Supermicro to expand their GPU servers to include Fermi-level Tesla

Supermicro have launched today their second generation of GPU computing servers, using NVIDIA Tesla 20-series GPUs.  This product line is an upgrade from their first generation servers, and features a 1U server with 2x M2050 Tesla cards; a 4U tower that supports four C2050 Tesla GPUs, three other PCI-E cards, and support for eight hot-swappable 3.5" SAS/SATA drives; and a 2U twin server that supports two hot-pluggable GPU nodes and onboard QDR InfiniBand for 40GB/sec connectivity.

The NVIDIA Tesla M2050 is a workstation level version of the GTX470 with 448 CUDA cores, but with 3GB GDDR5 ECC memory and a passive heatsink.  The C2050 is an M2050 with an increased memory bandwidth (144GB/sec to 148GB/sec) due to faster memory, and is actively cooled.

All Supermicro systems are compatible with dual Intel Xeon 5500/5600 processors (up to 16 threads) and 192GB Registered ECC DDR3-1333Mhz RAM.  Both the 1U server and 4U tower are supplied with a redundant 1400W Gold level (93%) high efficiency power supply.  Makes you wonder though for the 4U unit - four Fermi cards, two Nehalem Xeons, is 1400W enough?

NVIDIA Tesla cards and their computing languages have been welcome technologies in various computational scientific fields over these past few years - medical imaging, oil and gas exploration, quantum chemistry, financial simulation, astrophysics, folding and various BOINC projects to name but a few.  A few companies have started to offer GPU integration into their server systems, and Supermicro has always been on my list of companies to watch out for with regards Tesla workstations in my day-to-day job (computational chemistry).

In terms of pricing, think a few thousand dollars per Tesla GPU, $1000 for two Xeon 5520s and cooling, $2000 for the power supply, 4U tower, and general cooling, $1000 for the motherboard, and $500-$20000 for how much RAM you would like.  Coming soon to a Supermicro approved reseller near you (if you can afford it)!