I have a single processor amd64 3200+ that has a RAC of 515.

See my host mycroft.

This thing runs like crazy, with a quiet hsf, and very little heat, even overclocked.

If I were going intel now, I think I'd go the p4 mobile 3.06 ghz. That thing should scream!

Anyone seen any benchmarks on it yet?

Don

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There are SO many mis-conceptions and BS here.

2. You DO NOT need a 2 way or 4 way or 8 way system to run a server OS. You can install Windows 2003 Server on a single CPU system.

hmm... as I'm the only person to mention Server OSes in this thread, I think you must have misunderstood what I said. If you have a 4-way (or above) system and want to run MS, you _HAVE_ to run a Server OS as they don't offer any desktop OSes that support more than 2 processors. MS completely fail to recognise the multi processor workstation market insisting you run a Server product at a hefty price premium paying for features you don't want or need, and that was my point.

Ned

Well yes execpt if you run with 2 Opterons, say a pair of 275's, while you only have two sockets you have 4 complete processors and XP64 Pro sees all 4 cpu's. It's probably be more correct to say if you have more than two sockets then you need the Server OS. I wonder how XP will handle the new quad core chips when they come out?

[edit]
You did say 4 way so you probably did mean more than two socketss. My mistake
[end edit]

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... Well, 64 processors ain't a problem for BOINC.
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=986882

Shame that system ran only 42 WUs.

Hope its not uselessly spinning idle cycles...

Cheers,
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

What hasn't been mentioned... isn't there a limit on the number of "logical or physical" processors in the BOINC preference settings? I'm not sure having sixteen logical processors would help...

Well, 64 processors ain't a problem for BOINC.
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=986882

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What hasn't been mentioned... isn't there a limit on the number of "logical or physical" processors in the BOINC preference settings? I'm not sure having sixteen logical processors would help...

I'm not sure. I've only ever run SETI Classic on multiway machines, and there you simply ran one instance per processor.

Ned

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*** My Guide to Compiling Optimised BOINC and SETI Clients ***
*** Download Optimised BOINC and SETI Clients for Linux Here ***

What hasn't been mentioned... isn't there a limit on the number of "logical or physical" processors in the BOINC preference settings? I'm not sure having sixteen logical processors would help...

Your Pentium D 840XE doesn't have 4 processors. It has 2 physical processors and with HT has 2 logical processors.

True, but XP Pro THINKS it has 4 processors.

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Your Pentium D 840XE doesn't have 4 processors. It has 2 physical processors and with HT has 2 logical processors.

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Yes, sorry, misunderstood you.

Well, technically...

WinXP Home is for the home user. 1 - 2 CPUs
WinXP Pro is for home/offices/workstations. 1 - 2 CPUs
Win 2003 Server is for servers. more then 2 CPUs

Have you seen.....

1. A 4 way desktop?
2. A 4 way workstation?

I guess MS's stand is.....if you are rich enough to buy a 4 way (and above) system, then you are rich enough to buy a Server OS.

I have a P4Dual core with HT enabled, yes it is the EE and I use Xp Pro and it sees all 4 processors. It is in a desktop case, tower, and I use it at home.
Although the company that put it together named it "workstation" so it is still that in the list of my computers. It is a unique, for me, name so I am leaving it alone.

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Yes, sorry, misunderstood you.

Well, technically...

WinXP Home is for the home user. 1 - 2 CPUs
WinXP Pro is for home/offices/workstations. 1 - 2 CPUs
Win 2003 Server is for servers. more then 2 CPUs

Have you seen.....

1. A 4 way desktop?
2. A 4 way workstation?

I guess MS's stand is.....if you are rich enough to buy a 4 way (and above) system, then you are rich enough to buy a Server OS.

Er, yes. Within science we use lots of 4-way, 8-way and 16-way machines for number crunching, and not one of them "serves" anything. Of course they all run UNIX, not Windows :)

But as we see from this thread, 4-way workstations are now becoming within the reach of more people, and if MS don't wake up to the fact they'll lose the market to Linux rather rapidly.

Ned

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*** My Guide to Compiling Optimised BOINC and SETI Clients ***
*** Download Optimised BOINC and SETI Clients for Linux Here ***

Yes, sorry, misunderstood you.

Well, technically...

WinXP Home is for the home user. 1 - 2 CPUs
WinXP Pro is for home/offices/workstations. 1 - 2 CPUs
Win 2003 Server is for servers. more then 2 CPUs

Have you seen.....

1. A 4 way desktop?
2. A 4 way workstation?

I guess MS's stand is.....if you are rich enough to buy a 4 way (and above) system, then you are rich enough to buy a Server OS.

---

There are SO many mis-conceptions and BS here.

2. You DO NOT need a 2 way or 4 way or 8 way system to run a server OS. You can install Windows 2003 Server on a single CPU system.

hmm... as I'm the only person to mention Server OSes in this thread, I think you must have misunderstood what I said. If you have a 4-way (or above) system and want to run MS, you _HAVE_ to run a Server OS as they don't offer any desktop OSes that support more than 2 processors. MS completely fail to recognise the multi processor workstation market insisting you run a Server product at a hefty price premium paying for features you don't want or need, and that was my point.

Ned

---

*** My Guide to Compiling Optimised BOINC and SETI Clients ***
*** Download Optimised BOINC and SETI Clients for Linux Here ***

There are SO many mis-conceptions and BS here.

