[Beowulf] Re: pci-e network adapters

[Maurice Hilarius]

"Dietrich Heese-Boutin" <dietrich.heese.boutin at utoronto.ca> wrote:

> Any one have success running gig-e through the pci-e bus?
>
Yes, of course, However be careful as quite a few do not yet support "channel bonding" aka "teaming" aka "Link aggregation"
Intel recalled their dual port fibre GbE NICs over this issue, with a re-issue supposed to happen in April.
SysKonnect dual channel do not yet support that either, despite ad/spec sheet claims.
> Syskonnect seems to have quite a few gig-e pci-e adapters.
Several, in a wide range.
Other than the bonding issue they work very well
> Would cpu load be reduced greatly by using these rather than the onboard broadcom gig-e?
>
Some yes, some "not a lot".
 To get something with decent TCP offload you need to get into a more "high end" adapter.
Naturally the $00 ones do not so so much.

> so far I've only see 1x pci-e gig-e, anything higher say 4x pci-e at a reasonable price?
>
Chelsio make this. Depends on your definition of "reasonable price"

> viable option to older myrinet gear?
>
Don't confuse bandwidth with latency.
GbE has latency that is much greater than Myrinet, old or new.



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