Taking a Look Inside

As with most hardware at AnandTech, we needed to take a look inside to fully determine the capabilities of our V40z. Upon entry of the system, we are greeted with a diagram of the V40z quick reference on the back of the removable panel.


Click to enlarge.

With the exception of the removable top panel, the entire Sun Fire V40z can be disassembled completely without any tools. Locking mechanisms in strategic places assure that power supplies, bezels and hard drives stay in place when they should, but at the same time, to remove a critical component – even during operation – seems relatively easy. Without the main bank of internal fans, we can see the rear processors under their giant 4” copper heat sinks.


Click to enlarge.

We actually stumbled across a block diagram of the motherboard and daughterboard outlining most of the components that make up the Sun Fire V40z. We intend to go in detail about each of the components and their purpose.


Click to enlarge.


Click to enlarge.

Because of the 3U design of the Sun Fire, a motherboard and daughterboard design was needed to allow maintenance of the second set of Opteron processors. The processors on the daughterboard are referred to as the “forward” CPUs because they pull out of the front of our V40z. The “rear” processors are technically the CPU0 and CPU1 to our operating system and are located on the mainboard.

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  • RadeonGuy - Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - link

    I Wish I Had One

    *drool*
  • Ahkorishaan - Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - link

    That thing is a monster! I can't even think of something to do with that much power... It would be wasted on anything I throw at it, that's for sure. Good thing I don't have 22,000 to throw away...
  • Viditor - Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - link

    Wow...what a machine! I'd read the pathscale record setting previously, but it looks like HP has a real headache here...(Dell isn't even in the game...)
  • Doormat - Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - link

    Yea the benchmarks are missing. I'd also like to see some reviews of "cheaper" (by an order of magnitude or so) 1U/2U 1/2-way systems. It'll be interesting to see what happens when dual core goes live later this year. I'd love to get some 1U 2-way servers and stick dual core chips in them. 4 procs in a 1U housing. Yeah. Baby.
  • bersl2 - Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - link

    #3: On the contrary. PPC runs embedded all the time.
  • mickyb - Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - link

    They don't work for me either. On another note, the PowerPC management board is interesting. I am familiar with the HP Integritry Management Board. I don't think it runs Linux. I wonder if AMD would be interested in making a management board based on the Geode processor. PowerPC seems a bit much.
  • vaystrem - Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - link

    Are the database benchmark images not working for anyone else?
  • LeadFrog - Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - link

    That is a beast.

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