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Thread: Technical hardware question - quad-core CPU choices |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 15
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alver
Senior Cruncher Joined: Nov 30, 2007 Post Count: 245 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Sorry if this is the wrong place - I have a technical question about hardware for crunching, which I'm pretty sure somewhere here can help me on.
----------------------------------------One of my computers is coming to the end of its life after over 5 years of almost solid uptime, and I want to replace it with something that will give a bit more bang for the buck, crunching-wise (it will have other roles, but it will spend 99.9% of its time on WCG). I haven't got a lot to spend, so I'm looking at a budget quad-core. I can get a bare-bones system with an Intel Quad Core Q8300, 4Gb DDR2 800Mhz on an Intel G41 Motherboard for a price I can afford. My question is - is that RAM fast enough, or is it going to be a bottleneck? It seems slow, to be feeding 4 cores (or does the CPU cache make that much difference?) At the moment I'm running 100% "Help Fight Childhood Cancer", where the work units tend to occupy about 100MB RAM per core, but obviously other (and future) projects are even more RAM-heavy. Any comments? (And while I'm at it, the main alternate choice I have is a system with an AMD II X4 630 Quad Core, 4GB DDR2 800Mhz on a Nvidia MCP61P Motherboard. It's a similar price. Any views on which to go for?) Thanks.  (previously known as 'proxima' on SETI, UD, distributed folding, FaD, and Rosetta) [Edit 1 times, last edit by alver at Apr 14, 2010 10:43:19 AM] |
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pirogue
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Dec 8, 2008 Post Count: 685 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I can't render an opinion on the current performance comparison.
----------------------------------------However, if the AMD board will be able to handle the new 6-core chips, the AMD solution would be a better choice because you might actually be able to upgrade to a 6-core chip at some point. The socket 775 boards will probably never get a 6-core chip. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I built an AMD II X4 620 Quad Core for my daughter on an ASUS MB - and am really pleased with it. I think I used 4GB DDR2 800 for it as well. So my vote would be for the AMD - this turn out to be a very good budget machine and is handling everything well.
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Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
Always equate in the power consumption versus annual throughput. My quad has so far cost me more in electricity than the machine cost to acquire... but then I've chosen to keep it running 24/7. Obviously if just on when in use that is a whole lot less... just adding a bit for the difference between on and running at 100% CPU utilization.
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WCG
----------------------------------------Please help to make the Forums an enjoyable experience for All! [Edit 1 times, last edit by Sekerob at Apr 14, 2010 12:55:48 PM] |
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alver
Senior Cruncher Joined: Nov 30, 2007 Post Count: 245 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Thanks for all the replies.
----------------------------------------I ended up going for the Intel - the benchmarks were about the same (slightly better), and it was in stock - there was a delay on the AMDs. It's up and running, and going like the proverbial greased piglet - 4 cores at 100% running hfcc is a very satisfying sight! Thanks again for the info, everyone. (previously known as 'proxima' on SETI, UD, distributed folding, FaD, and Rosetta) |
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Hypernova
Master Cruncher Audaces Fortuna Juvat ! Vaud - Switzerland Joined: Dec 16, 2008 Post Count: 1908 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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alver, I am happy you found the right solution. I am always interested in calculating ratios related to crunching.
----------------------------------------Ideally If you could give the investment cost, measure the power at the wall socket and have the PPD (points per day) produced by crunching we could make some comparison of ratios with other equipment. No problem if you do not want to answer.   |
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alver
Senior Cruncher Joined: Nov 30, 2007 Post Count: 245 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Ideally If you could give the investment cost, measure the power at the wall socket and have the PPD (points per day) produced by crunching we could make some comparison of ratios with other equipment. Sure - will do. Next time the machine is shut down, I'll stick a power meter on it, then I'll be able to get back to you with the figures. (Unless it's too late by then! My last machine was only shut down or rebooted about once a year, and I think only had about 2 hours of downtime the whole 5/6 years I owned it - and I hope this will be the same). (previously known as 'proxima' on SETI, UD, distributed folding, FaD, and Rosetta) [Edit 1 times, last edit by alver at Apr 19, 2010 1:37:55 PM] |
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Hypernova
Master Cruncher Audaces Fortuna Juvat ! Vaud - Switzerland Joined: Dec 16, 2008 Post Count: 1908 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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alver, take your time. I will be retired when you will come back on that, and have plenty of time to analyze the data.
---------------------------------------- Anyway we will have quantum computers by then so maybe don't bother too much about measures.  |
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Jack007
Master Cruncher CANADA Joined: Feb 25, 2005 Post Count: 1604 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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OK,
----------------------------------------Here is cool info (this part found on WIKI), also if you google the processor model numbers there are recent articles all saying that they are coming out APRIL 26th! "Thuban" (45 nm, Six-core) Model Number........Step. Freq. Turbo L2 Cache L3 Cache HT Multi 1 TDP Socket Release Date Part Number(s) Phenom II X6 1035T E0 2.6 GHz 3.1 GHz 6x 512 KB 6 MB 2.0 GHz[1] 13x 95 W AM3 26 April 2010 HDT35TWFK6DGR Phenom II X6 1055T E0 2.8 GHz 3.3 GHz 6x 512 KB 6 MB 2.0 GHz[1] 14x 95 W AM3 26 April 2010 HDT55TWFK6DGR Phenom II X6 1055T E0 2.8 GHz 3.3 GHz 6x 512 KB 6 MB 2.0 GHz[1] 14x 125 W AM3 26 April 2010 HDT55TFBGRBOX Phenom II X6 1075T E0 3.0 GHz 3.5 GHz 6x 512 KB 6 MB 2.0 GHz[1] 15x 125 W AM3 Q3 2010 Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition E0 3.2 GHz 3.6 GHz 6x 512 KB 9 MB 2.0 GHz[1] 16x 125 W AM3 26 April 2010 HDT90ZFBGRBOX OK well you can look it up if you want to see it all pretty in rows... I'm a cut and paste kinda guy lemme see if I can link it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_future_A...2_.2845_nm.2C_Six-core.29 Anyways... apologies if this has been posted before but, Look at that Last one, the BLACK EDITION 3.2 ghz (3.6 in turbo) All of these are SIX CORES. Oh in articles I've found, price for the expensive one (black edition) was $299 US. $199 for the cheaper. So for 300 bucks, you dont get hyper threading, and it's a 45nm (nanometer) process (as opposed to 32nm for I7 980x I believe). But still, Hypernova's test show HT only worth about 14%, so you could buy TWO of these assuming dual socket motherboards come out for 2/3 the price of a I7 980X. We all knew that there would be cheaper to come, but I was expecting Intel not AMD. I'm taking a trip to the US this summer... Allowed 750 a person to bring back to Canada, think I'll have to pick up a couple of these and a dual socket motherboard!  Oh and if that's not enuf, saw a Dual socket motherboard for the 12 core AMD processors, formerly known as magny coures (SP?) No idea of price yet. EDIT: Yes I see it was mentioned in a AMD VS INTEL thread prob. elsewhere too.  [Edit 1 times, last edit by Jack007 at Apr 20, 2010 7:34:31 AM] |
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Hypernova
Master Cruncher Audaces Fortuna Juvat ! Vaud - Switzerland Joined: Dec 16, 2008 Post Count: 1908 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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But still, Hypernova's test show HT only worth about 14% Correct Jack007, but this is for Results Returned. Now if you look at Points you are between 40-50% more with HT. Up to alver to decide after what target he is going for. |
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