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adamt
Great hack - but in terms of core density it's not exactly great.

The article talks of "What we needed was a compact and efficient design with maximal core density"

You can buy a Dell R410 1U 8 core (2 x 4-core Xeon) for about $1,400.

Whilst you are paying about 25% more, you'd get 24 cores into a fraction of the space. If you include the cost of power, the 'Ikea rack' is likely to cost a fair amount more over 3 years.

kiujygtyujik
You may also wish to connect each drawer to the AC power ground on it's PSU
ars
Then you get grounding loops - not a good idea.

Connect all the drawers to a single ground, using only one direction (star, not ring).

oiuytgfrgh
Ground loops probably aren't a big problem for a SMPSU - if you are putting power into a metal box you need to have a ground to the metal box.
ars
You do need ground, but do it without loops. Grounding loops are a violation of the electrical code (and can be dangerous in certain fault conditions).
towndrunk
Seems like a few different sizes of hole saws could be used to open the back of the drawers. They really hacked it up by cutting it the way they did.
tzury
Well, the $2550 total price for that platform is never the less shocking. And those are 2008's prices, today it shall come out even cheaper.

In other words, If I was thinking of giving my imaginary startup team (5) iPads as a bonus, I now have a better thing to do with the $2.5K, right?

Adrock
If you wanted to get that same amount of processing power using Amazon EC2, that $2550 would get you about 1250 hours (52 days).

Of course, you have to pay for your energy, build it, and maintain it.

metamemetics
Should put some sort of mesh\screen on the front label airports. Otherwise your cabinet is vacuum cleaner for dust.
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timinman
And you get a free space heater!
prewett
It bothers me slightly that for the price of my 17" MacBook Pro I could have bought a 24 node cluster... At some level it just seems like one portable processor ought to be 1/24th or 1/12th (factoring in extra for the mobility) the price.
jbooth
6 node cluster - 4 cores each for 24 cores.