AoA Analysis Marvell ThunderX2 Equals 190 Raspberry Pi 4

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Deslok

Well-Known Member
Jul 15, 2015
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deslok.dyndns.org
I've been talking to a smaller cluster builder and kept telling him to go POE and use the CRS326-24P for ages, glad to see someone is using that at least!
 

PigLover

Moderator
Jan 26, 2011
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The $20/pi cost of the PoE hat becomes a huge part of the cost - about 18% of the total cost per pi. There are much cheaper ways of distributing power to the devices. For example, that BitScope rack you showed includes power distribution, though to be fair I do not think the first generation BitScope boards would deliver enough power to handle the pi-4 (just checked BitScopes’s website and they are beefing up the VRMs to allow for the pi-4 in an upcoming release).

I don’t think this is enough to tip the analysis to the little guys and there are lots of other advantages to the large server, but I did think it important to point out that the PoE is not really needed if you are using the BitScope blades/rack to stitch it all together.
 

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
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@PigLover - great point on the BitScope. Do you know the cost of that? The Bitscope Cluster modules they quote at less than $150 per node on their website.

The PoE has an advantage as well that you can use different boards easily. When it is time to upgrade, you can swap to a different platform by just swapping the nodes.