didn't Apple used to make an Xserve?

13

Comments

  • Reply 41 of 62
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mike

    You're still wrong! ...



    People are attempting to clarify and slightly ammend your description of the physics involved. They are pointing out the difference between heat and temperature. While a smaller box may run hotter. This isn't synonymous with it generating more heat.
  • Reply 42 of 62
    mikemike Posts: 138member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dfiler

    People are attempting to clarify and slightly ammend your description of the physics involved. They are pointing out the difference between heat and temperature. While a smaller box may run hotter. This isn't synonymous with it generating more heat.



    I TOTALLY understand it...having an EE degree I was simply pointing out that a 1U Dell Xeon machine does produce more heat then a 2U or 4U Dell Xeon machine with the same CPU's. This is not based on conjecture or guessing or pencil and paper figures...it is based on real world tests...nothing more...nothing less
  • Reply 43 of 62
    Then how are you measuring that heat? How many BTUs do the 2U and 1U boxes pump out per hour for instance?



    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mike

    I TOTALLY understand it...having an EE degree I was simply pointing out that a 1U Dell Xeon machine does produce more heat then a 2U or 4U Dell Xeon machine with the same CPU's. This is not based on conjecture or guessing or pencil and paper figures...it is based on real world tests...nothing more...nothing less



  • Reply 44 of 62
    I may be showing my ignorance here, but if you are measuring the air output from the exhaust you are not measuring the heat generated by the CPU's but rather the heat transfered to the air that is coming out of the enclosure. If both computers have the same heat sink and same fan then the larger enclosure would still probably have a lower heat at the exhaust vent because there is more room for air in the enclosure that is receiving heat from the heat sinks. To measure the heat generated by the CPU's you need to get a temperature reading from the CPU to be accurate.
  • Reply 45 of 62
    mikemike Posts: 138member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Tomb of the Unknown

    Then how are you measuring that heat? How many BTUs do the 2U and 1U boxes pump out per hour for instance?



    I wish we really know emphatically the exact number. I was talking about this with one of my guys today that has a similar Physics background to mine and we were wondering the same. Unforunately, Dell's Rack Advisor still has not been updated with the 1750's. We were actually looking to see what the power consumption was on all the machines...



    It still baffles us that a Dell 2600 Dual 3.06 with internal RAID with 2 drives, an additional RAID card for an external RAID chassis and redundant power supplies is producing more heat then a Dell 1750 with Dual 3.06's and a single hard drive and single power supply!!!



    BTW, the heatsinks are WAY different!
  • Reply 46 of 62
    mikemike Posts: 138member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by @homenow

    I may be showing my ignorance here, but if you are measuring the air output from the exhaust you are not measuring the heat generated by the CPU's but rather the heat transfered to the air that is coming out of the enclosure. If both computers have the same heat sink and same fan then the larger enclosure would still probably have a lower heat at the exhaust vent because there is more room for air in the enclosure that is receiving heat from the heat sinks. To measure the heat generated by the CPU's you need to get a temperature reading from the CPU to be accurate.



    The heatsinks are NOT the same. Maybe I can find the time tomorrow to snap some pictures. We were talking about checking the CPU temps on the machines...this is monitored, we just did not have the time to check them.



    Also, the 1750's fans SEEM to push more air volume...although they may be moving the same CFM in a much smaller area.
  • Reply 47 of 62
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mike

    ...We also did not measure the power going into the machines as we were only concerned about the heat generated not the power consumption...



    I'm confused. I also have an EE degree, but perhaps I don't remember it as well as I thought: I was under the impression that the law of conservation of energy imply that the heat produced by a computer per unit time must be directly proportional to its energy consumption.



    So surely measuring the power consumption of the server would be the best, most reliable method of determining its heat output, since even a very noisy server with lots of blinking lights still produces heat as its primary form of energy output.



    If you try to measure the temperature of the processor or the air coming out of the vents, then you may miss other places where heat is escaping, such as radiation from the casing.



    It doesn't really matter how a server distributes the processor heat, in the end, for a given processor at a given load the exact same amount of heat will be produced and this heat will end up warming the air in the room, regardless of how many heatsinks, fans, casings, etc it passes through first (after all, heatsinks and fans are basically just ways to transfer heat to the air).



    It may be that a server with a lot more fans produces more heat because of the fans own motors, which cannot run completely without friction. In which case you may be right that the smaller servers (which typically need more fans) may be running hotter. But then in that case you could find out that quite easily by measuring their power input, as was suggested.



    You are correct that temperature is dependent on size, however heat is not. A smaller case will get hotter than a larger case given the same amount of heating. However I presume that it is the temperature of your server room that you are concerned about, not the individual servers themselves. A small server gets hotter because it only has half as much case area to absorb heat. However, that also means it only has half as much area to radiate heat from, which means that it will heat the room exactly as much as a server that is half the temperature, but twice as big.



    So if I were you, I'd worry about ventilation, and not how big your server boxes are.



    Socrates
  • Reply 48 of 62
    crayzcrayz Posts: 73member
    I may be showing my ignorance here, but if you are measuring the air output from the exhaust you are not measuring the heat generated by the CPU's but rather the heat transfered to the air that is coming out of the enclosure.



