14 DAY TRIAL // After in mid-June it released the SM10000 10U server that included 512 processing cores, SeaMicro has recently announced that it has upgraded this machine to sport 384 Intel Atom N570 processors, which adds up to a grand total of 768 cores.
The Atom N570 CPUs used for building this new system, dubbed the SM10000-64HD, pack dual processing cores clocked at 1.66GHz, support for Intel's Hyper-Threading technology and are compatible with the 64-bit instruction set.
Six of these processors are installed on a motherboard card, together with up to 24GB of SODIMM DDR3 memory (1.5TB total), and 64 such cards are packed inside a 10U chassis, which also incorporates a top-of-rack switch, a load balancer and a console server.
In addition, the machine can be configured to feature 64 SATA storage drives, while connectivity with the outside world is provided by a maximum of 64 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks (8 minimum).
All the Atom-powered motherboards are linked to each other using an interconnect technology based on PCI Express 2.0 that is controlled by a single FPGA device. According to SeaMicro, the whole setup consumes only 3.5KW.
"SeaMicro has delivered three server systems in nine months, each setting the record for energy efficient compute and compute density,” said Zeus Kerravala, senior vice president and distinguished research fellow at Yankee Group.
“Over that time, the company has increased density by 150 percent and increased its lead in the all important compute per-watt metric.
“This rapid rate of innovation is a testament to the flexibility and extendibility of its system architecture particularly its supercompute style fabric and system software," concluded Mr. Kerravala.
The SeaMicro SM10000-64HD is now generally available in the US and at select international locations. The US list price for a base configuration is set at $237,000.