8 socket servers

Michael S (already5chosen@yahoo.com) on 5/17/07 wrote:
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>Are you theorizing or do you really have first hand experience with these wonderful commodity 4-socket servers?
>I personally never even see one, but I'm not in the IT.
Start here: http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/system/Tower/
Or, heck, are HP http://web.amd.com/en-us/partners/hp/server.aspx and Sun http://web.amd.com/en-us/partners/sun/server.aspx commodity enough?

The trouble with "commodity" 8 socket servers is simply the sheer real estate involved. You can't fit eight sockets on a conventional motherboard, so you're looking at daughter cards... and already you've walked away from "commodity." Now, there are ways it *could* go (HTX slots so standardized single- or dual-socket daughter cards become a commodity of sorts) but the industry likes to go its own way until the vendors finally realize (again) the benefits of standardization. And the 8 socket market will be small (but lucrative) enough that that may never happen.