What would be best for me?

Chris Conrad
Chris Conrad
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Topic 188026

Hi, I recently plan to upgrade my computer. I have become interested in disturbed computing recently and I want to pick the CPU/system that will crunch numbers faster. I was wondering would it be better to go AMD64 or Intel4. Is the processor the only factor in speed of crunching? What about two SATA drives on RAID 0, would that help at all? I mean this computer is going to be all new so I assume the hard drive(s) will be the bottleneck. And finally I was considering going budget-multiprocessor style.

IE:

(1) PC-DL - $200 shipped @ ZZF
(2) 1.6LV D1 Xeons - $117 shipped @ ebay
(2) 1GB PC3200 DDR DIMMs - must be specced at 2.5V Vdimm - $380 @ NewEgg

If for some reason different projects have different “best� systems, I’ll list what I participate in.

SETI@Home, Einstein@Home, and Folding@Home

Thanks in advance for your help =D,
jugz

Captain Avatar
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What would be best for me?

> Hi, I recently plan to upgrade my computer. I have become interested in
> disturbed computing recently and I want to pick the CPU/system that will
> crunch numbers faster. I was wondering would it be better to go AMD64 or
> Intel4. Is the processor the only factor in speed of crunching? What about two
> SATA drives on RAID 0, would that help at all? I mean this computer is going
> to be all new so I assume the hard drive(s) will be the bottleneck. And
> finally I was considering going budget-multiprocessor style.
>
>

As a hard core P4 User I tried AMD and without a doubt AMD is faster!

The rest someone else can comment on. My best crunchers are All AMD and P4s are running last...

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Captain Avatar
Captain Avatar
Joined: 19 Jan 05
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> When you say AMD you mean

Message 5390 in response to (parent removed)

> When you say AMD you mean both Opterons and 64's / 64-FX's?
>
Even Sempron,,,

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SkyHook
SkyHook
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I have to agree with CA

I have to agree with CA above. My worst AMD(MP2100+ running as a single processor in an Asus A7V8X running stock) completes WUs in just about an hour less than either of my overclocked P4 2.4B rigs. I can't speak to how HTing effects the outcome but single process against single process AMD is winning on my pharm.

SkyHook

agentsix
agentsix
Joined: 22 Feb 05
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> I have become interested in

> I have become interested in disturbed computing recently >

Disturbed computing...that is funny on so many levels.

senator2
senator2
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> > I have become interested

Message 5393 in response to message 5392

> > I have become interested in disturbed computing recently >
>
> Disturbed computing...that is funny on so many levels.
>

I dunno, sounds about right to me :^)

francesc martin
francesc martin
Joined: 9 Feb 05
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> I have to agree with CA

Message 5394 in response to message 5391

> I have to agree with CA above. My worst AMD(MP2100+ running as a single
> processor in an Asus A7V8X running stock) completes WUs in just about an hour
> less than either of my overclocked P4 2.4B rigs. I can't speak to how HTing
> effects the outcome but single process against single process AMD is winning
> on my pharm.
>
> SkyHook
>
>If this data can help you: In my case, an "obsolete" AMD-XP 1900 (and with SDRAM, not DDR!)takes just 8 hours to complete a E@H work unit, and about 4 hours for a S@H W.U.

francesc martin
francesc martin
Joined: 9 Feb 05
Posts: 2
Credit: 10380
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> > I have to agree with CA

Message 5395 in response to message 5394

> > I have to agree with CA above. My worst AMD(MP2100+ running as a single
> > processor in an Asus A7V8X running stock) completes WUs in just about an
> hour
> > less than either of my overclocked P4 2.4B rigs. I can't speak to how
> HTing
> > effects the outcome but single process against single process AMD is
> winning
> > on my pharm.
> >
> > SkyHook
> >
> >If this data can help you: In my case, an "obsolete" AMD-XP 1900 (and with
> SDRAM, not DDR!)takes just 8 hours to complete a E@H work unit, and about 4
> hours for a S@H W.U.
>
Additional data: these are the numbers in my profile:

Memory 511.48 MB
Cache 976.56 KB
Swap space 1250.27 MB
Total disk space 9.77 GB
Free Disk Space 5 GB
Measured floating point speed 1472.96 million ops/sec
Measured integer speed 3563.74 million ops/sec

Curiosly, ops/sec are comparable to Pentiums4 of much higher speed (and the real CPU clock of mine is only 1.6 GHz)

Paul D. Buck
Paul D. Buck
Joined: 17 Jan 05
Posts: 754
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> Hi, I recently plan to

> Hi, I recently plan to upgrade my computer. I have become interested in
> disturbed computing recently and I want to pick the CPU/system that will
> crunch numbers faster. I was wondering would it be better to go AMD64 or
> Intel4. Is the processor the only factor in speed of crunching? What about two
> SATA drives on RAID 0, would that help at all? I mean this computer is going
> to be all new so I assume the hard drive(s) will be the bottleneck. And
> finally I was considering going budget-multiprocessor style.
>
> IE:
>
> (1) PC-DL - $200 shipped @ ZZF
> (2) 1.6LV D1 Xeons - $117 shipped @ ebay
> (2) 1GB PC3200 DDR DIMMs - must be specced at 2.5V Vdimm - $380 @ NewEgg
>
> If for some reason different projects have different “best� systems,
> I’ll list what I participate in.
>
> SETI@Home, Einstein@Home, and Folding@Home
>
> Thanks in advance for your help =D,
> jugz

On a CPU basis the AMD chips are faster on a per-work Unit basis. However, if the Xeons are HT capable, then, with a dual board you would have 4 CPUs running in one box and that would deliever higher throughput.

Faster disks do increase processing speed slightly. bigger bang for the buck getting larger CPU cache though. ...

The number one quesion in the FAQ (also one of the longest) is how do I get fastest performance ... start there ...

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