11 ms·
Looks nice. But where is all the bandwidth for 16 TB 3 ports supposed to come from? That’s 64 PCIe 3.0 lanes, mind you. Adding to that, 32 PCIe 3.0 lanes for
by fuzzy2 10y ago
Looks nice.
But where is all the bandwidth for 16 TB 3 ports supposed to come from? That’s 64 PCIe 3.0 lanes, mind you.
Adding to that, 32 PCIe 3.0 lanes for the graphics cards, 16 PCIe 2.0 lanes for the TB 2 ports, 2 PCIe lanes for the Ethernet ports, 2 PCIe lanes for the USB ports.
That’s 64 + 32 + 16 + 2 + 2 = 116 PCIe lanes
Guess not?
- throwawayish 10y agoOf course not; this isn't even possible with a dual socket system, which would also lack the memory bandwidth to do anything except idling with that many PCIe lanes. (Plus, if your IO bandwidth is pretty much the same as your memory bandwidth ... what exactly are you gonna do in terms of data processing? 1+2?) But this is just one of many things that just don't make any sense at all about this design. It might look nice, to some, though.
- frozenport 10y agoMaybe feed the GPU?
- throwawayish 10y agoIf you want to feed dozens of GPUs with compute tasks then there is more specialized hardware for that with way better density. (That goes into a rack of course).
- kraftman 10y agoWhat's the use case for all the connectivity too?
- dublinben 10y agoAttaching all the external storage you can't fit inside your compact desktop case, I presume.
- matheweis 10y agoAbsolutely doable. The modern i7's have 40 PCIe lanes. If you built a quad processor system you would have 160 PCIe lanes... Have a look at the obscene number of PCIe lanes in modern server architectures. The bigger issue would be memory bandwidth, but I think that could also be engineered around. Edit: SuperMicro sells a system with 8 PCIE 3.0 x16 + 7 PCIE 3.0 x8 ... 184 lanes not counting the other onboard peripherals. So it basically exists minus the Apple form factor.
- fuzzy2 10y ago> Edit: SuperMicro sells a system Which product is that, specifically? It’s of course achievable with any CPU using PCIe switches. However, they don’t magically increase bandwidth. Two CPUs is probably all that can be crammed into a case that small, so 80 lanes (+ ~8 via PCH) is as good as it gets.
- matheweis 10y agoA very ugly 7U server: https://www.supermicro.com/products/system/7U/7088/SYS-7088B-TR4FT.cfm https://www.supermicro.com/products/system/7U/7088/SYS-7088B... The point was less about the form factor and more about the number of PCIe lanes that can conceivably be available and the associated memory/bus bandwidth that is possible.
- fuzzy2 10y agoHaha, I see. That's a blade center with 8 "PCs", each supporting one PCIe x16 card and some supporting an additional x16 card (with only 8 lanes connected). It's not really comparable to this project.
- simcop2387 10y agoDon't forget you'd also probably want some PCIe lanes for any ssd drives that you'd be dropping in there.