Avert Your Eyes from the Server “Humping” Trend in the Data Center

[Patrick Kennedy]

We take a look at the ugly trend of server "humping" in the data center driven by the deep learning NVIDIA GPU compute clusters we have seen lately

The post Avert Your Eyes from the Server “Humping” Trend in the Data Center appeared first on ServeTheHome.

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[DWSimmons]

MOAR humping!

Nice write-up on the economics and reality.

On the lighter side... I was thinking about how to save that half U. Maybe you could turn one upside down so the two humps could mate. There might be some rubbing though and that might create too much heat. YMMV

 

[Jaket]

How much power is this beast eating up?

 

[MiniKnight]

Great title. Sharing this with coworkers

 

[William]

How much power is this beast eating up?

When I had the 8x AMD cards running in that box it pulled very close to 3K watts on full load. Not sure about those Nvidia cards but prolly over 2.4K.

 

[Patrick]

With 4x 1080 Ti at 102% power 1280W.

There are a few tricks like using 2 PSUs instead of 4 that would lower that number. I would expect about 2.4-2.5kW when 8 GPUs are there.

 

[daniel1926]

Is this right?

"The Supermicro SYS-4028GR-TR(2) hump is smaller than the ASRock Rack one and makes the total server 4.5U instead of 4U."

 

[Patrick]

Is this right?

"The Supermicro SYS-4028GR-TR(2) hump is smaller than the ASRock Rack one and makes the total server 4.5U instead of 4U."

Yes. The ASRR hump is 1U but the server is 3U. SM is 4U + 0.5U

SM smaller hump. ASRR smaller total height.

 

[Terry Kennedy]

We take a look at the ugly trend of server "humping" in the data center driven by the deep learning NVIDIA GPU compute clusters we have seen lately

Seriously, if there's any clearance above those cards one of the many right-angle adapters such as this one on eBay might work.

It is certainly possible to replace the power connectors on the boards (the ones on the boards now are already "right angle" as the pins are parallel to the PCB. A regular connector would have the pins 90 degrees to the board. I'm surprised some enterprising (no pun intended) seller isn't already doing this, either as a large lot from a manufacturer or a dozen or two at a time themselves when they get customer orders.

 

[Patrick]

Seriously, if there's any clearance above those cards one of the many right-angle adapters such as this one on eBay might work.

It is certainly possible to replace the power connectors on the boards (the ones on the boards now are already "right angle" as the pins are parallel to the PCB. A regular connector would have the pins 90 degrees to the board. I'm surprised some enterprising (no pun intended) seller isn't already doing this, either as a large lot from a manufacturer or a dozen or two at a time themselves when they get customer orders.

It turns out this is much harder than you may think.

I did not get to see it today, but was told QCT has a power bar that does this in their GPU chassis.

 

[Jon Massey]

Just got bitten by this. Building up a 3U rackmount workstation from spare components lying around, including a GTX 970 with top-mounted power connectors. As soon as I plugged it in, I became acutely aware of my mistake!

 

[herby]

It is certainly possible to replace the power connectors on the boards (the ones on the boards now are already "right angle" as the pins are parallel to the PCB. A regular connector would have the pins 90 degrees to the board. I'm surprised some enterprising (no pun intended) seller isn't already doing this, either as a large lot from a manufacturer or a dozen or two at a time themselves when they get customer orders.

I modded a 6950 a few years back to clear 3u

but something like a low profile Crossfire/SLI bridge for PCI-E power would be awesome.

 

[Jon Massey]

I've ordered a 90 degree adapter for the power connectors but it's on the slow boat from China. If that's not enough then I'll break out the soldering iron

 

[Patrick]

Yea for $120 / 8 or 10 I figured easier to just buy the hump tops.

Started on the Single root 10 GPU box today.

 

[Jon Massey]

90 degree adaptor isn't low-profile enough to fit the lid on, alas. Time to buy some straight PCB-mount sockets (Molex 45718-0002) and whip out the soldering iron!