From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EEvE7-00022K-1Y for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Mon, 12 Sep 2005 20:48:31 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.4/8.13.4) with SMTP id j8CKge4d019720; Mon, 12 Sep 2005 20:42:40 GMT Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [134.68.220.30]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id j8CKZwsF019048 for ; Mon, 12 Sep 2005 20:35:58 GMT Received: from wproxy.gmail.com ([64.233.184.194]) by smtp.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EEv6F-0005vP-QW for gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org; Mon, 12 Sep 2005 20:40:23 +0000 Received: by wproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id i4so2184988wra for ; Mon, 12 Sep 2005 13:40:24 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:reply-to:to:subject:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition; b=OXR+K07BNMjxVTtGprrq0QurP3P4GVMbUB+PaH3FrU1j/0pyeQNpq4U7huvHFOKtpxbqMPA44SshP7/wr+BLU79cXxPRhCIq+8++eRA6VyjwLWdApjlHee4/CqMkGhLtoE1o86o2YVboFuVxn2fhHJybrw0jsUemFeyoLWZZKBU= Received: by 10.54.11.9 with SMTP id 9mr3009517wrk; Mon, 12 Sep 2005 13:40:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.54.109.6 with HTTP; Mon, 12 Sep 2005 13:40:24 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2005 15:40:24 -0500 From: Denis To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: [gentoo-user] hardware advice for dual-processor set-up on gentoo Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by robin.gentoo.org id j8CKZwsF019048 X-Archives-Salt: e61fd3b2-04e0-4e9b-8747-e67e432e43f5 X-Archives-Hash: 069e033a76610e14a2f897257f5e5dee Folks, I am currently running Gentoo on a dual-processor machine that has 2 Intel Xeons with hyperthreading on a Tyan board, with 2GB of RDRAM. Some 3 years ago when I bought this machine, it was a marvel, and it still is a solid computational workhorse for me, doing things like Monte Carlo and Finite Element calculations. Because of hyperthreading, there are 4 logical processors, which gives me a good multi-tasking ability. I can run 3 or 4 Monte Carlo tasks at the same time and not get any noticeable slow-down compared to running only one Monte Carlo task. That has been indispensable in my productivity. Now, I am about to purchase a new machine, but I'd like to solicit some advice first, so I can get the most bang for the buck. The main thing is, I still need to have those 4 logical processors to maintain my productivity. So that gives me two choices: - 2 64-bit Irwindale Xeons (EM64T) with Hyperthreading, 2MB L2 Cache, 800 MHZ FSB, somewhere in 3.4-3.8 GHz range - 2 64-bit AMD Dual-Core Opterons somewhere in the 265-275 range With my need for parallel execution of several single-thread Monte Carlo and Finite Element tasks, what would be the pros and cons in considering the Xeons and Opterons? I looked at several benchmarks, and the Opterons seem to be leading the way significantly in pretty much every category except things like Matrix multiplications (because of vectoring?)... Is that the general impression of folks with experience on these systems running Linux? What would be some issues and software limitations for me in trying to get the AMD Opterons running on Gentoo? And would I use an x86 platform or an AMD64 platform? Thanks! Denis -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list