Question regarding Dual Cores

[manickr]

Hello:

I am planning to purchase a 64 Bit Opteron from HP (XW 9300 ) for CAD and CAE applications. I was given two choice for the CPU's and i am wondering which one would be a better choice.

here is the options:

Option 1: Two Dual core CPU (Opteron 280/2.4 1MB/2Core) with 16 Gig RAM

Option 2: Two Non- dual core Opteron processors (Opteron 252 2.8 1MB/1000) WITH 16 Gig RAM.

The two CAE packages i am planning to run on these machines supports 64 Bit code.

How much do I loose or gain between these two clock speed (2.4 dual core vs 2.8 non ducal cores?).

Please share your experience/inputs.

Thanks

 

[robertk2012]

one dual core is bad a$$. Two dual cores........well why wouldnt you do it. I would go for the 4 cores as the little bit of clock speed wont make that much of a difference. Someone correct me if Im wrong though.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Depends on how parallel the code you'll be running is...if your applications still scale well beyond 2 CPU's then the two dual-cores will definitely be better...if you'll be limited to 2 (or less) main workload threads, then the dual 2.8's would be better...since this is going to be a (very) high end workstation type of thing, I'd go for the dual dual-cores, assuming the price is more or less similar...I would think (but this is just a total guess) that a lot of software for those types of applications makes heavy use of SMP, in which case the quad 2.4's would give you better (perhaps much better) performance than the dual 2.8's...

This is just a guess from a single dual-core desktop user though

 

[frostedflakes]

Yeah, it really comes down to the application(s) you plan to do on this system. Like SynthDude suggested, dual 280s would be the best choice if your software can take advantage of all four cores well. It'd be 9.6GHz vs. 5.6GHz, the Operton 280s should wipe the floor with the 252s (once again, assuming the software you plan to use can efficiently thread to 4 CPUs).

 

[manickr]

Thanks for your replies guys. The analysis software I am trying to use can handle upto 8 CPUs (ofcourse I need to pay for additional license fee and currently I have a license to run on 2 CPUs). But the problem I am having with my current system (HP's XW 6200 P3.4 Ghz dual processor) is that when my analysis are launched using both CPU's, i am not able to do any other work. Normally, I will be using other applications to build models while my analysis are running on 2 CPU in parallel. Currently, i am trying to use an additional work station to run other applications while the analysis are running. With that said, it make sense to purchase the dual core even though the clock speed are bit less than two Non- dual core Opteron processors (Opteron 252 2.8 1MB/1000) WITH 16 Gig RAM.

Thanks again for your comments and any further suggestions/comments are welcome.

Thanks

 

[robertk2012]

I would definately go with the 4 cores in your case.