ADVICE ON MIXING SERVERS

jpvd

jpvd

jpvd

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Hi All

Newbie here in need of some advice please...

Basically I am setting up a rack server to use as a 3d rendering farm and media server. I'm looking at doing this with 5 blade servers, with each one setup as a render node and file server when not rendering. The 3d rendering package i use can spread the rendering over unlimited pc's, with each working as a render node. I will be using secondhand blade servers, with max cores as possible for my budget.

My questions is can you mix AMD and INTEL blade servers?....

My understanding is they will effectively run as separate machines on the same network, so shouldn't cause a problem - is this correct?

I'm still learning about clusters - but not sure if this the setup i would need, as i am happy for them to all work independently on the network - not as one - if that makes sense - am i right to think this way?

For reference my current main workstation is an 8 core amd, networked with 2No standard dual core intel desktops acting as file servers for backup and storage, with additional external hard drives, etc.

Many thanks in advance

Paul
 
blades are not clusters... if that's what you are asking? its more a case of 'with the chassis support the models of blades you want to install'..

if you need all the ram maybe go server, if you want CPU power maybe consider a couple of i7s with some over clocking? or Ryzen?

I bet 1x ryzen 8 core will beat a HP dual hex G7 blade xeon for rendering (and be quieter / cheaper to run) and probably cost the same
 
thanks for your help...much appreciated!..

this is what i am now thinking:

I'm looking at buying 1No. poweredge server with 2No. xeon X5650 processors running 6 cores each (12 cores in total)

then 4No. TWIN AMD quad core servers running 2.1ghz providing me with 8 cores each, so 32 cores in total

this gives me a total of 38 additional cores for rendering.....plus the 8 i already have on the main workstation

I've priced it up and can do it for around £350 with second hand servers....already have a rack case, etc...

I don't want to form a cluster - happy to have them all working individually - but will they all talk to each ok and does this sound feasible?

thanks again!
 
jpvd said:
this is what i am now thinking:

I'm looking at buying 1No. poweredge server with 2No. xeon X5650 processors running 6 cores each (12 cores in total)

then 4No. TWIN AMD quad core servers running 2.1ghz providing me with 8 cores each, so 32 cores in total
Click to expand...
The X5650 is a 7 year old part. Likewise if you're spending £350 on a total of 5 servers then you're buying a load of ancient junk.

You're focussing on the number of cores, but ignoring that all those cores will be ancient and slow in comparison to more modern architectures. You'd be much better off buying something a lot more recent, like the Ryzen already suggested or maybe an 8/12/16 core Xeon-D SoC if you really feel you need a lot of cores for cheapish.
 
jpvd said:
thanks for your help...much appreciated!..

this is what i am now thinking:

I'm looking at buying 1No. poweredge server with 2No. xeon X5650 processors running 6 cores each (12 cores in total)

then 4No. TWIN AMD quad core servers running 2.1ghz providing me with 8 cores each, so 32 cores in total

this gives me a total of 38 additional cores for rendering.....plus the 8 i already have on the main workstation

I've priced it up and can do it for around £350 with second hand servers....already have a rack case, etc...

I don't want to form a cluster - happy to have them all working individually - but will they all talk to each ok and does this sound feasible?

thanks again!
Click to expand...

since you don't mention RAM, you want ryzen

xeon 12x2.6 = 31ghz ish
ryzen 8x3.9=31ghz ish

IPC will be higher on ryzen as well... by the time you buy the server its going to be the same price as a new ryzen system...

Plus Ryzen has all the newer bits like sata3/usb3 etc etc (and be cheaper to run)
 
thanks again gents...like i say i'm still learning....

RAM isn't a massive problem - 16gb max is needed - its mainly the number of cores that's important, as the software will access as many as available for the rendering. The system i am running now is a few years old now, amd bulldozer 8 core running at 3.8 or 4.2 when O/C, which is old by todays standards - but runs all my software perfectly. The motherboard is a SATA2, with solid state HDD's and 16gb of 1333 ram, which again works fine.

so not too bothered about having the very latest hardware, as i can always upgrade in a few years.....

ryzen processor alone will cost me £300, plus the motherboard - but i do note it will give me 16 threads as you state - so worth thinking about.... ;)
 
Do you really mean blade servers? If so you'd need a chassis as well as the servers, plus relevant IO modules and given the figures you were giving you will end up with something that isn't very fast but does put out a lot of heat and noise and sucks a large amount of power ... you'll probably spend more on power costs than the servers themselves pretty quickly. We have a HP C3000 chassis and a Dell equivalent to a HP C7000 (I don't remember the Dell model number) in our test lab at work and they are easily noisier and hotter than the other kit i the room.

As has been said, old servers are frequently a false economy due to the higher power usage and hence more noise and more heat being produced.
 
Blade chassis, only partially populated for home use? No way in hell would I run one at home for 3 blades.

I'd run a mile from 3 rack mounts, let alone an empty blade chassis. Buy ryzen and enjoy.
 
