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Cheyenne Super Computer Auction

gsaauctions.gov

131–140 of 159 posts

Re: Cheyenne Super Computer Auction

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the individual nodes are just x86_64 Xeons and run linux... it would be interesting to part it out for sale as individual, but functional, nodes to people. There are a lot of people would like to have a ~2016 era watercooled 1U server from a supercomputer that was once near the top of the Top500 just to show to people. Get little commemorative plaques for each one and sell for $200 each or so. edit: it see…

The individual servers are not watercooled. The compute racks are air-cooled; the adjacent cooling racks then exchange that heat using the building's chilled water. It's the rack as a whole that is watercooled. If you extract a single node, you won't get any of that. As the other commenters also point out, these are blades; you can't run an individual node by itself.

World of Warcraft sold decommissioned blades for about that much with no intention to be actually used. Just something to thru up in the cave.

Re: Cheyenne Super Computer Auction

#132

I once bought a far larger supercomputer. It was 1/8 (roughly) of ASCI Blue Mountain. 72 racks. Commissioned in 1998 as #1 or #2 on the TOP500, officially decommissioned in 2004, purchased my 1/8 for $7k in ~2005. Moving 72 racks was NOT easy. After paying substantial storage fees, I rented a 1500sf warehouse after selling off a few of them and they filled it up. Took a while to get 220V/30A service in there to run j…

"The original NFL broadcasts with that magic yellow first down line were synthesized with similar hardware" That was originally an XFL innovation.

I'm pretty sure it was ESPN and the NFL? The creator of the tech seems to indicate that and 1998 predates the first go around with the XFL.

https://www.sri.com/press/story/the-first-down-marker-how-te...

Re: Cheyenne Super Computer Auction

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The original NFL broadcasts with that magic yellow first down line were synthesized with similar hardware" That was originally an XFL innovation.

I'm pretty sure it was ESPN and the NFL? The creator of the tech seems to indicate that and 1998 predates the first go around with the XFL. https://www.sri.com/press/story/the-first-down-marker-how-te...

The company with the original tech was called Princeton Video Imaging, in NJ.

I interned for them one summer in... 1996?

They had sold their tech to Padres and Giants broadcasts initially to put ads on the outfield.

The first down line came a bit later and was a much better use of their tech.

Princeton Video Imaging even got a shout out (1-line) at the end of every NFL game for a while.

Re: Cheyenne Super Computer Auction

#135

I wonder who buys these. Crypto miners? My institution would make it nearly impossible to buy a secondhand supercomputer.

>Crypto miners? I think mining crypto with these would burn far too much energy compared to the ASICS in use.

Not every crypto can be mined with ASICs. For example, Monero is ASIC and GPU resistant.

Re: Cheyenne Super Computer Auction

#136

I wonder who buys these. Crypto miners? My institution would make it nearly impossible to buy a secondhand supercomputer.

Crypto is no longer mined commercially with GPU type compute. When ETH switched to PoS, it decimated the entire GPU mining industry. It is no longer profitable. The only people doing it now are hobbyists.

Some crypto is ASIC- and GPU-resistant.

Monero is one of them.

Re: Cheyenne Super Computer Auction

#137
post #74

> 8,064 units of E5-2697v4 Those alone are selling for about $40 on ebay. Let's say you sold them for $15 each. $120,000. Let's say the auction and the moving and the break down costs were $20,000. maybe worth it?

You won't find 8064 buyers of these CPUs any time soon. It will take many years, maybe a decade to offload.

For example, in April ebay sold 79 of them. You're looking at ~100 months. And that's assuming constant demand.

Re: Cheyenne Super Computer Auction

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto is no longer mined commercially with GPU type compute. When ETH switched to PoS, it decimated the entire GPU mining industry. It is no longer profitable. The only people doing it now are hobbyists.

Some crypto is ASIC- and GPU-resistant. Monero is one of them.

Monero is pegged to CPU.

I don't know why you downvoted me.

https://www.getmonero.org/resources/moneropedia/randomx.html

Re: Cheyenne Super Computer Auction

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto is no longer mined commercially with GPU type compute. When ETH switched to PoS, it decimated the entire GPU mining industry. It is no longer profitable. The only people doing it now are hobbyists.

Some crypto is ASIC- and GPU-resistant. Monero is one of them.

Sure, but you can get (much) better price-performance-power out of a CPU which isn't approaching a decade old, when mining ASIC and GPU-resistant cryptocurrencies like Manero. I don't know it'd be worth the effort to buy E5-2697-v4 CPUs which are running in such a specialized configuration over and above AMD Ryzen or EPYC CPUs in commodity, inexpensive mainboards.

Re: Cheyenne Super Computer Auction

#140
post #74

> 8,064 units of E5-2697v4 Those alone are selling for about $40 on ebay. Let's say you sold them for $15 each. $120,000. Let's say the auction and the moving and the break down costs were $20,000. maybe worth it?

I ended up reading all the documentation provided alongside the auction because I was debating making a bid. I decided not to in the end.

In total, Cheyenne weighs in around ~95000lbs in weight, they require it be broken down in Requirements for getting facility access seem to mean you bring both labor and any/all specialized equipment including protective equipment to not damage their floors while hauling away those 2400lb racks. Liability insurance of $1-2M across a wide range of categories (this isn't particularly unusual, or expensive, but it does mean you can't just show up with some mates and a truck you rented at Home Depot).

I'd guess you're looking at more like $25k just to move Cheyenne via truck, plus whatever it sells for at auction, unless you are located almost next door to them in Wyoming. Going from WY to WA the FTL costs alone would be $6-7k USD just for the freight cost (driver, dry trailer and fuel surcharges), add a bit if your destination doesn't have a loading dock and needs transloading for the last mile to >1 truck (probably) equipped with a tail lift. All the rest is finding a local contractor with semi-skilled labor and equipment to break it down and get it ready to load on a truck and covering the "job insurance".

Warehouse costs if you're breaking it for parts won't be trivial either and you'd be flooding the used market (unfavorably to you) were you to list 8000 CPUs or 300TB DDR4; it could take months or even to clear the parts without selling at a substantially depressed price.

It will take probably several thousand hours in labor to break this for parts assuming you need to sell them "Tested and Working" to achieve the $50/CPU unit pricing another commenter noticed on eBay, and "Untested; Sold as Seen" won't get anywhere near the same $/unit (for CPUs, DRAM, or anything else) and so even assuming $25/hr for fully burdened relatively unskilled labor, you could well be talking up to $100k in labor to break, test and list Cheyenne's guts on eBay or even sell onward in lots to other recyclers / used parts resellers. I don't think I could even find $25/hr labor in WA capable and willing of undertaking this work, I fear it'd be more like $45-60/hr in this market in 2024 (and this alone makes the idea of bidding unviable).

A lot of the components like the Cooling Distribution Units are, in my opinion, worth little more than scrap metal unless you're really going to try and make Cheyenne live again (which makes no sense, it's a 1.7MW supercomputer costing thousands of dollars per day to power, and which has similar TFLOPs to something needing 100x less power if you'd bought 2024-era hardware instead).

Anything you ultimately can't sell as parts or shift as scrap metal you are potentially going to have to junk (at cost) or send to specialist electronics recycling (at cost); your obligations here are going to vary by location and this could also be expensive -- the leftovers.

If anyone does take the plunge, please do write up your experiences!

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