Server

ALabr · ‎05-05-2009

Hello

I am trying to build a couple of servers for a customer (Division of Physics of Environment - Meteorology- University of Athens) They use them for weather forecasting, so they install to them Linux (CentOS) and their parallel processing forecasting software. They use in parallel two or more systems so they join the horsepower of many Quad Core Xeons (many times more than 20 CPUs). The systems run at full CPU load for 8 to 12 hours per day. This is not the usual usage for a server M/B or system. Usually servers use less than 15% of their processor power. So in our situation we stress the CPU and Memory subsystems to the limits for a long time every day. We have supplied our customers Intel Server equipment for many years and they are very satisfied.

With the new Nehalem based Xeon systems the configuration and the occupation of the memory slots of the M/B become more complicate than in previous implementations of Intel M/Bs. Now as it is described if you would like to have the maximum performance from the new Xeons you must use all the three memory channels per processor, so you must have installed 6 DIMMs per M/B. I found one very useful link about the memory configuration of a 55xx series Xeon M/B.

http://blogs.sun.com/jnerl/entry/configuring_and_optimizing_intel_xeon

I would like to have the official opinion of Intel about the memory configuration. In this article the writer suggested that if you want to have the best memory bandwidth for your system you have to install 3 * DDR3-1333 Dual Rank DIMMs per processor.

In my situation I want to install the S5520UR M/B to a SR2600URLX system with two XEON X5550 2,66GHz 1333 8M processors. I want to install at least 8GB to have enough memory for the application of my customer. My Intel distributor offers all the variety of Kingston memory

http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator_new/modelsinfo.asp?id=1&SysID=54351 http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator_new/modelsinfo.asp?id=1&SysID=54351

There are a lot of different kind of memory modules from Kingston for S5520UR M/B but as I understand the best solution for optimal performance is to buy 6 * http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator_new/partsinfo.asp?root=&LinkBack=&ktcpartno=KVR1333D3D8R9S/2G KVR1333D3D8R9S/2G. Is it also your proposal, or you believe that it is better to buy something else from Kingston offerings?

Andreas

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Ed_Groden · ‎05-05-2009

Hi Andreas,

Yes, populating your system with 6 x 2 GB DDR3 1333 RDIMMs is a good choice to both maximize your bandwidth AND give you the capacity you need. Since you always will want to go with ECC memory, one other option is unbuffered DDR3 1333 DIMMs with ECC (same 2 GB capacity), which might save you some money and about lower your power by ~ 1 Watt per DIMM compared to the RDIMMs.

Ed

ALabr · ‎05-08-2009

thank you for your answer

Andreas