[gmx-users] Gromacs on dual athlons

[Anton Feenstra]

jfuchser wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I will soon be building a test 4 node cluster to run Gromacs, and if all goes
> well will most likely expand the cluster to 8 nodes or more.  I was leaning
> towards using dual Athlon CPU's and I was curious how these machines perform
> on Gromacs clusters.

In general I would say they perform excellently. I assume you've already
had a look at the benchmark page on the Gromacs site?

> My local vendor warned me that the Athlons run very hot possibly requiring
> special cooling.  He also does not carry the MP processors or a dual Athlon
> motherboard and if I purchased the parts through him he would not give me a
> warranty.  If anyone could direct me to a vendor who deals with the athlons
> and could sell me a dual setup under warranty it would be greatly appreciated.

If you expect temperature problems, simply get a large case and stick in
as many fans as you can. Don't do this if you want to put the boxes in
anyone's office, as they will be *noisy*!! Putting them in an airconditioned
room (e.g. server/network equipment room) would be ideal. As for warranty,
there always is the factory warranty, but that's up to you if that suffices.

> One last thing for now, in regards to the OS.  My colleague has some
> experience with Suse Linux and would like to run that on the cluster however
> for the most part it appears people have been running Red Hat.  Will the
> parallel version of Gromacs run properly on Suse Linux 8.0?

Defenitely, although the .rpm distribution which is made for RedHat
would probably not work, you can still get the source which will
compile without trouble on your Suse system.

-- 
Groetjes,

Anton
 ________ ___________________________________________________________
|        | Anton Feenstra                                            |
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