Norbert Limulus Cluster

Norbert Design

Norbert was designed to use totally off-the-shelf parts. There is no custom case work required. Of course the hardware could be placed in a smaller volume with a custom case design, but that would require extra work. The following are more details about Norbert.

Norbert basically consists of a head node and three diskless worker nodes. All nodes have an extra PCIe GigE card for compute traffic. The head node has a DVD, a hard drive, and an extra network card to connect to the LAN.

Norbert Pictures

Norbert measures 26 inches (66 cm) across, 16 (41 cm) inches deep, and 25 (64 cm) inches high. I placed the cases on a inexpensive wire shelf cart so it can be moved easily.

The following is a front view. The two GigE switches are on the top. Units can be removed without too much trouble, however, there is little need to take anything off the shelves. The cases have build in temperature sensors (blue lights on the front). The head node is located on the top left (it has a DVD drive).

The following a picture of the back. The two switches can be seen on the top. Of course there is a need for some cabling clean up (I plan on making custom length cables). There is a powerstrip on bottom middle of the shelf. The single powerstrip cord is the only power connection needed.

Hardware Manifest

Component	Amount	Type	Unit Price	Total Price
Processor	4	Core Duo E6550 2.3 GHz	$179	$716
Mother board	4	Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R	$135	$540
Memory	8	Kingston ValueRAM 1GB (2 x 512MB) DDR2 800	$64	$512
Cluster Network Card	4	Intel PRO/1000 PT PCIe X1	$50	$200
LAN Network Card	1	Intel PRO/1000 MT PCI	$50	$50
Case	4	Apevia X-QPACK-NW-AL/420 MicroATX Case 420W PS	$70	$280
Hard Drive	1	Seagate SATA ST3250824SV 250GB 7200	$80	$80
DVD Drive	1	Samsung SATA SH-S183L	$30	$30
GigE Switches	2	SMC SMC8505T	$63	$126
Cables	8	3 ft Cat6	$3	$24

Total: $2558 (Sept 2007 prices)

Performance

HPL: 47.71 GFLOPS HPL Results