Intel / AMD for integer crunching powerhouse

[mrissmann]

I need to build an integer number cruncher. This program is single threaded and extremely memory intensive. No hard drive activity after startup. It will run for hours, days or even weeks on end.

Someone told me that intel is best at integer number crunching.

Any thoughts on this.

Please, no biased opinions. I am an AMD lover but this is a specific machine for a specific task.

Thanks much!

-markus

 

[zsdersw]

Core 2 Duo (as fast as you can afford) and as much memory as you can afford... and a good motherboard.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: zsdersw
Core 2 Duo (as fast as you can afford) and as much memory as you can afford... and a good motherboard.

As it's a single-threaded app (and assuming that you have no other apps running concurrently), you should actually be looking at single core processers...
If you're multitasking though, Z is correct for the consumer desktop market.

 

[tersome]

Core 2 Duo is by far the fastest in both single and multithreaded apps. You should probably look at the models with 4mb cache in case your app uses a lot of cache.

 

[Furen]

Is your load going to be this application exclusively? If so, is there any plan on making it multithreaded in the near future? If price is an issue then, like viditor said, looking at the single-core A64s is a pretty good idea. Also, if the program is memory-intesive enough then the integrated memory controller on the A64 will also give it an edge over Intel's off-die memory controller. If you don't plan on spending a whole lot on the system then a single-core 3800+ will probably give you the best bang for the buck, as its 2.4GHz clock and low price combination is hard to beat (it'd perform about the same as a single Core 2 core at 2GHz).

Any SSE in the application at all? Core 2 will definitely crush the K8 in almost any load when SSE performance is an issue. If price's no issue, however, then a Core 2 Duo E6700 is probably the best you could buy (the X6800 is a bit too rich for my blood, even when trying to splurge to maximize performance).

 

[mrissmann]

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the input.

So was what I heard correct, that intel is better in integer math, or do you guys own intel stock. If so it looks like the Intel Duo is the way for Integer number crunching. No SSE. The application is currently written in low level C with pointer and integer arithmetic.

This will be a development machine as well so the dual core would be great.

Can anybody give me a sample spec to go on. I am an old man now at 36 and have falled too far behind in technology trying to run my own startups. Where is the computer shopper.. ehhehe, if you know what I mean you are as old as me.

Which board is best? Remember the memory bus and all that stuff is very important any boost I can get would help. An adversary of mine bought an AMD fx2 chip and I would die if his machine outdid mine.

Since it is dual core and I assume that the board will be dual channel, is 4 sticks better than 2 sticks? Would ddr2-1066 be an overkill since most the boards I see only support DDR800?

I am also interested in SCSI but if the best board doesn't have scsi I can get a seperate card.

Thanks

-Markus

 

[Idontcare]

LOL Computershopper. I can remember waiting by the mailbox for the mailman to deliver that thing every month so I could spend the afternoon in geeky bliss fantasy about possible computer builds. Wow what a blast from the past, thanks!

For computer recommends I can only recommend you check out Yoxxy's guide on these forums, it will answer many of your questions - here is the link to Yoxxy's guide

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: mrissmann
Hey Guys,

Thanks for the input.

So was what I heard correct, that intel is better in integer math, or do you guys own intel stock. If so it looks like the Intel Duo is the way for Integer number crunching. No SSE. The application is currently written in low level C with pointer and integer arithmetic.

This will be a development machine as well so the dual core would be great.

Can anybody give me a sample spec to go on. I am an old man now at 36 and have falled too far behind in technology trying to run my own startups. Where is the computer shopper.. ehhehe, if you know what I mean you are as old as me.

Which board is best? Remember the memory bus and all that stuff is very important any boost I can get would help. An adversary of mine bought an AMD fx2 chip and I would die if his machine outdid mine.

Since it is dual core and I assume that the board will be dual channel, is 4 sticks better than 2 sticks? Would ddr2-1066 be an overkill since most the boards I see only support DDR800?

I am also interested in SCSI but if the best board doesn't have scsi I can get a seperate card.

Thanks

-Markus

I own both Intel and AMD stock (though at the moment more AMD than Intel).

You really can't say that Intel or AMD is better at integer math per se...you have to be more model and function specific. Furen's post pretty much lays it out...for dual-core on a desktop machine, you can't get past the C2D.
But if you are planning multiple cores (say 8 cores), then the Opteron actually takes the lead again (4P dual core Opty outdoes 2P quad core Cloverton and is upgradeable to more cores).

