On 08/09/2010 06:51 AM, Roberto Ragusa wrote: > JD wrote: >> On 08/08/2010 01:15 PM, Roberto Ragusa wrote: >>> Are you going to really use a lot of CPU power? (such as video processing) >>> Probably not. >>> >>> If you are just planning to have a fast general-use computer, than >>> do not worry too much about the CPU, as AMD or Intel and 4 or 6 cores >>> will not make a real difference to you. >>> Consider buying a SSD disk for your operating system and your "live" data >>> plus an additional big traditional disk for your "storage" data. >>> I assure you that a SSD disk will have much more impact on the speed >>> of the machine. >>> >> Some years ago, I benchmarked a 32 bit application on >> 3 GHz Athlon 64 and 3GHz Pentium (was latest release at that time). >> Both machines running RHEL 4. >> The application consistently completed on the AMD in half the time it >> took on the Pentium. The cause of the improvement was IMHO the >> CPU-Memory bus speeds of the AMD chip. The front side bus of teh pentium >> could not move the data as fast. And That app was very very cpu and >> memory intensive, with datasets as large as 3GB!! >> Furthermore, it was not a multithreaded app. >> >> Nowadays, the multicore pentiums have sped up the FSB to respectable >> speeds of 1.6GHz or perhaps even higher. But I have not kept up with >> this area of the technology, so I could not address the very latest >> cpus from AMD and Intel. > What you say in some way confirms my point. > In an extreme CPU-bounded case (you said "very very"), the speed > ratio between the CPUs was about 2:1. > > On the other hand, in extreme IO-bounded cases, the speed ratio > between the hard disk and a SSD can be 100:1. > > Consider that I/O intensive tasks are more frequent than CPU intensive > tasks for the average computer user (just consider booting, folder > browsing, app loading, data loading, data searching, file copying, ...). > That is why money spent for a SSD is well spent. > > What should one choose between (for about the same total price)? > > a) a 40mq house plus a 300km/h car > b) a 4000mq house plus a 150km/h car > > I would say: "go for a) only if you are in car racing, otherwise go for b)" > > (note that I applied the 2:1 and 100:1 ratio). > No question. You're preaching to the choire. Disk intensive processes will indeed achieve that speedup ratio. The app I tested was used for verifying digital designs. It's data set was huge and, to add insult to injury, it was very deeply recursive - thousands of recursion stacks. If I could AMD's latest and fasted 8-core cpu and SSD disks on a modern mobo, 16GB high speed ram, I would have to spend much more than I can part with :) -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
