Hardware Questions

[Lunar7]

Hi,

Some time ago I thought I had read a post regarding the advantages of using 2 processors compared to multi core processors.

I have search back through the old posting but can't find the answer, So apologizing in advance for going back over old issues, could I please get opinions on the following.

I currently have 2 PC's One for used for NX, I-deas, Teamcenter& other design software Plus a separate one for general Office & email use. The plan is to combine this into one machine, is this likely to cause any real problems ?

My "Wish List" is for something like this

2x 4 or 6 core Xeon Processors
12GB ram
2x 300gb Hard drives
FX3800 Graphics

However IT have decided that a single processor will do, Has anyone got any reason that I could use to argue for the 2 socket solution.

 

[petulf]

Hi

Okay the only way i could see you justifying the extra cost of two server grade xenon processors vs a single I7 is if you do lots of simulations and or ECC memory is important to you.

My suggestion would be to go with a single I7 930-960 quad core cpu with the option of upgrading to a hexacore in the future. Also ditch one or both of the harddrives and go for Intel SSD's instead.

 

[looslib]

The single chip versus multi-core chips comes into plaay when you do a lot of processing that needs multi-threading. Since most CAD apps are not multi-threaded it won't make a significant difference in what you are most likely to be doing. FEA would be one sitiation where multi-CPUs will out perform multi-cores.

A single core cpu is rated at 100.
A dual core cpu has each core rated at 80.
A quad core cpu has each core rated at 60.

The rest is simple math.

A 2X single core system will be 200.
A dual-core system will be 160.
A quad-core system will be 240.


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

 

[Lunar7]

I found the original Post,

From a purely raw NX performance point of view (or really ANY SMP enabled software) the order of performance, best to worse, is as follows (this is assuming that all else is equal, such as clock-speed, memory, IO bus-speed, etc.):

1) Four single-core CPU's in 4 sockets

2) Two dual-core CPU's in 2 sockets

3) Two single-core CPU's in 2 sockets

4) One dual-core CPU in 1 socket

5) One quad-core CPU in 1 socket

6) One single-core CPU in 1 socket

Now 4 & 5 could go either way depending on the actual part models and what was being done, but the reason for THIS ORDER OF PROGRESSION is that dual- and quad-core CPU's share a lot of resources and so very little is gained if anything (as the number of cores on the same CPU goes up, the actual performance of any one core goes down even if the clock speed was the same) for an application like NX even if it can theoretically use all four threads, which is also why multiple CPU, multiple socket systems will ALWAYS be superior, albeit at a much higher cost for hardware. Now this may change over time, but for now, this is about how it all shakes out.

So the question is now what would the prefered preference be now betten a single socket 6 core macine or a dual socket 4 core, assuming speed is the same ?