Parallella, Raspberry Pi, FPGA & All That Stuff

bowguy
bowguy
Joined: 2 Oct 17
Posts: 37
Credit: 11347384
RAC: 2444

I have 2 pi4's (4GB) on the

I have 2 pi4's (4GB) on the way.  One has been delivered already.  Both will be powered via poe as part of a 8 node cluster.

Edit:  Up and running.  So far wow.  Will post benchmarks ASAP

Edit:  Running BRP about 30% faster than pi3B+. Also can run all 4 CPU's because of the 4GB memory

Thanks for the benchmark link!

poppageek
poppageek
Joined: 13 Aug 10
Posts: 259
Credit: 2473733872
RAC: 0

Raspberry Pi microSD card

Raspberry Pi microSD card performance comparison - 2019

 

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2019/raspberry-pi-microsd-card-performance-comparison-2019

 

4 different benchmarks plus RPI 3 to 4 speed comparison.

PorkyPies
PorkyPies
Joined: 27 Apr 16
Posts: 199
Credit: 33740629
RAC: 945

I've been upgrading some of

I've been upgrading some of my cluster to Raspbian Buster. I have been re-imaging the SD card with buster-lite and then reinstalling BOINC on them. So far nothing much to report, for a headless Pi it looks the same as Raspbian Stretch Smile

The two Pi4's that I ordered have an ETA of September.

poppageek
poppageek
Joined: 13 Aug 10
Posts: 259
Credit: 2473733872
RAC: 0

I have a mixed bunch of SBCs

I have a mixed bunch of SBCs now.

2x RPi2

2x RPi3

1x RPi3B+

2x Asus Tinker Board

1 Nvidia Jetson Nano

1 Odroid XU4

1 Odroid MC1 Solo

 

All crunch fine although have had some problems with the Odroids on e@h. They are doing U@H and Seti until I get around to figuring out why they do not like E@H. Been busy with other problems and projects.

 

I like them all but kinda like the Asus TB a little more. They and the Nano are strong crunchers. Cool

 

Hope to get a RPi 4 when they are more available.

 

Cheers!

poppageek
poppageek
Joined: 13 Aug 10
Posts: 259
Credit: 2473733872
RAC: 0

https://youtu.be/RyUXC3886Ic

https://youtu.be/RyUXC3886Ic

 

RPi 3, 3b and 4 tower cooler. Overkill but still pretty cool. May not be overkill in hot environment.

PorkyPies
PorkyPies
Joined: 27 Apr 16
Posts: 199
Credit: 33740629
RAC: 945

I suggested to Noctua last

I suggested to Noctua last year they might want to look at shrinking one of their coolers to fit the Pi. Back then it was the 3B+ but now we have the 4B producing even more heat. I even got a reply back from them saying they weren’t interested. I think we’ll see more miniature CPU coolers for the Pi.

Thomas Bemelman
Thomas Bemelman
Joined: 2 Dec 18
Posts: 4
Credit: 4856610
RAC: 0

Hi there guys! Looking at

Hi there guys! Looking at setting up a Pi cluster myself... with the introduction of the Pi 4 I was wondering if it would be necessary to get the 4GB version of the Pi4 or if I would be able to go slightly cheaper and use the 2GB version? looking at getting a small cluster of 4 Pi's to start off with and then go from there...

Cheers!

bowguy
bowguy
Joined: 2 Oct 17
Posts: 37
Credit: 11347384
RAC: 2444

It depends on what you're

It depends on what you're going to do with it.  As a headless cruncher of Einstein@Home, my pi4's can easily run 4 tasks at a time and don't use half of the 4GB memory.  I can't use more than 3 CPU's on pi3 versions - some only 2.  If you are also needing desktop gui's or memory intensive distributed apps,  stand in line and pay the extra $10 for 4 GB.  In a cluster mix and match is easy.  I am running everything from Zeros to pi4' s together.

Biggest issue is power and heat.  I have gone to POE and fans.  All my pi4's have the POE hat with a fan.  The pi3's have a case with fans and are POE or a POE adaptor.

 

poppageek
poppageek
Joined: 13 Aug 10
Posts: 259
Credit: 2473733872
RAC: 0

I run 4 concurrently on my

I run 4 concurrently on my 1gig ram RPi2s and RPi3, each task takes 202MB ram. They run headless and I increase the memory setting in Boinc to use 90% while computer in use. 

 

Chris put up another RPi4 cooling video.

 

https://youtu.be/AVfvhEJ9XD0

Thomas Bemelman
Thomas Bemelman
Joined: 2 Dec 18
Posts: 4
Credit: 4856610
RAC: 0

bowguy wrote:It depends on

bowguy wrote:

It depends on what you're going to do with it.  As a headless cruncher of Einstein@Home, my pi4's can easily run 4 tasks at a time and don't use half of the 4GB memory.  I can't use more than 3 CPU's on pi3 versions - some only 2.  If you are also needing desktop gui's or memory intensive distributed apps,  stand in line and pay the extra $10 for 4 GB.  In a cluster mix and match is easy.  I am running everything from Zeros to pi4' s together.

Biggest issue is power and heat.  I have gone to POE and fans.  All my pi4's have the POE hat with a fan.  The pi3's have a case with fans and are POE or a POE adaptor.

 

I’m looking at using it for solely number crunching on Einstein@Home, I need something that’s a bit more power efficient than my R7 2700X and GTX 1080... plus I think that having a Pi cluster would be great for continuous crunching seeing as I do tend to use my main PC a lot which means I suspend tasks and leave them sitting there doing nothing quite often.

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