NextGen Compute Systems

Following on the success of the first performance compute system (Pascal) and the other “mathematician” series systems and related clusters, the University Guild and its generous campus grants program provided funds to build out the next generation of high-performance compute nodes.

This gift was awarded in the Fall semester of 2021. Acquisition of components and initial building was done in the remainder of that semester, with final configuration and testing being done in Spring 2022.

Following the pattern begun with Pascal, their names reflect their role as computational workhorses and honor distinguished figures in the history of mathematics and computing: Charles Babbage (“cabbage“), Ada Lovelace, and George Boole. A variant additional system commemorating Grace Murray Hopper was built in Spring 2023 as part of CS 490 – Topics in Parallel and Distributed Computing.

The CPU and GPU choices and configuration reflects the workloads and experiences from running the original high performance system, Pascal.

Specifications – “Flight One”

Each system has

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 Zen 3 5950, (“AMD Ryzen 9 5950X – Ryzen 9 5000 Series Vermeer (Zen 3) 16-Core 3.4 GHz Socket AM4 105W Desktop Processor – 100-100000059WOF”), 16 physical/32 virtual cores
  • Motherboard: ASUS Prime X570-Pro AM4 Zen 3 ATX Motherboard with PCIe Gen4, Dual M.2 HDMI, SATA 6GB/s USB 3.2 Gen 2 ATX Motherboard
  • RAM: 128 GB of DDR4 RAM (Ada, Cabbage – RGB; Boole standard black)
  • GPU
    • (Ada, only) ASUS TUF Gaming NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition Graphics Card (PCIe 4.0, 12GB GDDR6X, HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 1.4a, Dual Ball Fan Bearings, Military-Grade Certification, GPU Tweak II)
    • (Boole, Cabbage) GeForce RTX 3060
  • Storage:
    • Force Series Gen.4 PCIe MP600 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD (“/”)
    • Seagate IronWolf Pro 8TB NAS Internal Hard Drive (“/mnt/localstorage”)
  • Networking:
    • Two ASUS XG-C100C 10G Network Adapter Pci-E X4 Cards
    • (on Motherboard) 10MB/100MB/1GB Ethernet
  • Power: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000W G5, 80 Plus Gold
  • CPU Cooling: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition RGB CPU Air Cooler, SF120R RGB Fan, Anodized Gun-Metal Black, Brushed Nickel Fins, 4 Copper Direct Contact Heat Pipes for AMD Ryzen/Intel LGA1151
  • Case Fans include CORSAIR – LL Series 120mm Case Cooling Fan Kits with RGB lighting
  • Case: Fractal Design Meshify C Black ATX High-Airflow Compact Light Tint Tempered Glass Mid Tower Computer Case,(“FD-CA-MESH-C-BKO-TGL”)

Specifications – Flight Two

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 4.5 GHz 16-Core Processor
  • Motherboard: Gigabyte X670 AORUS ELITE AX (rev. 1.0) ATX AM5 Motherboard
  • RAM: 4x G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory (128 GB total)
  • GPU: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Navi 10 [Radeon RX 5600]
  • Storage:
    • 2TB NVMe M.2 SSD (“/”)
    • Seagate IronWolf NAS 16 TB 7200 RPM /mnt/localstorage
  • Networking:
    • Two ASUS XG-C100C 10G Network Adapter Pci-E X4 Cards
    • (on Motherboard) 10MB/100MB/1GB Ethernet
  • Power: EVGA SuperNOVA 1600 P2 1600 W 80+ Platinum
  • Case: be quiet! Dark Base Pro 900 r2

Supporting Equipment

  • Twin 10G Networking Switches (8 ports), allowing the 10G NICs to be run in either a bonded configuration or in parallel
  • UPS units –

Projects/Users

Operations

Appreciation

All of the students, faculty, and staff involved appreciate the generosity of the Guild and the Guild’s membership for the financial support to continue the projects and work begun with Pascal.

Thanks are also owed to Bryan Bockover, who built out the trio of systems.