It’s been a while since my last post, in part because work has been crazy busy and in part because I’ve been working on migrating to a “new” server at home. I finally finished the migration earlier this afternoon. The primary reason behind doing this is to achieve a 70% reduction in power usage. My old machine was a 2nd generation Athlon at 1.2Ghz and used about 108 watts. The new machine is a legacy-free (no serial or parallel ports) Compaq Evo with an Intel P4 at 1.9Ghz and uses only 30 watts. While I was at it, I also upgraded my storage capacity and moved from Windows Server 2003 to 2008. So far everything seems to be running quite well. I considered switching to Ubuntu Server, but in the end decided to stick with Windows so I could preserve my Active Directory domain. Perhaps I’ll try that in the next migration phase. (maybe when/if I move to an even lower power platform.)
Category Archives: Tech
Intel finally wakes up, smells the lack of bandwidth
[H] Enthusiast – Intel Nehalem Technology Overview Webcast
One thing I’ve loved over the past few years is explaining to the Intel fanboys why my HPC at work is Opteron based. Intel fans love to talk about clock speed and how the latest Core2 processor beats AMD’s Phenom in gaming benchmarks and such. It always blows their mind when I explain how Opteron destroys anything with a FSB in the HPC space. It seems Intel’s state of denial over AMD’s superior Hypertransport technology was largely a front for envy kept in secret. Intel’s unveiling of their Nehalem platform reveals what is a near copycat design called QPI or QuickPath Interconnect. It will be interesting to see AMD’s response to this design. For now the Intel fanboys are predicting the swift death of AMD. Let’s not forget that AMD developed this system for their 64-bit x86 platform (before Intel even had a 64-bit x86 on the roadmap) and was way ahead of the game then. I seriously doubt they’ve been sitting on their laurels all this time.
Nanoantenna technology shows promise
INL has created something I used to ponder as a kid. Star Trek was one of my favorite shows growing up, but I always wondered how some of that high-tech gear could work if it was real. I used to imagine some type of layer that would collect the heat generated within a fusion reactor and convert it directly into electrical power. This, I thought is how it would be done in the future rather than some clunky mechanical solution like a turbine. (of course we’re still trying to make fusion self-sustaining, but that’s beside the point…) It may not be designed for use in a fusion reactor, but INL’s device does exactly what I envisioned. There are some technical hurdles for the new device, (namely converting the high-frequency AC it produces into DC) but once those are solved, there are all sorts of applications for this technology.