Preface

SoftXpand can be used in diverse environments and for numerous purposes. The usage of the SoftXpand cluster is constrained by the Host Pc's hardware capabilities. This article explains the way to create a high performance SofXpand Multimedia cluster according to the application's requirements and video performance needs. Adobe Photoshop will be used as an example.

General Guidelines

SoftXpand doesn't have direct influence on an application's performance. It controls the load balancing between the CPU and the GPU of the SoftXpand workstations.

A certain application's (e.g. Photoshop) performance is affected by CPU, RAM, HDD and other installed hardware.

• Optimize the applications performance via the application itself and follow the software's best practice.
  To optimize Photoshop's performance for example you can refer to the following link:
  http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb401088
• Find the hardware that best suits the application's high performance requirements. Minimum requirements do not always offer the highest performance.
  It is also important that the hardware selected was also tested on SoftXpand.
• Read the application's documentation and gather all of the information necessary to allow the application to run flawlessly.
  Note: You will need to test your hardware performance according to your user profile (beginner, student, professional, enterprise use, casual use, etc).

SoftXpand Hardware Guidelines

Running high performance demanding applications in SoftXpand is supported only in clusters that have a maximum of 4 Workstations.

• CPU: Processor speed: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 or above (you can use AMD equivalent)
• Video cards: Find a video card that best matches the application from a list usually published on the Software Manufacturer's website. For example this is a link to the Adobe website that contains a list of tested video cards for Photoshop CS4. Find a video card that is certified both by the applications manufacturer and by MiniFrame, for optimal compatibility.
  (http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb405711&sliceId=2)
• Motherboard/PSU: Select from the Hardware section of our Knowledge Base:
  http://www.miniframe.com/knowledge-base/category/hardware.html.
  Note: Find out if the application or one of its latest versions utilizes video card optimization. If it does, use motherboards with 4 PCI-Express slots and connect each workstation to a different video card.
  Note: Choose a Power Supply Unit according to the number of video cards connected to the motherboard and according to their usage. Refer to the following link to find out some video cards' power consumption under different strains:
  http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000662.html
• HDD (I/O): According to the application's I/O rate, or the user's need for a high I/O rate it is highly recommended that you use RAID 0. For that you will need 2 HDD or more and this also has to be supported by your motherboard.
• RAM: 3GB of fast memory (800 MHz or above)

Tested Hardware Specification

The table below contains an example of a SoftXpand Host hardware specification, capable of running Photoshop CS3/CS4 and AutoCAD 2008 version 13.51.0.

When using SoftXpand with high performance demanding applications consider connecting each of your monitors to a separate video card (as opposed to using both heads of a single video card).