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College Professor PC Help

K

KarmaPolice

Diamond Member
A college professor who works in the BIO department wants a new computer. He doesnt want to go dell or anything if he can get a better deal and a better computer. He does not want it for general pc work. He wants it to do quick processing, and a lot of number crunching. He can spend anywhere from 1g-2gs on it.

For an example of what kind of stuff he wants to run check out.
http://mrbayes.csit.fsu.edu/index.php

He says these things can take from weeks to months to run and he is interested in getting a fast pc to do all of it faster.

I have built many computers but none for this purpose. Any suggesitons?

EDIT: He also wants it to be able to use photoshop well.
 
Get a Dell, it's hard to beat their pricing for a non-gaming PC with a legal copy of Windows XP Pro and a warranty.

A fast P4 D 9xx dual-processor, 1 GB of RAM, DVD burner for backup are the important parts.
 
It looks like the program supports multithreaded operation... if you can get your hands on a dual-CPU system capable of running two dual-core Opterons, that would probably be the fastest possible option. Tough at $1-2K, though, so you're probably looking at a system with one dual-core CPU if you want it to be a fast system.

You should find out if the software runs better on Pentium4 or Athlon64/Opteron CPUs. Also whether it needs a lot of RAM to run; you may need 2GB or RAM of more.

From a quick perusal of the manual, it also seems to have a distributed version for running a workload on multiple UNIX/Linux systems; potentially your best bang/buck option might be buying 3 or 4 cheaper systems for ~$500 each, loading Linux on them, and running the workload on all of them. However, this is definitely much more involved.

Get a Dell, it's hard to beat their pricing for a non-gaming PC with a legal copy of Windows XP Pro and a warranty.
Click to expand...

They're VERY hard to beat at the bottom end, but Dell tends to charge through the nose for CPU and RAM upgrades, so if you want a faster system, they're sometimes not the best choice. Worth pricing it out at a couple OEMs, at least.
 
This would indeed be a true number crunching monster! Tracking nucleotide sequences and combining all that data will bog down even the fastest of CPU's. He'll definately want at least two gigs of RAM all on two cards or even four Gigs all on two cards. It will be pulling data from all sorts of places, so I'd say even hard drive speeds would come into it. As a result, Dell simply isn't the answer here.

Also Dell's and most other supposedly "brand named" computers are...

Hard to upgrade.

Cool.

Swap power supplies with standard power supplies.

OEM programming that comes with the PC will go looking for the, for instance with a Dell, the Dell bios before running, so if you go to a non-brand mommaboard, you are stuck with programming you can't use.

He's going to end up spending the $2,000.00 U.S. easily here.

I'm assuming this program is not punched for dual core, so we won't waste money on that!

Can he wait a couple of months for better options?


 
We have a dual-core, dual-processor system in my CISCO class at my highschool with 2GBs of ECC RAM and whoa, it's fast. It's a Dell and I believe cost the district about $2000.

The thing with building systems for people is they excpect you to be tech support for the rest of your life. Otherwise, build it.

 
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