
(I one of the 00's top 10 super computers) did the interconnections of its
processors with PCIe

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dman
Does anyone know if there are any ATX power supplies that can power more than
a single motherboard?

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rwmj
Power is the major problem that stops me scaling this up to the ceiling, so
I'd like to know the answer to this too. Apparently there are PSU splitters
(used by bitcoin mining rigs) but most people seem to have made their own.

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dman
Btw - have you taken a look at this -
[http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/AM1H-ITX/](http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/AM1H-ITX/)
. Its not as good as having a single power supply for multiple boards, but it
has a dc power supply (notebook style) that should take a lot less space / be
a lot more silent than traditional power supplies.

~~~
rwmj
That motherboard looks good, but is rather expensive. The motherboards I'm
using (see [0] for spec) plus the power supply is only a tiny bit more
expensive than that. (And the central aim of this project is to get as many
cores and as much RAM for as little money as possible)

[0] [http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/caseless-
virtualization...](http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/caseless-
virtualization-cluster-part-2/#content)

