Suggestions for a number crunching computer?

[MattGrass]

My brother in law needs a new set-up for strictly number crunching. He is working on his Phd in Bio.Mech Engineering but knows jack about computers now. I am also slightly behind the times since my computer is now 2 years old and I havent spent much time keeping up to the new tech.

He asked me to come up with something for under $1100. Wants the best cpu power/ram/hd space for his money.

Here is what I was looking at, based on last weeks NCIX sale. I will probably order his stuff from next weeks sale. Provided there is another surprise sale ;)

$290
X2 4600+

$70 (Cheap, no OC needed or extreme features)
Biostar mATX mobo (with all the onboard gadgets, doesnt need anything else)

$210
OCZ Platinum XTC PC2-6400 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-800

$45
Dvd burner (Doesnt matter which one)

$230
2x Barracuda 320Gb HD's SATA2 (Have never used one? Any thoughts?)

$110
Antec Sonata2 case w/ 450w PSU Black

Total is roughly $950 with free shipping for the entire order from the cpu offer. There is some wiggle room for components based on the $1100 budget he has right now.

Any suggestions would be great. Will be running a provided copy of WinXP Pro from U of Calgary Dept. he works for.

MattGrass

[evanx]

Check if his number crunching software is applicable for dual core.

[cipher]

Cray

http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/targets/images/pho/t047/T047838A.jpg

or this...

http://www.fz-juelich.de/nic/Publikationen/Broschuere/Scientific-Computing/jump.jpg

[spm24]

for a simple number crunching computer he need 640 gigs of hd space ?


for case possibly a case without a psu and spend a little more on added psu to make sure of quality .


possibly instead of the 2x320 u get one raptor drive and then one 320 gig hd .

[willy]

Cray

http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/targets/images/pho/t047/T047838A.jpg

or this...

http://www.fz-juelich.de/nic/Publikationen/Broschuere/Scientific-Computing/jump.jpg
Cool .... but I HIGHLY doubt you can find them < C$1100 ;)

Since he doesn't know much about computers, do you really think he is gonna to use his own system to do all the number crunching ? Do you know what application(s) he is gonna to use ?

[MattGrass]

I sent him a message asking him which software he is planning to use. Thanks for some of the ideas.

Im not sure why he wants all the hd space, Ill ask him when he gets back to me.

MattGrass

[Bskll]

is he in a hurry?
if not, wait a month and buy a core-duo 2 comp.

much faster and better for your money.

[champ91]

is he in a hurry?
if not, wait a month and buy a core-duo 2 comp.

much faster and better for your money.

why wait a month?
the conroe is out already online, but not available in store till around the 8th.

[MattGrass]

The software he will be using is called Matlab.

Anyone have any experience with this program?

MattGrass

[Amourek]

http://www.mathworks.com/support/solutions/data/1-15J4I.html?solution=1-15J4I

[willy]

System requirement ... http://www.mathworks.com/support/sysreq/current_release/windows.html

[matkun]

So, as Amourek linked, Matlab does not take advantage of Dual cores without a lot of fiddling, which your friend probably can't do.

In that case I'd reccomend going for the fastest 64-bit single core Opteron in the same price range. That will provide better performance for number crunching than a more consumer oriented CPU.

Something along the lines of this:

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=16790&vpn=OSA148BNBOX&manufacture=AMD

Opteron 148, 2.2 Ghz, 1 Meg L2 cache (which Matlab should be able to take advantage of)

This is the only site I could find with CPU Benchmark Results in Matlab:

http://www-math.cudenver.edu/~jmandel/matlab/matlab_benchmark.html

Short of it, a Dual Opteron running at 2.2 Ghz with 4 gb of ram, is only 3-4% faster then an Athlon 64 3400+ with 2 gigs of ram.

So that Opteron 148 should be the best bang/buck for your friend. Especially since it seems to be on sale for 75 bucks less.

[willy]

Found one post in one of their newsgroups ...

These questions always throw up loads of contradicting advice so here
is my 10 cents worth. This is regularly debated so it is worth having
a look about for pervious discussions. Searchiing the group for
'benchmarks' is a good starting point.

Firstly I would point out that the best set up can depend very much
on the code you are planning to run.

If you are performing many millions of operations on small amounts of
data then the CPU is key. Duel core processors are not a lot of use
to MATLAB at present as it is a single threaded application. Best
processor for a lower cost work station would be something like the
AMD FX57 (expensive) or one of the Opteron processors (something like
a 146 can be clocked quite easily to match a FX57 but costs a lot
less). I have a personal preference for AMD over intel because of
their integrated memory controllers rather than communicating through
the FSB, but I am sure many will disagree.

Regardless, you should try and do all you can to stay out of virtual
memory. Generally the more RAM the better. 64 bit systems have the
definate advantage here as they can use more of it.

If your data sets are so massive that you do need to use virtual
memory then a faster SCSI hard drive will help, but I think this is
the least important of the things you mention.

One thing you don't mention is the operating system. If you do have
the scope to, you will generally find performance benefits using
linux over windows.

[MattGrass]

Thanks for the links and the help. He old me that a small data run is around 200mb of data so the hd space is important but he likes the idea of the Raptor drive combined with a larger 320Gb.

I got him to wait at least until next NCIX sale time so I have some time to find something for him. His boss is on him to get this done so much that they are now going to pay for his computer. Lucky plick.

MattGrass

[Sylvestre]

no offence but if it's for school, spend some cash on a backup system. Either a 2nd hd, tape or whatever. it's worth it.

secondly, matlab itself isn't that intensive, it's the program that you are running that'll make the difference.
If it needs to repeatedly access data from the HD, that's different from if it's just running large matrix calcs.

but either way, yeah, memory and cpu are your main desire.

and hey, if the boss is picking up the tab, go for broke man!

[B0000rt]

Load up on ram, if you can, go for 4gigs!

Doesn't need to be expensive, fast ram, but just alot, MatLab is a hog.