Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] [ot] rackmount
From: Erik Walthinsen (omega_AT_cse.ogi.edu)
Date: Wed Dec 06 2000 - 00:13:08 EET
On Tue, 5 Dec 2000, Erik Steffl wrote:
> Check if the server has enough free slots (I guess you want PCI for
> soundcard, AGP for video card) but that should not be a problem with
> servers which are usually expected to be expanded.
Except that I don't think many of the server chipsets (most [all?] of
which come from Intel) even support AGP, because they aren't expected to
do any real video. Then tend to have onboard stuff from C&T or such.
Maybe a low-end ATI chip (Dell tends to use those).
If the machine is just doing processing, that's fine, but if you need to
put a GUI on that machine, I'd avoid servers so you can put a sufficiently
fast video chipset on there (not that the ATIs aren't, but they're also
PCI).
The one major advantage server systems have is that some of the higher-end
ones (Dell Poweredge 6xxx comes to mind) have multiple PCI busses, that
really are separate PCI busses, not bridged. Basically, some boards put a
chip on the main PCI bus that creates more slots, but all those card's
bandwidth is still on the only PCI bus. Multiple *real* PCI busses
multply total bandwidth to the chipset.
If you're doing video or database stuff, this is a good thing. For audio,
though, it may be overkill. Do the math on the audio bandwidth before
spending $10K on a server ;-)
Erik Walthinsen <omega_AT_cse.ogi.edu> - Staff Programmer @ OGI
Quasar project - http://www.cse.ogi.edu/DISC/projects/quasar/
Video4Linux Two drivers and stuff - http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~omega/v4l2/
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