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| General Schvantzkoph... |
 Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 11:24 am |
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On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:25:03 -0400, johnny bobby bee wrote:
Quote: General Schvantzkoph wrote:
On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:04:13 -0400, johnny bobby bee wrote:
Overclocking aside; you'd still prefer the e8500 over any of the core2
quads (excluding the i5/i7 quads of course)?
Absolutely. Even if you don't overclock, the 8500 is a 3.16 GHz
processor at $189. The 920 is a 2.66GHz processor for $289, the 950 is
a 3GHz
Firstly, I do really appreciate your input on this.
Secondly, I apologize I wasn't more clear, but in the previous post I
wasn't referring to the i5 or i7, I was asking your advice between the
8500 and any of the older model core 2 quads, specifically the 9550.
I haven't tried any of the older quads. Internally they are a pair of two
core die so you would expect the performance to be identical, however
they share a common FSB which might have some effect on their
performance. I would guess that they would be harder to overclock because
you have twice as much heat to get rid of and you have twice the loading
on the FSB. The other issue is the maximum amount of RAM. In theory you
can put 16G onto a Core2 motherboard but the price of 4G DDR2 DIMMs is
still prohibitive. As a practical matter 8G is the limit. If you really
need four cores I would build two separate dual core boxes, that way you
can have twice as much of everything. |
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| johnny bobby bee... |
| Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 11:44 am |
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Guest
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General Schvantzkoph wrote:
Quote: I haven't tried any of the older quads. Internally they are a pair of two
core die so you would expect the performance to be identical, however
they share a common FSB which might have some effect on their
performance. I would guess that they would be harder to overclock because
you have twice as much heat to get rid of and you have twice the loading
on the FSB. The other issue is the maximum amount of RAM. In theory you
can put 16G onto a Core2 motherboard but the price of 4G DDR2 DIMMs is
still prohibitive. As a practical matter 8G is the limit. If you really
need four cores I would build two separate dual core boxes, that way you
can have twice as much of everything.
I really do appreciate all the input.
cheers. |
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| General Schvantzkoph... |
| Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 12:04 pm |
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Guest
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On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:44:19 -0400, johnny bobby bee wrote:
Quote: General Schvantzkoph wrote:
I haven't tried any of the older quads. Internally they are a pair of
two core die so you would expect the performance to be identical,
however they share a common FSB which might have some effect on their
performance. I would guess that they would be harder to overclock
because you have twice as much heat to get rid of and you have twice
the loading on the FSB. The other issue is the maximum amount of RAM.
In theory you can put 16G onto a Core2 motherboard but the price of 4G
DDR2 DIMMs is still prohibitive. As a practical matter 8G is the limit.
If you really need four cores I would build two separate dual core
boxes, that way you can have twice as much of everything.
I really do appreciate all the input. cheers.
One more point. Multiple cores are only helpful if you are running a
server workload, anything more than two in a desktop system are useless.
In fact the second core in a desktop system is only marginally useful.
What is useful is single thread performance because most programs are
still single threaded. That's why I'm advocating overclocked Core2s
rather than any quad core system. The Core2 has a lot of headroom in it,
if you combine it with a really good cooler and a good motherboard it can
easily run at 4GHz or more. I used the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme
cooler and a Gigabyte motherboard. You should also pick RAM that runs at
1066 or better, you don't want to have to overclock your RAM so you will
want to chose RAM that is within specs when you overclock the CPU. This
is the motherboard I used,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128358 |
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| Stan Bischof... |
| Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 4:21 pm |
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Guest
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In comp.os.linux.misc General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:
Quote: On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:44:19 -0400, johnny bobby bee wrote:
One more point. Multiple cores are only helpful if you are running a
server workload, anything more than two in a desktop system are useless.
In fact the second core in a desktop system is only marginally useful.
I haven't had a single CPU workstation in at least 15 years of running
HPUX, Windows and Linux. Every time I sit down at someone's single CPU
machine it feels like it is crawling along.
This is due to the high amount of multi-tasking that I do and the
applications I runa -- and it leads me to totally disagree with
your blanket statement.
Multi CPU and or multi-core machines are very noticebly
zippier for many applications and workloads.
Kind of a moot point though, since it is getting very hard
to even find a new single-core machine.
Stan |
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| Robert Heller... |
| Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 4:57 pm |
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Guest
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At 29 Oct 2009 22:21:15 GMT Stan Bischof <stan at (no spam) newserve.worldbadminton.com> wrote:
Quote:
In comp.os.linux.misc General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:
On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:44:19 -0400, johnny bobby bee wrote:
One more point. Multiple cores are only helpful if you are running a
server workload, anything more than two in a desktop system are useless.
In fact the second core in a desktop system is only marginally useful.
I haven't had a single CPU workstation in at least 15 years of running
HPUX, Windows and Linux. Every time I sit down at someone's single CPU
machine it feels like it is crawling along.
This is due to the high amount of multi-tasking that I do and the
applications I runa -- and it leads me to totally disagree with
your blanket statement.
