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Cirocco Live Liquid Cooled Rack

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the big-iron-on-the-hip dept.

Mark Grant writes "Cirocco have developed a liquid cooled rack of AMD Duron 1.1Gs in a Beowulf cluster. The rack has been installed in Cambridge University, England and has been under trial since Christmas. The system is being put through its paces running chemical research algorithms. Critical to Cirocco's liquid cooling system are the hot swappable quick couplings. These allow servers to be disconnected whilst the cooling system is in operation." The graph with live temperature readings is pretty neat.

7 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Just Imagine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Taking just one of those from the cluster.

    it would be like have a pc.

    wouldn't it

  2. Hot swappable? by questamor · · Score: 5, Funny

    The idea of "Hot swappable" when it comes to cooling couplings is making my head spin.

  3. Liquid cooled rack? by sssmashy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Personally, I always thought a liquid cooled rack is what happens when Pamela Anderson spills beer down her shirt...

  4. maybe... by deadsaijinx* · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm missing something. As cool as it is, why do you need to liquid cool 1.1Ghz Athlons. Its nothing a fan can't handle adequitely and at a much more desireable cost. Are they just going for the wow factor, or is there an actually reason for the liquid cooling.

    Was going to make a beowulf joke, but then you insensitive clods would mark me redundant (I'm only like the 20th poster, how redundant can I be?)

    --
    YOU SUCK BALLS!
    1. Re:maybe... by ComputarMastar · · Score: 5, Insightful
      From the site:
      Each cpu dissipates just under 50W which is traditionally air cooled using a large heatsink and fan. This is fine for a stand alone computer but when multiple computers are used, eg a Beowulf cluster, the rise in room temperature and hotspots are an increasing problem. Normally air-conditioning is used but this is very inefficient. Cirocco directly cool the heatsink with water which can be cooled remotely and recirculated.
      Air cooling works well enough until you get many hot devices in a small space. Then you have the problem of some running too hot because the air thats supposed to be cooling them is already hot from cooling others.
  5. Slashdotted... by MoTec · · Score: 5, Funny

    Perhaps they should look into using one of these for their webserver.

  6. Don't say it. by SandSpider · · Score: 5, Funny

    You know what I'm talking about. Don't do it.

    --
    There is nothing so good that someone, somewhere, will not hate it.