what do you use your Multi-Proc or Core for?

For my quad core system, I regularly encode four h.264 encodes simultaneously via x264. More or less each instance will utilize one core, and almost 80% of my 8 GB of memory gets utilized. :D
 
I'm currently really using my Q6600 ~fully for the first time now.

I'm running two instances of flam3, a fractal rendering program. I'm rendering 540-frame animations, ala "Electric Sheep" [but high quality]. Rendering at 1920X1200, with nice quality settings, it takes ~15 minutes/frame for one process, and ~25 minutes/frame for the other.

It'll take around 4-5 days to finish my one run of 540X2 frames. And then, if I had any settings wrong (I'm away from home for Christmas) I'll have to restart :(
But, at least now I have enough power to make such a project feasible.

The flam3 process is actually multithreaded, but can only utilize ~55% of the four cores alone. With two processes running I get ~80-85% utilization.

I've got way more power than I've ever had (by a factor of ~6-12), but I still need more XD
I guess I'll just have to hope for consumer-level octo-cores on quad-cpu boards...One can dream.
 
Neuffy said:
I've got way more power than I've ever had (by a factor of ~6-12), but I still need more XD. I guess I'll just have to hope for consumer-level octo-cores on quad-cpu boards...One can dream.
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That will take quite a while. The first X86 octal-core processors will be based on the Intel Nehalem architecture known as the Beckton series. Unfortunately, my research revealed that these processors will be released for MP systems that are intended to replace the current Tigerton architecture. There's uncertainty if Beckton will ever see a desktop incarnation, but maybe its descendants will in a couple of years time.

With Beckton, we're talking thousands of dollars per CPU, and at least $1000 for a motherboard taking current prices as a basis. Then you'll need registered memory in god knows what specialized format Intel will adopt at that juncture, and of course the proprietary chassis to accommodate the whole super-sized form factor. Just for the admission, I estimate close to $10K if not more, unless you want to start off with only a single octal-core processor and a paltry few GB of RAM, but that would be plain silly for such a setup not to mention self-defeating.

AMD could have driven prices downwards if octal-core Bulldozer would have met its formerly scheduled release time frame. Alas, it now seems that AMD removed Bulldozer from its current roadmap altogether, but that's a story for another thread. If you have the bucks to burn, great. Otherwise, you should just look into a dual quad core Nehalem DP system in Q4 of '08. That will rule and gain you many merit points as well.
 
Folding, Vmware - IPCop or similar firewall, workstation, linux based file server/lamp server all in one box



 
I have an dual-core Opteron 170 which replaced a single-core Athlon 3200+, running under Windows XP x64 Edition, and use it mostly for two instances of SETI@Home. Besides that it gives better results in 3DMark 06 and in the games which support it, and for those that don't you can always shunt all the O/S tasks to the spare core and still get better gaming peformance from the dedicated one, or keep running somehting else (e.g. SETI) on the other core. You also get to have an O/S that stays responsive even with one core busy doing something, e.g. encoding.
 
8 x IBM pSeries 640 with AIX 5.3 cluster for oracle db
2x IBM pSeries 640 with AIX 5.3 mail servers with sendmail Sendmail 8.11.xx
2x IBM xSeries 346 dc/ad
32x IBM xseries 3250 (1.8xeon dc, 2 gb ram) running scientific linux cluster for research

my "workstation" x3105 running win 2003 R2 ee
 
reencoding dvd's to XviD / x.264, browsing, VMWare, fileserver, the occasional game, 720p/1080p playback, BOINC
 
secure.boy said:
8 x IBM pSeries 640 with AIX 5.3 cluster for oracle db
2x IBM pSeries 640 with AIX 5.3 mail servers with sendmail Sendmail 8.11.xx
2x IBM xSeries 346 dc/ad
32x IBM xseries 3250 (1.8xeon dc, 2 gb ram) running scientific linux cluster for research

my "workstation" x3105 running win 2003 R2 ee
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You sound like one of our customers! Where are you located?

update: Macedonia...as in Alexander The Great...Macedonia?
 
APOLLO said:
I still have my ALR Revolution 6x6 with 333MHz OD processors in it, but haven't used it in a long while.
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We finally decommissioned the last of 'em, they were all 200/1MB's. We needed the cache specifically for what they were doing. And they were damn fast at it after months of optimizing - for that specific program, you had to go to Opterons at over 3GHz to beat it.

What are all these hardware modifications specifically for? Cooling?
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Reliability primarily. Most of the component changes were to replace with higher quality components, usually tighter tolerances or higher temperature rating. The stock VRegs on the 8502 worried me a lot, especially given how hot the CPU area gets. The config on ours, you can use them to replace a furnace.

What is a 'dual 2nn?'
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Dual 200-series Opterons. We have some specific boxes which are single 200-series for various reasons, ranging from board choice to better clocking.
 
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