Re: processor choice

From: Darin Perusich Darin.Perusich@cognigencorp.com Subject: Re: [NMusers] processor choice Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 08:41:48 -0500 for an application to take advangate of a dual core cpu, much like pentium4's hyper-threading it needs to be a multithreaded and nonmem is about the furtherest thing from multithreaded. i did some runtime comparisons on single cpu P4 systems with HT (hyper-threading) enabled and disable, and dual cpu P4 systems with HT disabled. HT'ing doesn't by you anything when running nonmem other then a longer runtimes when you try to run a job/cpu. take a job that runs in 40 minutes single cpu with HT disable. when HT is enable and 2 identical jobs are run, one per virtual cpu the jobs take nearly twice as long. though runtime is marginally better with HT then when running 2 jobs when HT is disabled. when run on a dual-cpu system with HT disabled of the same speed, the 2 jobs run in the same time as a single job when HT is disabled. i can purchase a machine with dual 3.0GHz Intel Xeon processors for $1779.00, a dual-core 3.0GHz intel pentium D runs about $1707.00, or a singe 3.0GHz P4 for around $1550.00. if your goal is the maximize the number of nonmem jobs you can run in the shortest amount of time your better for going with dual processor machines any day. my 2 cents. -- Darin Perusich Unix Systems Administrator Cognigen Corp. darinper@cognigencorp.com