Optimizing my new God Box - Dual Opteron 246 w/AGP

[redpriest_]

The system I have is really really quiet. My watercooler is a little louder.

 

[mechBgon]

redpriest_, wanna see if you can top Electrode's compression results? 😀

 

[redpriest_]

I'd love to but my UT 2003 cd 1 and cd2 are shot. The only reason I was able to install UT2003 was I hacked the install manifest on the CD-ROM so it made the appropriate registry entries, and then I copied over the entire contents of the game from another computer over my in-house network. If you want me to time compressing one of the folders using winzip I can do that, or CD 3 (the only CD I have that doesn't have scratches to the point of them not working =( )

Running botmatch /all right now, I'll give results in a bit.

 

[redpriest_]

Edit: I should add that my graphics card settings were in default (450mhz/850mhz - 'performance', 'application', 'application' (no AA or AF)). (nvidia geforce fx 5900 ultra)). Ran at 1024x768 with ALL graphics details cranked up to max (including tri-filtering).

Here are some UT2003 performance numbers (I ran botmatch's individually and flyby's individually). Straight from the log...

Botmatches:

dm-antalus
32.708248 / 66.243210 / 145.917862 fps
Score = 66.262794

br-anubis
34.568287 / 89.705887 / 165.046051 fps
Score = 89.746376

dm-asbestos
28.833763 / 81.450859 / 181.768295 fps
Score = 81.501831

ctf-citadel
27.407812 / 62.756107 / 142.675278 fps
Score = 62.843456

dm-inferno
10.390984 / 69.822563 / 433.584229 fps
Score = 69.817291

dom-suntemple
11.871853 / 85.030159 / 183.519592 fps
Score = 85.042358

Flybys:

dm-antalus
83.886963 / 206.809509 / 862.546509 fps
Score = 206.908234

dm-asbestos
84.770897 / 276.607208 / 905.308838 fps
Score = 276.973206

ctf-citadel
36.784615 / 158.629944 / 439.099548 fps
Score = 158.964310

ctf-face3
67.939751 / 204.909775 / 1066.834229 fps
Score = 205.030411

dm-inferno
84.349739 / 184.254349 / 607.876160 fps
Score = 184.495605

dm-phobos2
66.554924 / 202.740738 / 1143.831055 fps
Score = 202.848068

dom-suntemple
81.129272 / 222.980499 / 838.634460 fps
Score = 223.093826

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: redpriest_
I'd love to but my UT 2003 cd 1 and cd2 are shot. The only reason I was able to install UT2003 was I hacked the install manifest on the CD-ROM so it made the appropriate registry entries, and then I copied over the entire contents of the game from another computer over my in-house network. If you want me to time compressing one of the folders using winzip I can do that, or CD 3 (the only CD I have that doesn't have scratches to the point of them not working =( )

Running botmatch /all right now, I'll give results in a bit.

I'm talking about Unreal Tournament "classic," the original UT.

 

[redpriest_]

That makes things easier because my UT cds are still in top condition, heh.

Timed it:
winzip 8.1: 2 minutes 25 seconds

 

[pelikan]

redpriest- nice botmatch scores.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: redpriest_
That makes things easier because my UT cds are still in top condition, heh.

Timed it:
winzip 8.1: 2 minutes 25 seconds

Nice 😎 And that's with what OS, WinXP Pro, or ??

 

[redpriest_]

This is with 32-bit Windows XP SP1 w/ all patches installed.

 

[mechBgon]

In your Profile, I see you have www.sciencemark.de as your home page. Do you work there? Have you had a chance to put your new monster to work on two very large data sets at the same time? 😀

 

[redpriest_]

Heheh. Yes, I wrote major portions of the ScienceMark benchmark; Tim and I did a lot of the work from porting from SM1.0 to 2.0; and Sean added in the AES encryption algorithm. I fold for team techreport, and here's a 'benchmark' of some of the work the dual opteron system does...

http://forum.folding-community.org/viewtopic.php?t=5323

 

[Soulkeeper]

good deal

 

[Electrode]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
How about your subjective opinion on overall system responsiveness in 64 bit mode Electrode? Have you run the same rig on a 32 bit OS as well? How did it compare overall?

There's no difference in overall responsiveness between 32-bit mode (Slackware 9.0) and 64-bit mode (SuSE 8.2). Then again, I wouldn't really call Fluxbox 0.1.14 and Mozilla Firebird 0.6.1 good examples of apps that benefit from 64-bit computing. 🙂

 

[Electrode]

I decided to redo mech's UT Zip test using both a 64-bit and 32-bit build of Infozip, in an effort to see what advantage, if any, that the Hammer's 64-bit registers would give. My results were completely unexpected.

Testbed is same as above. Changes this time were:
* I did not use the -mieee-fp flag when compiling zip
* I changed the order of the SIMD instruction flags to -mmmx -m3dnow -msse -msse2
* The 32-bit build was made with GCC 3.2.2 on my laptop, running Slackware 9.0. The 64-bit build was, like last time, made with GCC 3.3 on SuSE 8.2. This is because I was unable to get it to compile with -m32 on SuSE, due to missing libraries.
* I was not running X or SoB this time around.

I first tested the 64-bit build.
~/zip64 -r9 utcd1.zip utcd1
Average over 4 tests was 3 minutes, 26.87675 seconds.

I then tested the 32-bit build.
~/zip32 -r9 utcd1.zip utcd1
Now here's the suprise: The average time over 4 tests was 2 minutes, 42.96 seconds, almost 44 seconds faster than the 64-bit build! :Q

I ran the tests over and over and over again, and there is no error. The 32-bit build of Infozip completely blew the 64-bit build away.

The only thing I can think of that could cause this is the fact that the compiler isn't exactly mature yet. GCC has been targetting i386 for a decade, and i686 for at least 5 years, but despite AMD's contributions the x86-64 target is still very new compared to the 32-bit ix86 targets.

So there you have it. The performance benefit from 64-bit mode is, at this point in time, negative.

 

[Jeff7181]

How bout running the Command Line SETI&Home client and see how many WU's those two Opterons can crank out =)

 

[Electrode]

Jeff7181: Already did. The 32-bit native Linux client took about 3 hours per WU, never had a chance to try any other builds.

 

[mrgoblin]

too bad the 248 is coming out and pc 3200 is too. I woulda waited on the memory till the new stuff is out. Still 10x better than my box

 

[beyoku]

"What scores have you guys been getting on comparable systems"



Are you joking.......... LOL

nice rig

 

[batmanuel]

Megatomic:Here's a question for either redpriest_ or Electrode (or both if they both desire to answer): what is your subjective opinion of the relative noisiness of your dual Opteron system? And what system are you comparing it to subjectively? Also, where do you have the computer case relative to your ears?

The Opterons are really young processors right now, so they don't have the same plethora of cooling options that all of the other chips have. Plus, since they are server chips the HSFs are probably designed more around fitting into 1U rack than being really quiet. I'm sure someone will eventually come out with a nice quiet one for the Opteron. Hopefully Coolermaster will design a variant of their Aero series for the Opteron. If they do, I'm sure you'll be able to make a pretty quiet Opteron box (I'd like to see a boxed pair that share a common fan speed controller). I just got a Aero 7 Lite that I picked up free after rebate at a Fry's grand opening, and I put it on in place of the retail HSF that came with my Athlon XP 2000+, and I cannot believe how much quieter it is all the while cooling my CPU better. Good cooling does not always have to equal a lot of noise if you design it right.