Appro Packs More GPUs into 1U Server

Dan Olds at the Reigster reports that the recently introduced Tetra server from Appro offers more GPUs than any other manufacturer in a 1U enclosure. With up to 40 server units per rack, each with dual CPUs and quad NVIDIA Tesla M2050 GPUs, the Tetra is available with 4 or 6 core Intel Xeon or the 8 or 12 core AMD Magny Cours processors.

The AMD procs can be configured with more memory and, of course, have more cores to address it. The Intel CPUs have fewer cores but greater memory bandwidth and also great bandwidth to the GPUs. We also talked about the ratio of CPU to GPUs – typically a ratio of one to one. But this is changing rapidly as the model develops. According to Appro, its two GPU to one CPU ratio is the new standard but the company is starting to see customers looking for one CPU to three or four GPU configurations.