Advice: Dual Opteron 252 or Dual 275?

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neuron

I have to make a decision on a new computer, and would appreciate some
advice. I'm definitely not any kind of hardware or software expert, so
please forgive the newbie tone to my questions.

I'm I scientist and I do a variety of different kinds of
computationally intensive crunching on large (i.e. > 1 GB) data sets.
I'm buying new computer with a ton of RAM, and will run it as a
dual-boot system with Win64 and Red Hat Linux.

Mostly, I'd be running single-threaded applications that I'd want to
run as fast as possible. This woud include things like MATLAB, S-Plus,
Python programs, etc. Also, I'd be running programs I've written
myself that I'd modify and re-compile to take advantage of the larger
memory space. I often need to run other applications at the same time
to get work done while crunching, so I figure 2 processors would make
my life easier.

However, I could imagine I'd change my work habits significantly if I
could do even more multi-tasking. For example, I often like to process
a large chunk of data a bunch of times where I've systematically varied
some parameter. If I could be running four instances of MATLAB at the
same time, each with their own dedicated processor crunching away, that
would be really fantastic. I assume this would be possible if I had
two dual-cores, correct?

Given what I said above, is the key issue on which I should base my
decision this: If I feel I will get more value out of being able to run
4 processes simultaneously then I should go with dual Opteron 275; but
if running one or two processes faster is more useful for me I should
go for the dual 252? [I'm assuming that the 2.2 GHz 275 is really about
18% slower on single-threaded applications than the 2.6 GHz 252].

Is my understanding correct about the advantages/trade-offs of
dual-core vs. faster single core for my intended use, or am I making
mistakes in my assumptions in comparing the Opteron 275 to the 252?


Thanks in advance for any opinions.
 
neuron said:
I'm I scientist and I do a variety of different kinds of
computationally intensive crunching on large (i.e. > 1 GB) data sets.
I'm buying new computer with a ton of RAM, and will run it as a
dual-boot system with Win64 and Red Hat Linux.
.. . .
Given what I said above, is the key issue on which I should base my
decision this: If I feel I will get more value out of being able to run
4 processes simultaneously then I should go with dual Opteron 275; but
if running one or two processes faster is more useful for me I should
go for the dual 252? [I'm assuming that the 2.2 GHz 275 is really about
18% slower on single-threaded applications than the 2.6 GHz 252].

Is my understanding correct about the advantages/trade-offs of
dual-core vs. faster single core for my intended use, or am I making
mistakes in my assumptions in comparing the Opteron 275 to the 252?

Since the dual-core systems are so new, you'd be better off waiting a while
before investing in that major a system. Both hardware and software are beta or
barely released for dual-core and Win64. Also, what is out there will be priced
at a premium...

Right now, you may be able to put together 2 dual-252 (or 250 or 248) systems
for the price of 1 dual 275, and have a bit (or more) flexibility and
reliability. If you can wait 6-9 months, the tide may shift...
 
I need two db servers and I decided to go with a single 275
of 2 252 procs. This will allow me to make each box a
quad box in the future without displacing procs.

I was unable to install SuSE 9.3 Pro on either of them,
but was able to install FreeBSD 5.4 (amd64 kernel) and
then recomple to a SMP kernel. I am very happy with
these dual core procs.

(BTW, I really wanted to run freebsd on them anyway.)
SMP KERNEL
FreeBSD 5.4-RELEASE FreeBSD 5.4-RELEASE #0: Wed Jun 1 11:53:20 PDT 2005
root@db02:/usr/src/sys/amd64/compile/MYKERNEL amd64
Ubench CPU: 247559
Ubench MEM: 251329
 
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