Multi CPU and or multi-core machines are very noticebly
zippier for many applications and workloads.
Kind of a moot point though, since it is getting very hard
to even find a new single-core machine.
I have a 'new' single-core AMD Sempron(tm) Processor LE-1300 (yes, it
was a cheap closeout item). I run CentOS 4.8, 32-bit, since that is
what I already had installed on the disks from the PIII that is in this
box now. I only have 2gig of RAM -- way more than I really need.
*I* do run some 'server' apps on this box (the only ones used much are
named (as a cacheing server and as a local DNS for my LAN, such as it
is) and dhcpd [only when I connect my laptop]). I have slapd for the
user auth. database (only one actual user, me) and NFS (with no actual
clients -- it is just for testing and network Linux installs) and httpd
(for testing websites). In otherwords, all of the 'server' stuff' is
pretty much dead idle 99% of the time. I *don't* use GNome or KDE or
ANY desktop manager -- I use fvwm in MWM mode. I don't do word
processing ever. I use a *tiny* plain text editor (MicroEmacs 3.10).
The only 'big footprint' apps I use are Firefox and GIMP.
The only bottleneck seems to be the disk drive (U160 SCSI). I doubt
that a second core would make *any* noticable difference. Oh, I tend
to have lots of Firefox browser windows open (this mostly seems to push
RAM usage), but there the bottleneck is the network, which is less than
56K BPS dialup (likely as not as low as 9600 bps after a good rain, due
to Verizon's crap copper).
--
Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software -- Download the Model Railroad System
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
heller at (no spam) deepsoft.com -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/ |
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| General Schvantzkoph... |
| Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 5:21 pm |
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Guest
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On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:21:15 +0000, Stan Bischof wrote:
Quote: In comp.os.linux.misc General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph at (no spam) yahoo.com
wrote:
On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:44:19 -0400, johnny bobby bee wrote:
One more point. Multiple cores are only helpful if you are running a
server workload, anything more than two in a desktop system are
useless. In fact the second core in a desktop system is only marginally
useful.
I haven't had a single CPU workstation in at least 15 years of running
HPUX, Windows and Linux. Every time I sit down at someone's single CPU
machine it feels like it is crawling along.
This is due to the high amount of multi-tasking that I do and the
applications I runa -- and it leads me to totally disagree with your
blanket statement.
Multi CPU and or multi-core machines are very noticebly zippier for many
applications and workloads.
Kind of a moot point though, since it is getting very hard to even find
a new single-core machine.
Stan
Depends on your workload. You will notice that I used the term desktop
not workstation. I define a desktop as something you use for Internet
access, e-mail, word processing and as an X-server. I define a server as
a system that dedicated to a class of tasks, some compute intensive some
not, and that you access over a network, not something that you are
sitting in front of. A workstation is a system that is a hybrid of the
two, you use it for both interactive tasks and for heavy duty computing.
I agree with you that multicores are a requirement for workstations.
However I think workstations are a suboptimal way to work.
*nix is client/server oriented so it's very easy to utilize multiple
machines. It's one of the things that makes *nix so much more versatile
then Windows. I don't like the workstation model, I find it much more
limiting then the client/server model. I utilize a collection of machines
of various vintages to do my work. The newest is an iCore7 with 12G of
RAM, the oldest is a 500MHz PIII with 512M of RAM. I use an old 2.2GHz
first generation A64X2 for my desktop machine, it's performance in this
role is as snappy as it needs to be. I also use my laptop, (Core2 with
4G) as a desktop like system. I have a pair of 8G Core2s, 65nm 3GHz/4M
cache, 45nm 4GHz/6M cache, and an 12G iCore 7 that I use for compute
intensive applications. I also have am old single core A64 that I use as
a CVS server and a really old PIII that I use as an SSH server (so that
clients can upload and download things to me). My servers all run at init
3 so they don't have to waste any memory on the X-Server or a desktop.
I'm also running VMs on my servers which are dedicated to different
functions.
I do all my work by sshing into my servers (or VMs, they all look the
same to me) and running XEmacs over an X-tunnel, I use Gnome's multiple
virtual desktop feature to organize the X-Windows that belong to
different systems. If I need to run a GUI application like a wave browser
I just run that over an X tunnel also. On a LAN the performance of a
remote X-Window is indistinguishable from running it locally.
The great thing about Linux is that there is no limit to how much you can
scale your computing environment. You aren't forced to rely on a single
box for all of your needs which gives you a lot of flexibility. My
feeling is that if you need four cores worth of computing power today,
you are better off getting a pair of Core2 boxes rather then a single
iCore7. The only place where the iCore7 is better is if you need more
than 8G of RAM for a single job (I've done FPGA place and routes that
needed 10G). Another reason would be if you were severely space
constrained. |
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| johnny bobby bee... |
| Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 1:40 am |
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Guest
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General Schvantzkoph wrote:
Quote: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128358
I think you've managed to change my mind. More so, than all the research
I've been doing so far.
Thanks, again. |
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