1. Quad Xeon MPs DO NOT share a single FSB, they have either 2 or 4 memory BUS, depending on the board. Some Duals Xeon DPs share 1 FSB, but there are mainboards with seperate memory BUS.

None of the Xeon chipsets (except the E8501) offers more then 1 FSB. Some offer a dual channel memory interface (except again the E8501 which offers 4 independent memory interfaces (but need extra chips for that)), but all the memory accesses are transported over a single FSB, shared by all the CPU's. So even of the chipset offers dual or quad channel memory, it still has to travel over the single FSB.

The E8501 is only available since 10-10-2005, and will be just as expensive (or even more) as a 4 way Opteron board (that has 4 independent dual memory controllers and 4x HT-bus (when populated with CPU's of course)).

http://indigo.intel.com/compare_cpu/showchart.aspx?mmID=1773,7968,1627,2384,5541,5539,139,6532,4822&familyID=9&culture=en-US
http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/e8500/datashts/306745.htm
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20051010comp.htm

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Join team BOINCstats

There are SO many mis-conceptions and BS here.

1. Quad Xeon MPs DO NOT share a single FSB, they have either 2 or 4 memory BUS, depending on the board. Some Duals Xeon DPs share 1 FSB, but there are mainboards with seperate memory BUS.

Hi.

I stand corrected. :o)
Intel's new 8500 northbridge has dual FSB166. I wasn't aware of this, because my preferred supplier doesn't carry anything in this price range...


Regards Hans

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There are SO many mis-conceptions and BS here.

1. Quad Xeon MPs DO NOT share a single FSB, they have either 2 or 4 memory BUS, depending on the board. Some Duals Xeon DPs share 1 FSB, but there are mainboards with seperate memory BUS.

2. You DO NOT need a 2 way or 4 way or 8 way system to run a server OS. You can install Windows 2003 Server on a single CPU system.

3. The reason why people buy HT or multi-core or multi-processor systems is to save on space, money and power bills. A 2 way or 4 way or 8 way system needs only ONE harddisk, ONE cdrom, ONE powersupply, ONE OS, ONE graphics card, ONE network card.....
If you were to do the same with single CPU systems, you need FOUR harddisk, FOUR cdroms, FOUR powersupplys, FOUR OS, FOUR graphics card, FOUR network cards...... nearly FOUR times the space, nearly THREE times the power bills. You COULD argue that you could built a stack with no harddisk, just runing off the cdrom with linux. BUT how many people would know how to setup something so complicated?

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Well for comparisons sake... I currently have 2 quad opteron boxes crunching for me every night (database servers at work that are being tested before going into production). 4 physical CPUs - no dual core, etc. On one, I have installed the stock client, on the other an optimized one. The stock takes about 1.6 hours per cpu per work unit and the optimized takes about 40-50 minutes. I just brought them online so their RAC hasn't stabilized yet. Plus they are only running for 11 hours per day so it is hard to compare RAC. Too bad they probably won't be crunching for me for very long :(

Optimized host
stock client host

One note: the optimized client I'm using takes up nearly 400 MB of RAM per process so to be able to actually run it you will need at least 512 MB/CPU. Of course these beasts have 16 GB so that isn't a problem :)

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A member of The Knights Who Say NI!
For rankings, history graphs and more, check out:
My BOINC stats site

I have one computer with a pair of dual core Opteron 275's running Windows XP64 and each cpu does a wu between 1.9 to 2.4 hrs. Yesterday I just brought on line one with an AMD 3800 X2 running Xandros Linux and each cpu takes from 2.4 to 2.75 hrs. to do a wu for about 1/5 the cost of the Opteron setup. The X2 is the most cost effective way to go.

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John, I hate to say it, but your not getting bang for your buck! My single 3.2GHzP4 (Prescott) with HT on is getting a higher overall RAC than your 2.8GHz Xeon (it is doing more than 1 project so it's seti RAC is not a true representation). FreeLarry on my team has an AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+. It is estimated to have on overall RAC of 600+ in LHC@home and if he ever fired it up on SETI with an optimised app it would have an RAC of 800+. I drool for this machine! Live long and crunch.

I have an Intel P4D 840EE, that is an Intel P4 dual core with HT on each core, a 4 way processor! It has 1 meg of L2 cache for each core. It has an 800mhz FSB, I could not get my hands on the 1066 FSB version when I bought mine. I am currently gettting about 90 minutes or so for 4 Boinc units at one time, and about 1100 RAC for that machine alone. I am using an optimised version but NOT the dual core optimised version, yet.

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I've also looked into Dual Systems for quite some time...

For now, the So939 Athlon64 X2's seem to give the best bang for the buck, they're relatively cheap to setup, run amazingly cool while using only very little power and yield outstanding performance.

Classic Single Core Opterons IMHO have lost their appeal since the appearance of the cheap Dual Core X2's, but Dual Core Opterons are unfortunately really too expensive, definitely too much for my paygrade :p

Based on personal experience, I'd recommend a "LinAMD" combination ;)

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John,

I hate to say it, but your not getting bang for your buck! My single 3.2GHzP4 (Prescott) with HT on is getting a higher overall RAC than your 2.8GHz Xeon (it is doing more than 1 project so it's seti RAC is not a true representation). FreeLarry on my team has an AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+. It is estimated to have on overall RAC of 600+ in LHC@home and if he ever fired it up on SETI with an optimised app it would have an RAC of 800+. I drool for this machine!

Live long and crunch.

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Paul
(S@H1 8888)
And proud of it!