>32GB memory with Xeon ?

[Hiroharu Tamaru]

At Tue, 26 Dec 2006 10:44:40 -0700, Ken Gunderson wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 26 Dec 2006 23:07:58 +0900
> Hiroharu Tamaru <tamaru at myn.rcast.u-tokyo.ac.jp> wrote:
> 
> > Hello list,
> > 
> > Is there any limit on the amount of memory that can be used
> > with FreeBSD 6.x/amd64 ?  I found that FreeBSD/ia64
> > currently has 2GB limit.  I was wondering how amd64 is like.
> > 
> > Specifically, I am thinking of a Dual-core x Dual-processor
> > Xeon 5160, with 5000P chipset and something like 40GB of
> > RAM.
> 
> Any particular reason you've ruled out AMD platform?  I know some folks
> who've done some big enterprise class SAP machines based on AMD and
> Linux. Not 100% sure but I think I recall AMD8111 and AMD8131 chipsets
> and boards fully loaded with 32GB.

No, I haven't ruled it out yet.  In fact, I've just started
looking around.
My usage is computation, and previous experiences showed
that for our workload, the main memory bandwidth gave the
largest influence on speed (it has a very low data
locality).  We have IA64 system running Linux as well (it's
running Linux b/c we have large memory there too), but
hearing that recent Woodcrest Xeons can have upto 21+GB/s
bandwidth to the RAM, I got interested and started seeking
around hardwarewise and softwarewise for possible options.
Do you have any advice/comments in this regard for AMD
platform too?

>  -- 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Ken Gunderson
> 
> "The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty 
> decreases."  (Thomas Jefferson)

Thanks.
-- 
Hiroharu Tamaru