Helmer - A relatively cheap home renderfarm

Olis · Post by **Olis** » Fri May 30, 2008 2:07 am

Well it's a bunch of motherboards in a metal cabinet. Though it's quite fast for its price.

http://helmer.sfe.se/

Stur · Post by **Stur** » Fri May 30, 2008 8:16 am

Awesome !!

joegiampaoli · Post by **joegiampaoli** » Fri May 30, 2008 8:46 am

Man that's a nice Beowulf, it is awesome!

psor · Post by **psor** » Fri May 30, 2008 8:59 am

I need one of these!

take care
psor

Kyokutan · Post by **Kyokutan** » Sat May 31, 2008 12:12 am

Similar project with GPUs:

http://fastra.ua.ac.be/en/index.html

They beat a 3.5mio $ computer with this machine!

PS.: I'm not a fan of GPU vs. CPU.....but in this case the GPU-solution seems quite effective.

Sukrim · Post by **Sukrim** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 1:02 am

Just add more cores!!!111one

Well, Tesla is the "pro"-Version of that "FASTRA" thingie - however I wonder how they managed to:

- cool the GPUs effectively (there is no mainboard in there as far as I could see) 1500 Watts is not very efficient... maybe they should use some more dedicated hardware than 9800X2 cards (maybe even AMD/ATI cards, they are even cheaper)
- get a mainboard to accept 8 GPUs on 4 PCIe lanes (looks custom built...)
- get this guy to make the video, he just looks like all of those geek-stereotypes in one person
- build that much *bling* in one workstation

Edit: CUDA-Indigo anyone?

Zom-B · Post by **Zom-B** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 12:44 am

Sukrim wrote:(there is no mainboard in there as far as I could see)

there is, the CPU Coller is just a hint

Sukrim wrote:1500 Watts is not very efficient... maybe they should use some more dedicated hardware than 9800X2 cards (maybe even AMD/ATI cards, they are even cheaper)

if CUDA is involved ATI Cards are dismissed... aren't they?!

Sukrim wrote:get a mainboard to accept 8 GPUs on 4 PCIe lanes (looks custom built...)

wasn't new even in 2005 -.-

Sukrim wrote:get this guy to make the video, he just looks like all of those geek-stereotypes in one person

+1 I love his clumsy gestures ^^

Sukrim wrote:Edit: CUDA-Indigo anyone?

In a Galaxy far far away... in a Time of 4GB RAM on board, GPUs working with double prezision there is a Indigo Cuda version ^^

Kram1032 · Post by **Kram1032** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 3:43 am

...as well as a CPU version for Indigo, with 4x precision and full animation support...

(and a third one, using both)
(and a fourth for ATI - /me doesn't have Gforce)

cookieofdoom · Post by **cookieofdoom** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 3:53 am

I'm definitely going to build one of these sometime in my life. There's even an Ikea pretty close to where I live, lol.

Meelis · Post by **Meelis** » Wed Apr 08, 2009 3:42 am

Isn't there PSU-s that supports multible motherboards? Maybe server one.

water cooling wood be nice to.

Zom-B · Post by **Zom-B** » Wed Apr 08, 2009 9:01 am

Meelis wrote:Isn't there PSU-s that supports multible motherboards? Maybe server one.

water cooling wood be nice to.

Check Google about the Coler Master 20 ghz 53GHz Mini-itx PC

http://www.minitechnet.de/typo3temp/pics/22a19c8d43.jpg

Here a german article: http://www.minitechnet.de/cooler-master ... itx_1.html

The idea was to power 5 mainboards with one PSU and bring all in one Case... watercoled!

The PSU was slightly modified for this purposes, but seems to be easy to reconstruct!

Meelis · Post by **Meelis** » Wed Apr 08, 2009 8:13 pm

It's totally assom.

Will unmodified psu drive it. I really don't know how do modifie.
Tagan - BZ1300 might work maybe
http://www.tagan.com/index.php?option=c ... Itemid=143
It has 1104W on six +12V rails.

I'm going to burn everything down someday if i start modifing

carbon · Post by **carbon** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 2:48 am

only 2gb memory each?

and why 5 burners?

Zom-B · Post by **Zom-B** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 2:53 am

Meelis wrote:It's totally assom.

Will unmodified psu drive it. I really don't know how do modifie.
Tagan - BZ1300 might work maybe
http://www.tagan.com/index.php?option=c ... Itemid=143
It has 1104W on six +12V rails.

I'm going to burn everything down someday if i start modifing

Its explained at some point in one of the videos shortly. 5x Cooler Master 12V DC-DC Mini-Converter 160W re used for this purpose!

carbon wrote:only 2gb memory each?
and why 5 burners?

The idea is to have one workstation, that can be used by 5 users at the same time. every of the systems here got a own burner, HDD etc.

Meelis · Post by **Meelis** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 8:01 am

Its explained at some point in one of the videos shortly. 5x Cooler Master 12V DC-DC Mini-Converter 160W re used for this purpose!

I imagined that dc 2 dc converter inputs req volts from PSU's +12V rail, not like most single iTX system do from ac adapter's. Didn't they modifie converter dc-in to input from psu's +12V rail.

Does Vista run on such machine

PSU calculator told me I need 210W for: Q9550 / 4x ddr2 / 3.5 7200 sata HD / DVDRW drive. How can i share one HD & one DVD drive between motherboards.

Helmer - A relatively cheap home renderfarm

Helmer - A relatively cheap home renderfarm

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