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Subject: Re: Hyperthreading vs. dual configuration performance? Somewhat OT

Author: Charles Worthington

Date: 04:18:08 02/21/03

Go up one level in this thread


On February 20, 2003 at 23:00:52, Mike Byrne wrote:

>On February 20, 2003 at 20:06:01, Robert Pawlak wrote:
>
>>Hi Everyone,
>>
>>I am on the verge of buying a new computer at work. However, I do quite a bit of
>>heavy computation, and have a need to run modeling jobs that take days to
>>complete. My current system gets a bit sluggish when I do this, and so I have
>>been thinking about one of the following:
>>
>>Dual Xeon
>>Dual Athlon MP
>>3 GHz P4 with HT
>>OS: WinXP
>>
>>The software I run in the background is very integer intensive. The are times
>>also when I run floating point intensive stuff as well. And of course, the
>>models consume gobs of memory. So you see the similarities to your typical chess
>>engine with large hash (at least for integer stuff).
>>
>>The application I am using will only run in a single thread. My concern is not
>>so much about MIPS, but about whether the machine is still usable while my jobs
>>are running in the background.
>>
>>Base on my limited understanding of hyperthreading, it looks like it might be an
>>ok alternative. But I have no idea how well it will perform for my needs. I
>>included it because it has the potential to be the best performer. The dual Xeon
>>seems interesting to me as well, since it would give me four logical processors
>>:-). I also think Intel might be my better choice because of the larger memory
>>bandwidth.
>>
>>Does anyone have any practical experience they'd like to share on this topic?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Bob
>
>
>Hi Bob,
>
>I have a dual 1.8 P4 Ghz (Dell) and I am very pleased with it running win2K.
>The previous post about the dual and I/O is very accurate and I echo the
>sentiments.  Dual is a must IMO.  My first dual was P333 and that worked so well
>that I bought another one when the time was right.  Dell also is a very reliable
>company - the machines are well tested ,run great out the box and are extremely
>reliable IMO. All units now have a "hidden" mirror copy of the factory image in
>case you do have a problem, restoring to factory condition is very easy.
>
>I have easily steered at least 10 people and either purchased of help purchase
>20 units over the years.  Only one ever had a problem, and they had a new drive
>shipped to them as a replacement, the tech arrived arrived and installed it.
>
>Highly recommended.
>
>Michael Byrne
>
>Mike



Ditto Mike. I have owned nothing_but_Dell systems. their service is unsurpassed
and I have had no problems from their systems.

Charles



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