[tech] Possible Club Purchase Idea: GPU heavy calculations box

[Nick Bannon]

On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 11:32:18AM +0800, Nick Bannon wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 11:16:56AM +0800, Daniel Axtens wrote:
> > A few people tossed around the idea of getting a multiple-GPU box
> > to do Maths(TM). Suggested projects included Cameron Hall 3D (CH3D),
[...]

A recurring plan... and there's been talk of donating a whole machine
that appears to be in no danger of happening immediately.

Does anyone feel keen about setting up a minimal single node config?
A test could happen on just about any clubroom desktop; and there's a
few likely rackmount servers including a DELL R710, already physically
mounted in the machine room.

If it's the latter... there's a few relevant points in the upcoming tech
meeting agenda:
- get your updates to it `git commit`'ed now;
- we could use some extra drive caddies for both DELL R710 units;
- if we're mounting a desktop GPU inside, we'll need to see if there's
  a suitable PCIe riser already installed; or if we need to add one

I figure the major hurdle isn't hardware, though, it's selecting/setting
up a basic GPGPU environment to run a random test program as any user.
Bare metal? but if it's got potential for KVM passthrough or vGPU,
so much the better.

Nick.

-- 
   Nick Bannon   | "I made this letter longer than usual because
nick-sig at rcpt.to | I lack the time to make it shorter." - Pascal