8 vs. 4 Cores in SMP

N

natermeister

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 26, 2005
Messages
463
I'm kicking around the idea of building a DP Linux box with my tax returns, obviously I'll run the SMP client.

I'm wondering if anyone has seen the point advantages of an dual Clovertown box against a dual Woodcrest. If there isn't a huge boost from eight cores, I'll just stick with a single quad core and be done with it, avoiding the hassle of FB-DIMM and all that comes with DP motherboards.

Thanks,

-Nater
 
umms, twice the cores? Also Kasson has indicated your be able to run a variable number of threads coming up so the 8 way could run 1 WU w/ 8 threads. Super speedy WU return/super big WU's.

They might move to a position of the # of cores/threads you make available the bigger the WU/bigger the bonus. They already have WU's which are only sent to 4-ways, no clue if the bonus is different on them vs. 2 ways (I don't think so yet). Just a brain fart on my part here.
 
What about running two SMP clients?

The current SMP clients spawn four threads, so if you have eight cores...

I'm just looking for an excuse to build a DP box really, been trying to talk myself out of it because of the money involved. I'll probably do it anyway. I'm not going to game on it so I won't have to spend big bucks on GPUs.
 
Well, I guess that settles it. I'm going to start saving back some extra cash for a dual quad. Does anyone know if the intel's April price cuts affect the Xeon line as well?
 
Currently the SMP clients (MacOSX, Linux and Windows) spawn 4 threads only.
I've heard (not from the Pande group, I think from here somewhere) that later on this will change.
 
natermeister said:
Well, I guess that settles it. I'm going to start saving back some extra cash for a dual quad. Does anyone know if the intel's April price cuts affect the Xeon line as well?
Click to expand...

Dell Outlet, find a Precision or PowerEdge with dual 5310s or 5320s and pin mod them from 1066 fsb to 1333 fsb since all the 5000 series mb support the the 1333 fsb.
 
ND40oz said:
Dell Outlet, find a Precision or PowerEdge with dual 5310s or 5320s and pin mod them from 1066 fsb to 1333 fsb since all the 5000 series mb support the the 1333 fsb.
Click to expand...

I snagged a PowerEdge 2900 on Dell Outlet yesterday for $1890. Should be getting it in next week. Sweet deal IMHO. No OS and it's the tower configuration. My hope is that the processors will drop pretty good in price in the next 3 months or so.

Intel Xeon E5345 Quad Core 2.33Ghz 2x4MB Cache 1333Mhz FSB (I will add a second proc to the other socket later)
4GB FB-DDR2 Dual Rank 667Mhz SDRAM (2 DIMMS - will be upgrading this to 8GB very soon)
2 15K 73GB SAS drives - mirrored system drives - (will be connecting and existing external SCSI RAID array for storage)
 
That doesn't sound like a bad idea, doubt I could build one that cheaply.

The other option is a Mac Pro as it would be easier to run Photoshop on that. I think CrossOver Linux works pretty good with Photoshop CS2, however.
 
ND40oz said:
Dell Outlet, find a Precision or PowerEdge with dual 5310s or 5320s and pin mod them from 1066 fsb to 1333 fsb since all the 5000 series mb support the the 1333 fsb.
Click to expand...

more info needed on the pin mod, please :)
 
Cool, I was going to ask for that information as well. It takes me back to the all or nothing days of overclocking before motherboards had copious BIOS tools for doing so.
 
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