processor suggestion for brute force calculations?

[monkeyman1133]

Hi,

I am currently working on a research project and need to put together a new machine to pretty much do a lot of simple calculations. I'm wondering what processor would be the best bang for the $. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I was thinking of the intel pentium D 930, since at around $200 on the street it seems like a very good bargain. AMD X2s look nice, but with the cheapest at $300, I don't think I can afford it. Also, I've thought about overclocking a pentium D 805, but when that chip is way overclocked it just guzzles power! And since $ overall is an important factor in making my choice, I think that power bills over time would end up costing me more right?

So the 930, maybe also pairing it with a i945G board to further save on the price of a graphics card. Do you guys think this would work well as a dedicated number cruncher that can run stable almost 24 hr/day?

Thanks for all you input in advance.

 

[stevty2889]

The Asus P5LD2-VM would work well. Not a great board for overclocking, but works with the 9xx series, has integrated graphics, but still has a PCIe slot in case you want to add a video card later.

 

[zephyrprime]

What application are you using?

 

[monkeyman1133]

I'm running a program I wrote for MS visual C# that needs to needs to process data in real time. All it does is lots of basic arithmetic calculations- multiplying and adding large doubles. So pretty much as long as the system is a little faster than a dell laptop Core Duo 1.8ghz (E1505, thats my current testbed). If its faster and can process more data, that capabillity will probably end up being wasted anyways.

So would a Pentium D 930 paired with a i945g work in this role? I'm mainly concerned about cost, and this combo would be cheaper than other available options, i think. But out of curiosity, how would AMDs X2s stack up against the pentium Ds in this situation?

 

[monkeyman1133]

bump

 

[furballi]

Overclock an A64 Venice with 10x multiplier. I have a cheap ECS NF4 socket 754 with an A64 3000. This combo is running at 2.68GHz. 1M digits Super Pi time of 34.4 seconds (1GB RAM). Cost of combo is $99.

You can download Super Pi version 1.5 (free) and run this same test with the portable Dell. It's not the most scientific test, but it will give you an idea of the performance boost when you overclock the single core A64.

 

[Fox5]

Wait for Conroe and get that!

 

[potato28]

Originally posted by: monkeyman1133
I'm running a program I wrote for MS visual C# that needs to needs to process data in real time. All it does is lots of basic arithmetic calculations- multiplying and adding large doubles. So pretty much as long as the system is a little faster than a dell laptop Core Duo 1.8ghz (E1505, thats my current testbed). If its faster and can process more data, that capabillity will probably end up being wasted anyways.

So would a Pentium D 930 paired with a i945g work in this role? I'm mainly concerned about cost, and this combo would be cheaper than other available options, i think. But out of curiosity, how would AMDs X2s stack up against the pentium Ds in this situation?

Well... the Intel option is the cheapest for u rite? Becuase if I wanted to google it and get some stats... well ud prolly sh!t urself at the difference...

 

[firewolfsm]

An Athlon 3800+ will be much faster than that Core Duo for about $150, unless your program is advanced anough to take advantage of two cores, then go for a cheap Intel dual core 9XX and OC it.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: firewolfsm
An Athlon 3800+ will be much faster than that Core Duo for about $150, unless your program is advanced anough to take advantage of two cores, then go for a cheap Intel dual core 9XX and OC it.

He wants it to run stable 24/hr a day though, the much higher heat of the pentium 4s could crash the system, and the much higher power draw cause the power supply/motherboard to fail sooner. Remember when Tom's Hardware did the stress test, and the P4 system kept crashing or frying every like 2 days of operation?

 

[monkeyman1133]

Thanks for all your input guys. Dual-core is a must for me because I can definitely take advantage of it. But after listening to your thoughts I've decided to go with the X2 3800+. Its actually not even $100 more because nForce4 mobos with integrated video are cheaper than i945gs.

I really doubt that I'll need that much muscle, but the AMD is more stable and should draw less power right? I'm also concerned about electricty bills since this will be running almost 24hr/day for at least the next upcoming year.

 

[imported_Starglider]

I gather you're doings lots of floating point calculations. It makes a critical difference whether those are classic x87 floating point instructions, or SSE instructions. Pentium 4s suck at x87, but tend to beat Athlon64s on well-tuned SSE code. If you're compiling with Visual C++ and not hand-optimising, an Athlon64 will probably work better.

Note that you will have to dual-thread your application to get the full benefit from a dual core processor, although there may be a slight benefit even for a single thread application if you have background tasks running that can go on the second core.

The X2 processor will definitely draw less power than an P4 - be sure to use a no-frills motherboard other than one with loads of power-sucking features you don't need, as well as a power supply that has a high efficiency rating at the load you're drawing. Using mobile processors would use considerably less power, but would cost a /lot/ more to set up.

 

[Shimmishim]

Originally posted by: monkeyman1133
Thanks for all your input guys. Dual-core is a must for me because I can definitely take advantage of it. But after listening to your thoughts I've decided to go with the X2 3800+. Its actually not even $100 more because nForce4 mobos with integrated video are cheaper than i945gs.

I really doubt that I'll need that much muscle, but the AMD is more stable and should draw less power right? I'm also concerned about electricty bills since this will be running almost 24hr/day for at least the next upcoming year.

if you can wait about a month, the X2's are expected to drop in price the day after conroe release.

i know this is the case for the AM2... i wonder if it's the asme for the 939.. hm...

 

[monkeyman1133]

Originally posted by: Shimmishim

Originally posted by: monkeyman1133
Thanks for all your input guys. Dual-core is a must for me because I can definitely take advantage of it. But after listening to your thoughts I've decided to go with the X2 3800+. Its actually not even $100 more because nForce4 mobos with integrated video are cheaper than i945gs.

I really doubt that I'll need that much muscle, but the AMD is more stable and should draw less power right? I'm also concerned about electricty bills since this will be running almost 24hr/day for at least the next upcoming year.

if you can wait about a month, the X2's are expected to drop in price the day after conroe release.

i know this is the case for the AM2... i wonder if it's the asme for the 939.. hm...

yup thanks for the suggestion. I've already heard about the slated price drops but I need this system now, although by the time the price cuts come around I will probably need a couple more of these systems which I will pick up then

 

[TanisHalfElven]

isn't your core duo at 1.8 GHz enough ? if not i doubt a x2 3800 will be cuz the core dou nearly equal to x2's on a clock for clock basis. maybe OC it a little.

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: monkeyman1133
I'm running a program I wrote for MS visual C# that needs to needs to process data in real time. All it does is lots of basic arithmetic calculations- multiplying and adding large doubles. So pretty much as long as the system is a little faster than a dell laptop Core Duo 1.8ghz (E1505, thats my current testbed). If its faster and can process more data, that capabillity will probably end up being wasted anyways.

So would a Pentium D 930 paired with a i945g work in this role? I'm mainly concerned about cost, and this combo would be cheaper than other available options, i think. But out of curiosity, how would AMDs X2s stack up against the pentium Ds in this situation?

Your 1.8ghz core duo, is actualy faster than a pentium-d 830/930, so you would be downgrading cpu wise. More than likely you'll have a faster hard drive in the desktop which may help some. You would need a pentium-d 950 to get the same performance as the 3800+ X2, which is only a little faster than your 1.8ghz core duo.