    Well it's not like the heat just stays in the computer. It has to go somewhere. Probably the best measurement would be putting the comp in a room by itself and measuring the increase in air temperature.
  • Reply 49 of 62
    Quote:

    Originally posted by crayz

    I may be showing my ignorance here, but if you are measuring the air output from the exhaust you are not measuring the heat generated by the CPU's but rather the heat transfered to the air that is coming out of the enclosure.



    Well it's not like the heat just stays in the computer. It has to go somewhere. Probably the best measurement would be putting the comp in a room by itself and measuring the increase in air temperature.




    As Socrates so wisely pointed out the larger server has a larger surface area, as well as internal volume to both absorb and radiate the heat through means other than the exhaust vent. The heat is still going into the room, but not directly through the exhaust which I assume is the point that the temperature was being measured.
  • Reply 50 of 62
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Chucker

    Yeah right...



    Since when does Apple make Blades?




    shawk is right. Pixar has intense interest in G5 Xserves.
  • Reply 51 of 62
    drboardrboar Posts: 477member
    Heat can be transfered 3 ways.

    1. Radiation

    2. Convection through air or liquid ( all that air pumped over the heat sinks)

    3. Conductance through solid material (like from the CPU to the heat sink)



    Basically most parts of the computer is heated up through radiation and conductance spreading the heat from a handful of really hot components and then the airflow will cool of the whole thing.



    The simplest way to measure heat is to measure the power comsumption by having a meter on the power cord. A computer basically is a machine with 0% "efficency" 100% end up as heat and (allmost) 0% as "work".



    And please use Watts as opposed to such arcane units as BTU
  • Reply 52 of 62
    mikemike Posts: 138member
    We are measuring the actual ROOM temperature...which is what is puzzling. During our spare time we may try and figure out what is going on Cause you know that funny thing about energy...
  • Reply 53 of 62
    mikemike Posts: 138member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Socrates

    So if I were you, I'd worry about ventilation, and not how big your server boxes are.



    Socrates




    That was all we were concerend about (cooling)...however, the 1750's and the 2600's are the only servers with U320 built-in controllers. The 2650's are still U180. Being DB servers disk IO is the true limiting factor. Now imagine the space 6 2600's take up vs 6 1750's. We also need room to grow this cluster to 32 nodes...size does start to matter.
  • Reply 54 of 62
    mikemike Posts: 138member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Socrates

    I'm confused. I also have an EE degree, but perhaps I don't remember it as well as I thought: I was under the impression that the law of conservation of energy imply that the heat produced by a computer per unit time must be directly proportional to its energy consumption.



    Socrates




    You are correct. We do not have the tools to measure this however.
  • Reply 55 of 62
    Quote:

    Originally posted by DrBoar

    And please use Watts as opposed to such arcane units as BTU



    Nothing arcane about BTUs at all.



    But I wasn't suggesting what unit of measurement to use, I was trying to find out how they were taking the measurement. Comparing the heat output of a lightly used CPU in a 2U box against a 1U box that's heavily loaded with computaionally intensive tasks using the "lick and touch" measurement technique isn't going to tell you much beyond "one's warmer'. But warmer does not mean "produces more heat" which is the point folks were trying to get across.



    Measuring BTUs would give you a rough idea of how the CPUs in question compare in terms of actual heat output in this instance, but since the amount of heat generated by a CPU is related to how much electricity it uses which will vary according to computational load it's not too surprising that an under utilized system will actually produce less heat than one that is heavily utilized all other things being equal (which in this case, they're not).
  • Reply 56 of 62
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mike

    You are correct. We do not have the tools to measure this however.



    Go watch the dial spin in the electricity meter. Duh.



  • Reply 57 of 62
    krassykrassy Posts: 595member
    i don't want to repeat myself but it seems as if i was - and still am - in a good position to win the bet on 90nm chips as well as my prediction for g5 xserves at the end of february



    funny that every answer i got in that old thread was refusal



    Quote:

    Originally posted by Krassy

    my thoughts are based on this:

    http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docvie...=psg1MIGR-53431



    i think if ibm can put two ppc 1.6GHz-970s in a 1U unit this must be 90nm cpus because of the heat of current 130nm 1.6 GHz chips. however - if ibm can do it, apple also can which means updated G5 xservers at the end of february along with new PowerMac G5s at higher clockspeeds at the same time (end of february). the update of the new g5 revision will be given in a special event in february. another hint at new 90nm PPC 970s can be found here



    all based on speculation. but i think it sounds good




  • Reply 58 of 62
    mikemike Posts: 138member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Krassy

    i don't want to repeat myself but it seems as if i was - and still am - in a good position to win the bet on 90nm chips as well as my prediction for g5 xserves at the end of february



    funny that every answer i got in that old thread was refusal




    I agree 8) I know some other tidbits that should come to pass in a couple months and really change the IT department's outlook on G5 servers...
  • Reply 59 of 62
    mikemike Posts: 138member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kickaha

    Go watch the dial spin in the electricity meter. Duh.







    The dial moves too fast
  • Reply 60 of 62
    mmicistmmicist Posts: 214member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Krassy

    i don't want to repeat myself but it seems as if i was - and still am - in a good position to win the bet on 90nm chips as well as my prediction for g5 xserves at the end of february



    funny that every answer i got in that old thread was refusal




    Except IBM never said anything about 1U servers, they talked about blades. They also have avaialble in the same form factor dual XEON 2.8GHz units, which I suspect dissipate quite a bit more heat than a pair of 130nm 1.6GHz G5s.



    michael
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