Hi All, thanks for the feedback, but think everyone is misunderstanding this...

first off I'm builder a server setup in a cabinet with 1U rack servers (maybe saying blade was incorrect)....this is a given, as I need this setup so my office can expand with it as required in the future.....i'm not concerned about heat or noise as that is dealt with....

I'm not asking whether I should do this, I am asking whether an intel and amd rack server will work together ok of if I should stick to all the same brand of cpu, etc.

cheers
 
You need to check out the performance of the cores as everyone has said.

The old AMD opteron stuff you'll find in something like the HP DL365/385 1u/2u respectively rackmount servers are absolutely awful performance now compared to even modest desktop cpus.

Westmere EP stuff (x5650's etc) are very power hungry. If you have access to a handful of pre populated dual cpu DL380 G7's then it's probably a fun project for a few days but it will cost you a fortune long term in electricity.

You really don't want a huge C7000 blade enclosure with a handful of mismatched blxxx blades smashed in. These things were a pain to get working properly when they came our years ago, let alone now.

I bought a Dell T5500 workstation a while back. This had dual x5650's (12c/24t total) and worked brilliantly. I've now got dual L5640's in there (same core and thread count, lower clock and speed and power consumption) and those cpus I think cost me £12 for the pair, when the x5650's got sold for nearly £50 each. Again though, I'd imagine a ryzen box is quicker.

If you are intent on doing this, there are some places that resell old server hardware with a 30 day warranty so at least you know it worked at some point.
 
Buying old rack mount servers for a CPU-hungry application is literally the worst possible way of going about this. You need to be buying the most recent CPUs your budget can afford. Try and get some workstations from MAX 2 years ago.
 
thanks again all....

what do you guys reckon to this as an option >

DELL R905 SERVER
4X AMD OPTERON 8356 QUAD 2.3GHZ
32X2GB ram
4X36GB+4X146GB
2X PSU

about £200 and each cpu has a similar benchmark to my current amd fx8150 8 core....
 
jpvd said:
thanks again all....

what do you guys reckon to this as an option >

DELL R905 SERVER
4X AMD OPTERON 8356 QUAD 2.3GHZ
32X2GB ram
4X36GB+4X146GB
2X PSU

about £200 and each cpu has a similar benchmark to my current amd fx8150 8 core....
Click to expand...
That processor is appallingly bad value for money and electricity consumption. TWO of those CPUs give a total passmark of 4376! A SINGLE Core i3-3225 gives a passmark of 4334.
 
If power usage is NOT a concern AND your rendering software actually scales properly (AND you need scope to expand in the future) then it may make sense, but you don't want to be using Rack servers with AMD processors as they are no where near competitive.

DL380 G6 is probably the best price/performance you will get in "old" servers - £120-£140 will get you one populated with a pair of 2.80GHZ X5560 Quad core Xeon.

At that price you can afford 3 servers for less than the price of a Ryzen 1800X cpu. That gets you 24 physical cores, 48 logical cores, huge amounts of ram, and possibility for a decent amount of storage as well.

Yes a Ryzen 1800X may score 15k Passmark for example, but just one of those servers will score 9k - if the software scales with more nodes and cores then 3 rack servers are probably quicker, and you can add more cheaply.

https://cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Ryzen+7+1800X&id=2966
https://cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+X5560+@+2.80GHz&id=1301&cpuCount=2
 
hi gents

right i took on board all your comments and did some experimenting...

first i sourced a dell poweredge 905, with 4 cpu sockets and 4 cores on each with 96gig of ram. Installed windows 7 after what seemed like hours of messing around and problems, then finally got it installed and it worked a charm, other than i did not realize it only supports 1 cpu or 2 cpu if pro - dammit - face palm - stupid mistake - So i looked into windows server software - 2008 was in my price bracket, but tried it and none of my software worked on it and it was like stepping back in time....

played around with it for a couple of days, got fed up and took it back....the company i purchased it from were great and had no issue in swapping it - so exchanged for a i7 desktop, with 4 gig of ram for £200.....Brought this home, banged in a hdd and another 4gig of ram, installed windows 7 and created a rendering node.....

now my current everyday work rig is an amd fx-8150, 16 gig ram, SSD's, etc, etc - ran a test render with a 300dpi image, which included mirrors, lighting and reflections - too 30 minutes from start to finish. Then I setup the i7 node and ran another render (with both rigs rendering) and this time it took 13.40mins......so by adding just one additional desktop I have reduced the render time by over half....!... DAM i was impressed.....

So I hold my hands up and stand corrected - you guys were bang on the money....

I did learn a lot about RAID and how it works from getting the server, which was great to finally get an understanding of - which i wouldn't have done if i hadn't bought the server - plus i learnt how bloody loud they are - like a jet engine....drove me nuts....!!!!

so plan is to buy a few more i7's over the next few months and take it from there....

so thanks again guys - appreciate your feedback and help with this....turned out great!
 
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