Jose (no@teh.win) on 5/23/07 wrote:
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>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/
>

That's exactly what I am asking about. Are them any good?

>Or, heck, are HP http://web.amd.com/en-us/partners/hp/server.aspx

Sorry, HP DL585 is not commodity. It is a product of non-trivial in house engineering.

and Sun http://web.amd.com/en-us/partners/sun/server.aspx

Sun Fire V40z is commodity. I don't remember Sun having big success selling those. X4600 is not commodity.

>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.

You are sort of making my point.
I'd say the problem exists even with 4-way servers when you try to build then "commodity-way" i.e. with everything on a single motherboard.

BTW, it is interesting that Supermicro machines are towers. IMO, 4-way "commodity" towers are more likely to be good then their 3U or 4U counterparts. However, towers are not fashionable in big IT organizations and small IT organizations rarely need 4-ways to start with.