XServe with decent GPU installed?

[10THzMac]

Has anyone successfully a decent GPU to an 08 or 09 XServe?

Is there space for a GTX 285, Quadro 4800 or even a 8800GT?

The spec says 25W draw and I can find no reference to on-board 6-pin connectors (Pros have 2). Are there any in the box?

Is it correct the 09 has a 120 installed - is this correct and anybody got CUDA up? Is it any use (how many options per second under MonteCarlomultiGPU?)

Anyone played with a power upgrade to supply power for something heavy like a 295?

Do the PC card injectors work OK under XServe?

 

[pdjudd]

Has anyone successfully a decent GPU to an 08 or 09 XServe?

Is there space for a GTX 285, Quadro 4800 or even a 8800GT?

The spec says 25W draw and I can find no reference to on-board 6-pin connectors (Pros have 2). Are there any in the box?

Is it correct the 09 has a 120 installed - is this correct and anybody got CUDA up? Is it any use (how many options per second under MonteCarlomultiGPU?)

Anyone played with a power upgrade to supply power for something heavy like a 295?

Do the PC card injectors work OK under XServe?

X Serves are not intended to be run as general computers - they are 1U Rack mounted specialty computers that are not intended to replace a desktop

 

[10THzMac]

X Serves are not intended to be run as general computers - they are 1U Rack mounted specialty computers that are not intended to replace a desktop

I do not understand what this has to do with my question. Like many others I use XServes as compute servers and it is perfectly natural to want to enhance their computation capability by a GPU for CUDA/OpenCL scientific computation. It is in fact more natural to want to do this with a server than with a desktop.

 

[pdjudd]

I do not understand what this has to do with my question. Like many others I use XServes as compute servers and it is perfectly natural to want to enhance their computation capability by a GPU for CUDA/OpenCL scientific computation. It is in fact more natural to want to do this with a server than with a desktop.

I understand your intent, but the kind of operations that you want are not really targeted toward the X serve and are directed more toward actual workstations like the Mac Pro. I was merely stated that the X serves are not really built with that kind of computing in mind. To answer your question, the answer is No - you cannot add on additional components like the ones you want.

 

[Consultant]

1U height (Xserve and other blade servers) =
Height: 1.73 inches (4.4 cm)

285, and most of the powerful GPU =
Height around: 1.5 inches (3.81cm)

1U blade servers are designed before Apple technology makes it easy to program to take advantage of GPU for computing.

Write to apple.com/feedback

 

[10THzMac]

Thanks to all. This is extremely annoying!

 

[Consultant]

Thanks to all. This is extremely annoying!

Well, Powerful graphics card are too thick for 1U blade servers.

However, you can also build your server cluster using Mac Pros. Virginia Tech did that with their most recent super computer cluster.
http://obamapacman.com/2009/08/high-performance-low-cost-super-computer-virginia-tech-mac-cluster/