For a single socket solution today where price is no object, Core2Duo rules...hands down.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: mrissmann

So was what I heard correct, that intel is better in integer math, or do you guys own intel stock. If so it looks like the Intel Duo is the way for Integer number crunching. No SSE. The application is currently written in low level C with pointer and integer arithmetic.

If you want, look up the SpecINT scores for Conroe and/or Woodcrest. They do a pretty good number on dual-core AMD offerings.

I see a listed FX-62 machine getting a SPECint2000 reulst of 2061, while an E6700 system is getting 2848. Did we mention that Core 2 chips overclock well?

Which board is best? Remember the memory bus and all that stuff is very important any boost I can get would help. An adversary of mine bought an AMD fx2 chip and I would die if his machine outdid mine.

Board won't matter much as long as you avoid extremely cheap chipsets, such as anything made by VIA. The board will matter if you choose to overclock.

Since it is dual core and I assume that the board will be dual channel, is 4 sticks better than 2 sticks? Would ddr2-1066 be an overkill since most the boards I see only support DDR800?

First off, most boards should support any DDR2 speed up to around DDR2-1000 . . . it's all a matter of the available vdimm settings on the board. Some of the ultra-fast enthusiast RAM requires over 2.4v to reach its rated speed. Default vdimm for DDR2 is 1.8v. And you'll want two identical sticks for the best performance (dual channel of course).

I am also interested in SCSI but if the best board doesn't have scsi I can get a seperate card.

If you want on-board SCSI, uh, good luck. There's probably some Core 2 boards out there that support it, but if there are, I haven't seen them. You'll likely find SCSI support on Woodcrest boards.

 

[zsdersw]

Originally posted by: Viditor

Originally posted by: zsdersw
Core 2 Duo (as fast as you can afford) and as much memory as you can afford... and a good motherboard.

As it's a single-threaded app (and assuming that you have no other apps running concurrently), you should actually be looking at single core processers...
If you're multitasking though, Z is correct for the consumer desktop market.

There's little point in getting a single-core processor these days. The operating system requires CPU resources, too. With a single-core processor, the app he's trying to run will have to share timeslices of the CPU with the operating system.. and that's less than ideal.

 

[hardwareking]

Integer crunching power now stands with core 2 duo.So long as ur sticking with 1 processor(2 or 4 cors),2 processors(4 or 8 cores).
If its more than that u should switch over to AMD.
Floating point operations are generally better with AMD(am i right?)

 

[Furen]

Originally posted by: DrMrLordX

Since it is dual core and I assume that the board will be dual channel, is 4 sticks better than 2 sticks? Would ddr2-1066 be an overkill since most the boards I see only support DDR800?

First off, most boards should support any DDR2 speed up to around DDR2-1000 . . . it's all a matter of the available vdimm settings on the board. Some of the ultra-fast enthusiast RAM requires over 2.4v to reach its rated speed. Default vdimm for DDR2 is 1.8v. And you'll want two identical sticks for the best performance (dual channel of course).

Ewww, don't suggest overclocking at all for a software development workstation, these things have to be stable to the greatest extent possible.

To OP: I'd suggest any decent-branded motherboard with an i965 chipset. Usually, I consider it a better thing to run a pair of higher-capacity DIMMs rather than 4 but either way will be fine. I'd also suggest sticking to either DDR2 800 ot DDR2 667, since either will be enough to saturate the CPU's FSB but latencies could be a bit better with DDR2 800.

 

[nyker96]

yes C2D is the king in integer calc.

 

[mrissmann]

Hey Guys,

Thanks so much for you help.

I will post my configuration here for your carrusing.

Do you know of any good custom build vendors? Like GamePC, they have always been good to me but are currently a little expensive. I have normally built all my own machines but I am running 2 startups, a real job and have a kid so I don't have any time.

-Markus

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: Furen


Ewww, don't suggest overclocking at all for a software development workstation, these things have to be stable to the greatest extent possible.

If he doesn't want to OC, that's up to him. However, he can still buy memory faster than DDR2-800 and run it at the speeds specified by the manufacturer without overclocking the CPU. He did mention DDR2-1066 after all . . .

 

[mrissmann]

What about a Xeon dual core 3.0 GHz with a 1333 FSB?

