Boston Limited UK has recently received a "recommended" rating from PC Pro UK for its 4-node-in-2U platform with AMD's Istanbul processor on-board. Dubbed the "Boston Quattro 6000GP" and following-up on the 2-node-in-1U "Boston 3000GP" platform, this systems allows for 4-nodes with 2x AMD Istanbul processors per node. This formula yields 8 processors (48 cores) in 2U resulting in a core density of over 1,000 cores per standard 42U rack.Computational density like this is bound for virtualization and HPC clusters. Judging from the recent reports on Istanbul's virtualization potential and HPL performance, this combination offers a compelling platform alternative to blade computing. In its review, PC Pro UK touched on the platform's power consumption, saying:
"In idle we saw one, two, three and four nodes draw a total of 234W, 349W, 497W and 630W. Under pressure these figures rose to 345W, 541W, 802W and 1026W respectively. Even if you could find an application that pushed the cores this hard you'll find each server node draws a maximum of 256W - not bad for a 12-core system. Dell's PowerEdge R900, reviewed in our sister title IT Pro, has four 130W X7450 six-core processors and that consumes 778W under heavy load."
- PC Pro, UK
