Dell PowerEdge 1655MC - Manual (Page 24)

Optimal BIOS settings for HPC with Dell PowerEdge 12 th generation servers
24
Table 6. 11 th and 12 th generation cluster test bed details
Component 11 th generation cluster 10 12 th generation cluster
SERVER Dell PowerEdge R610 rack server (1)
Dell PowerEdge M610 blade server
(16) in a PowerEdge M1000e chassis
Dell PowerEdge R620 rack server (1)
Dell PowerEdge M620 blade server
(16) in a PowerEdge M1000e chassis
PROCESSORS Dual Intel Xeon X5570 @ 2.93 GHz,
95W Dual Intel Xeon E5-2680 @ 2.8 GHz,
130W
MEMORY 6 x 4GB 1333 MT/s RDIMM 8 x 8GB 1600 MT/s RDIMMs
INTERCONNECT Mellanox InfiniBand ConnectX QDR Mellanox InfiniBand ConnectX-3 FDR
INFINIBAND SWITCH Mellanox 3601Q QDR blade chassis
I/O switch module
Mellanox M4001F FDR blade chassis
I/O switch module
SOFTWARE ClusterCorp Rocks+ 5.1 for Dell StackIQ Rocks+ 6.0.1 Dell edition
OPERATING SYSTEM Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 x86_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 x86_64
INFINIBAND DRIVER Mellanox OFED 1.4 Mellanox OFED 1.5.3-3.0.0
The processors used in the previous generation cluster were the top bin SKU that had the maximum
number of cores and would support the 1333MT/s memory speed. With the current cluster, a similar
principle was applied and the processor model chosen supports the 1600 MT/s memory speed.
Similarly the earlier cluster uses QDR InfiniBand, which was the latest technology available at that
time. The latest cluster uses FDR InfiniBand.
Each cluster was configured with the latest operating system, associated cluster management software
and InfiniBand drivers available at the time of the study.
Even though the 11 th generation and 12 th generation clusters are not identical, they are representative
of the best configurations of their generation as explained above, and that is what makes this
comparison meaningful. The results in this section will prove especially useful if a decision needs to be
made about the application performance and energy efficiency benefits expected by upgrading an
existing 11
th generation cluster.
Figure 10 compares the idle power consumption of the 16-server 11 th generation blade cluster to the
12 th generation blade cluster. The BIOS was configured to be as similar as possible, given that the new
BIOS introduces additional features. From the figure it is observed that a 12 th generation cluster that
occupies the same rack space as an 11 th generation cluster consumes 11% to 25% less power when idle.