Re: processor choice

From: mark.e.sale@gsk.com Subject: Re: [NMusers] processor choice Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 09:14:45 -0500 Darin is correct, NONMEM is single threaded. Even if it were multi threaded, it probably couldn't take advantage of hyperthreading, as the super scalar architecture of Intel and AMD chips provides multiple instruction paths for integer operations only (aimed at gamers, they seem to outnumber us). NONMEM is (almost) entirely floating point. Dual core will multi thread very nicely (even for floating point operations), but that doesn't help a single NONMEM run. But, as Darin points out, you do essentially get two processors, so you can run two models without loss of performance. For those interested, a parallelized version of NONMEM may be available at some point, which would run twice as fast on a dual core (4 times as fast on a dual processor/dual core and potentially 100 times as fast in a data center with many processors) See abstract from AAPS ( http://abstracts.aapspharmaceutica.com/ExpoAAPS05/CC/forms/attendee/index.aspx?content=sessionInfo&sessionId=1715) Mark Sale M.D. Global Director, Research Modeling and Simulation GlaxoSmithKline 919-483-1808 Mobile 919-522-6668 _______________________________________________________