Processor speeds

[ceejay]

I'm upgrading my PC systems and am trying to decide between 2.6 and 3.0 Ghz Xeon chips. The 2.6 will save about $300. Any opinions?

[BillW]

Originally posted by ceejay
I'm upgrading my PC systems and am trying to decide between 2.6 and 3.0 Ghz Xeon chips. The 2.6 will save about $300. Any opinions?

ceejay,

If I were a betting man, I would bet that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference in speed if they were sitting side by side.

There are so many things that affect speed: memory size and harddisk speed to name a few.
If you are getting less than 512 MB of memory (JustRalph ... is 512 enough for windows?), I would suggest you spend some extra money there.

Bill

[ceejay]

If this helps, I'm getting 1GB of ram on an IBM Intellstation Z. 80 GB 7200 RPM ATA HD.

[GameTheory]

The latest & greatest chips are always over-priced, while the current second-best is usually a good value. Unless you're doing very heavy number-crunching where the $300 will somehow pay for itself quickly, I'd definitely go with the slightly slower one. It is still plenty fast...

[toteboard]

ceejay

Ram and HD size is a good fit for the 2.6, but I would go to 120 HD.

[Larry Hamilton]

recently, like last week, I recharged meself. I went from 2.1 to 3.07 speed, two 60 hard drives to two 120's, p4p800 mother board, 512meg of ram to a gig of ram..I got the new fangled 800 front side bus...bottom line--I defy you to tell the difference--go cheap, you wont know the difference. Now I have a board that does RAID...hmm splitters, mirrors, ----just what I needed was more jargon for stuff I dont need...

[boxcar]

Fellas, from what a couple of good techies have told me over the years, not only is the speed of your 'puter governed to a large extent by things mentioned above -- but the biggest governing factor of all is your software! Unless the software you're using is designed specifically to run on your speedy system, then your hot rod will only run to the speed of the software.

Boxcar

[GameTheory]

The only kind of software that manages its own speed (slows itself down on purpose) are video games, just as they should to maintain the proper speed of play.

If you have a multi-processor system, however, the software must be written to take advantage of parallel processing, or the extra cpu's won't be of much benefit. But there are other hardware bottlenecks -- bus speed, video card performance, ram speed, etc...

[Larry Hamilton]

My own program runs every day between 30-60 minutes. I will admit I was trying to buy some more power. In the week I have had this system, I have noticed no decrease in run time.

Maybe I can't make it faster--ever, but at least I know what I am up against. The 30-60 minutes will remain one of the costs of business.

[JustRalph]

Originally posted by ceejay
I'm upgrading my PC systems and am trying to decide between 2.6 and 3.0 Ghz Xeon chips. The 2.6 will save about $300. Any opinions?

Go for the lower processor and more ram. Billw is right. 512 is enough, but a gig is better. I can't really answer this question the right way because you don't say what you are going to be doing? are you going to run multiple processors? Why Xeon? You are paying extra.......but I am not sure why? unless you are doing multi processors and some other stuff.........number crunching etc? I wouldn't go with the Xeon line....unless the price has come way down since I last looked.

[ceejay]

JR,

I'll be doing number crunching (petrophysical well log analysis). It is both processor and disk IO-intensive (also, graphics to a lesser extent). I'm going with single processor but ready to go with a second processor if the software developer follows-through and supports that.

[BillW]

Originally posted by ceejay
JR,

I'll be doing number crunching (petrophysical well log analysis). It is both processor and disk IO-intensive (also, graphics to a lesser extent). I'm going with single processor but ready to go with a second processor if the software developer follows-through and supports that.

ceejay,

If you are going to be disk intensive you might try to find a way to benchmark a SCSI disk system. I have both IDE and SCSI here and there are times when the IDE simply rolls over and sticks its legs in the air, usually when two seperate machines are accessing the database and a little less so when two programs on the same machine are hitting it. IDE doesn't seem to understand the concept of multi processing (I don't think it has a command queue, it is either available or you have to block).

Bill

[JustRalph]

Originally posted by ceejay
JR, I'll be doing number crunching (petrophysical well log analysis). It is both processor and disk IO-intensive (also, graphics to a lesser extent). I'm going with single processor but ready to go with a second processor if the software developer follows-through and supports that.

Ok...then you are on the right track. Buy the fastest possible hard disks you can.

[headhawg]

ceejay,

What O/S are you using? Windows 2000/XP has better memory management than 9x so it will be able to handle up to 4 gig efficiently. You will likely lose system resources with more than 384 megs of Ram in 9x without an adjustment in your Vcache. I'm not familiar enough with Linux.

JustRalph and BillW are correct: fast SCSI disks! A Raid 0 controller will also increase disk write speed but is not fault tolerant (so back up early and often).

Larry Hamilton:

I've got a P4 2.66 with a 533 FSB -- If you don't notice the difference -- I'll trade ya!! (LOL)

HH

[ceejay]

headhawg,

I'll be running XP. What is 9.x?

I'm planning to go EIDE for now (because it's cheap and standard), but if I find disk IO to be a limitation I will add a SCSI drive.....

[headhawg]

ceejay,

Windows 9x refers to Win 95, 98, 98SE, and (the mutant) Win ME. If you add SCSI be aware of potential problems/hassles mixing SCSI with IDE.

HH

[ceejay]

OK. I will have skipped 9x (as I went from OS2 and am using NT now and will go to XP).


Thanks, all, for the advice. :D