Never mind:

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=5160vs6800&page=1

 

[mrissmann]

Hey Guys,

How is this setup:

1 x Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93 GHz) Dual Core Retail
1 x Zalman CNPS8000 Cooler for Socket-775 / AM2
1 x Asus P5B Intel P965 Retail
1 x Corsair XMS DDR2-1066 2 GB EPP TwinX Pack
1 x Seagate Cheetah 15K.4 36GB 15,000 RPM SAS OEM
1 x Vantec 24 Inch Clear Rounded Floppy Cable
1 x Adaptec 44300 Serial Attached SCSI Controller Retail
1 x Sony 1.44 MB Black Floppy Drive
1 x Sony AW-Q170AB Black Dual Layer DVD ± RW / CD-RW OEM
1 x XFX GeForce 7600 GS PCIe 256MB Retail
1 x Antec Atlas Black Full-Tower w/ 550W PSU
1 x Microsoft Windows XP Professional OEM with Vista Upgrade

Thoughts? I just picked a motherboard, don't know if there is a better one out there for my purposes.

-Markus

 

[tersome]

For the motherboard, I've heard good things regarding the Intel Badaxe 2 and stability. The 975 chipset will probably be somewhat faster than the 965 in memory intensive apps, too. You could probably get away with a small amount of overclocking if you want.

Also, if you're not going to be using the hard drive that much, three 80gb Seagate 7200.10s in RAID 5 with a nice RAID controller is more than enough.

 

[Furen]

Originally posted by: mrissmann
Hey Guys,

How is this setup:

1 x Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93 GHz) Dual Core Retail
1 x Zalman CNPS8000 Cooler for Socket-775 / AM2
1 x Asus P5B Intel P965 Retail
1 x Corsair XMS DDR2-1066 2 GB EPP TwinX Pack
1 x Seagate Cheetah 15K.4 36GB 15,000 RPM SAS OEM
1 x Vantec 24 Inch Clear Rounded Floppy Cable
1 x Adaptec 44300 Serial Attached SCSI Controller Retail
1 x Sony 1.44 MB Black Floppy Drive
1 x Sony AW-Q170AB Black Dual Layer DVD ± RW / CD-RW OEM
1 x XFX GeForce 7600 GS PCIe 256MB Retail
1 x Antec Atlas Black Full-Tower w/ 550W PSU
1 x Microsoft Windows XP Professional OEM with Vista Upgrade

Thoughts? I just picked a motherboard, don't know if there is a better one out there for my purposes.

-Markus

If you're going for the extreme edition why not just pick up the Quad-core part? It's 266MHz slower but has twice the cores...

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Why SCSI? From your own description this very specific app won't even hit the HDD's after startup. And even the startup times will be only slightly better than with a 10k raptor.

Alot of extra noise and $'s and less space for what? Don't see the point?

 

[mrissmann]

because, I currently have a dual-core opteron. And it appears that dual-core doesn't mean anything when you are hitting the hard drive. When I load, say outlook, both procs are pegged and I am assuming that this is because of hard drive access.

While we are on this point, are there any tools out there to test dual-core? My operton acts as if there is only one core, it lists two but they really appear to be tied together. When one is pegged so is the other. 99% of the apps I run are single threaded.

If we get in to a long discussion we might want to start another thread. I don't want to lose what I am after on this thread.

 

[mrissmann]

If you're going for the extreme edition why not just pick up the Quad-core part? It's 266MHz slower but has twice the cores...

The number cruncher is a single threaded app and will be for the near future. If I get time (which means I got investments) it means I will have money to buy more computers.

 

[mrissmann]

If you're going for the extreme edition why not just pick up the Quad-core part? It's 266MHz slower but has twice the cores...

Speaking of the extreme edition...

Am I going to get enough advantage out of it to make it work the price?

 

[bobsmith1492]

Originally posted by: mrissmann
because, I currently have a dual-core opteron. And it appears that dual-core doesn't mean anything when you are hitting the hard drive. When I load, say outlook, both procs are pegged and I am assuming that this is because of hard drive access.

While we are on this point, are there any tools out there to test dual-core? My operton acts as if there is only one core, it lists two but they really appear to be tied together. When one is pegged so is the other. 99% of the apps I run are single threaded.

If we get in to a long discussion we might want to start another thread. I don't want to lose what I am after on this thread.

If both processors are pegged, it means they are working; if the hard drive is being accessed, the processors are not necessarily working full time if there isn't much to calculate from the data... therefore, whenever your processors are pegged and you're waiting, you would benefit from a faster processor.

 

[tersome]

Originally posted by: mrissmann

If you're going for the extreme edition why not just pick up the Quad-core part? It's 266MHz slower but has twice the cores...

Speaking of the extreme edition...

Am I going to get enough advantage out of it to make it work the price?

Not really. You should just get an E6600, overclock it to 3ghz, and save $700.