Recommended High-Performance Workstation CPU (AMD - Intel) Present-2006

[kuphryn]

Greetings,

Long time no see!

What are some of the most powerful, high-performance (speed and multitasking) workstation CPUs (32bit, 64bit) present to end-2006?

Most of my time is compiling software source code on windows and UNIX/linux platforms. I would really appreciate CPU(s) coupled with various necessities that will allow for maximum performance when developing and compiling multiple software projects simultaneously. For instance, nice to have CPUs that will produce maximum performance when compiling windows, linux, and watch DVD all simultaneously. The key is maximum performance especially multitasking.

Is the 64bit Opteron from AMD the answer? From my experience, the 64bit Opteron Dual Core is very impressive especially multitasking multithreaded applications. My only concern is CPU speed/price.

My workstation is running on 750 Athlon from AMD.

64bit Opteron Dual Core from AMD multitasking is impressive. Intel P4 EM64T Dual Core speed is impressive. (Is EM64T true 64bit architecture?)

What is most important: more bits (64bit, 128bit) or maximum CPU speed (present and future)?

How much does this CPU cost? What is its longevity in terms of not needing to upgrade?

What are some high-performance workstation CPUs (32bit, 64bit) for multitasking multithreaded applications on windows and UNIX/linux platforms present to end-2006?

Kuphryn

[je_fro]

Whatever you end up with, sounds like you need at least 4 cpu's...possibly 4 dual cores. If that's the case take a look at some of Tyan's motherboards.

[cybertron]

For anything dual socket or less the new Intel Conroe and Woodcrest (desktop and server respectively) based processors seem to be the undisputed performance leader. They're a little hard to find because they've only been available for about a week, but that should only get better. Once you start talking about four way systems, I hear that Opterons may still hold the performance lead.

Yeah, just checked and Tom agrees (http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/06/26/xeon_woodcrest_preys_on_opteron/page11.html).:)

[dkeav]

dual proc, dual core opteron with a tyan board would be the way to go if building it yourself, if not look at a sun ultra 40 for a OEM setup similar to that

[bwkaz]

You're compiling? I'd get a faster disk before I got a faster CPU, or I should say that I would now. ;)

(I just upgraded from an Athlon XP 2500+ to an Athlon 64 X2 4200+, and from DDR333 memory to DDR2-800, and I don't see nearly as much difference in the time it takes to compile the kernel as I thought I'd see. I believe that's because my disks are still el-cheapo IDE 7200 RPM models, instead of SCSI 15K RPM models, and I believe more time is spent waiting for the disk than is spent processing the code. I could be wrong on that, though; I don't know for sure. For reference, I did not compile with -j2 because I wanted to gauge the processor speed itself, not the fact that there are now more processors.)

[dkeav]

thats true, but you dont have to go overly extravagent on disks either, i'm seeing about a 20% performance difference in throughput with SATA II drives than P-ATA 133 but i mostly do video encoding as my test bed for that, not code compilation

you can get near scsi speeds and throughput for a fraction the price and a lot more storage capacity per dollar than scsi

[je_fro]

Or if you're doing a lot of compiling you can just mount a tmpfs....that's the fastest way to go I've ever seen.

[dkeav]

thats true too, stock up on memory and make use of tmpfs

[bwkaz]

Ooooh, tmpfs sounds like a great idea! Good use of that 2G of memory I got. :p (Of course, I'd have to remember to copy the tree back out of the ramdisk, but that's not too hard.)

As for SATA-II -- That's good to know. I've never used it, although this motherboard does have a JMicron JMB320 SATA-II controller on it. (This chip conforms to the AHCI standard, so it works with the "AHCI SATA Support" kernel driver.) My PSU also has a couple SATA-power plugs, so I could probably go with a SATA-II drive at some point.

[kuphryn]

Very cool!

Intel Core 2 Duo Conroe

I'm looking at the 2.x ghz CPUs. Price difference is over $200 when going from 2.1 -> 2.4 -> 2.6, but from my limited experience the higher the clock speed the better (lasts longer without needing to upgrade). How important is clock speed of Intel Conroe?

Kuphryn

[fishface]

Western Digital make 10,000rpm SATA drives if HD performance becomes an issue, downside is that the capacities are lower than 7200rpm SATA

I've just ordered 6 Intel Duo 2 (E6600 model) for model training, we found a big performance boost by using the Intel Performance Library.

Hoping to see our model building times come down!

[ph34r]

You could also maybe use several machines and distcc or some other distributed compiler.

Also, there are PCI cards you can load up with 4gb worth of PC133 ram (cheap) to use as a ramdisk to compile on...

[kuphryn]

appreciate all posts and inputs about both CPUs

looking forward to sharing this journey with a new high-performance workstation powered by Intel Core 2 Duo Conroe

Kuphryn

[cybertron]

How important is clock speed of Intel Conroe?
Relative to each other, the same as any other CPU. Faster is better. Relative to the AMD processors, the Core 2's are a little better clock for clock I believe (and the Core 2's are clocked higher than AMD procs right now), although you should probably check a benchmark that relates to what you'll be doing because there are areas where the AMDs are still a little faster. Also keep an eye on the cache size/bus speed. I think the 6300 and 6400 have less cache, less bus speed, or both.

I wouldn't bother with the Western Digital 10k drives. The performance of the big 7200 RPM drives is approaching what they can do because they are packing platters so full these days (I think the Seagate perpendicular technology drives may even be matching the Raptors for performance, but with much, much larger capacities). Plus you can RAID two large 7200 RPM drives and beat the performance of a single Raptor for less money and more storage. Just my opinion though.

[leonpmu]

I have to say that I have been playing with a new laptop form my supplier with an Intel Core DUO, and I am actually not really impressed with the performance of the machine, it has a SATA disk in it, but still my 3 year old P4M 1.8 still appears to be faster. I am still an AMD man, particularly on bang for your buck...

[shadebug]

With processors these days it's amd all the way, unless you've got cash for conroe, conroe will currently trounce everything but anything below conroe on the pentium front will be useless

[kuphryn]

Intel Core 2 Duo Conroe E6600 (2.4ghz) CPU is fast

New system compiles multiple software projects while processing media (DVD, divx, and audio, etc.) at the speed of light. (500% improvement) Multiple cores CPU significantly improves performance of multithreaded software architectures.

Kuphryn