[ACmate]

Hi we want to buy a 16 cores, 48 Gb RAM machine. we have the choice betwen a Cray cx1, an HP HP DL380G6 and an HP HP ProLiant BL460.
with a Ge switch and a RAID 5.
We don't plan to upgrade the machine at all during its life span appart from its RAM up to 96Gb when the 8Gb module come down in price.

Any opinion on which one is the best?
Any wise council for this purchase?

[perryelliot]

I guess it's hard to give you wise counsel because I'm not sure what your needs are, but in my experience the Cray CX1 is definitely a high-quality machine.

http://bit.ly/d7b2yu

[ACmate]

Hi thanks for your mail
CX1 is definetely very good but quite pricey for the specs and we're on a budget. I got an intel 24 dual server for half the price of a comparable CX1. It doesn't come with all the bells and whistles but it suits our needs perfectly.
CX1 is a very good machine if you don't want to waste time setting things up, want to have it sitting in the middle of the office, you don't have workstations powerfull enough to do the post processing and you can handle 6 weeks delivery time.
None of the above was applicable to us, so the decision was quite easy to make.

[Michiel]

Why 16 cores with the 5500 series and not 18 cores with the 5600 serie? With the 5600 you would need 3 cpu's instead 4 for the 5500 serie, 3 cpu's would be cheaper.... The price for one 5550 is almost the same as for one 5650.

[ACmate]

Hi
You're absolutely right, that was an old post, we went for a 5680 processors, that's a dual 2*2*6 cores machine with 98 GB RAM. We're running CCM+ on it, and maybe openfoam.

[PGodon]

What are the prices of all these machines? is it below 10k?

[ACmate]

Yes, each server is about 10K AUD.