Computer Question

[jt4ward]

I know a lot of you have purchased new AMD boxes. Are any of you running a Pentium D or know how it rates with the AMD chip. I am currently getting an AMD box quoted by our computer builder with all the bells and whistles. He normally builds Pentium 4 computers and asked why I didn't want to use the Pentium D chip. I have tried to keep up to date but haven't read any comparison's between the AMD chip and the Pentium D. He told me he was going to do some research but thought the pentium computer would be a little faster.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Jason Forward
Solidworks 2006 sp2.1

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

http://www.simhq.com/_technology/technology_055a.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/06/03/dual_core_stress_test/

Helpful SW websites FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions FAQ559-1091

 

[Theophilus]

More here:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/opteron-xeon-workstation.html

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1788695,00.asp

http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q2/opteron-x75/index.x?pg=17

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/11/07/single/page13.html

Check the dates of each article you read--often these go back to mid-2005 and are already out of date in terms of what chip is "leading edge".

The interesting thing about these reviews is that sometimes Intel comes out on top--it really depends what you need. SolidWorks doesn't make use of a second core (or processor) for its normal modeling tasks--perhaps most of what you need. However, if you render or animate rendered scenes, the second core becomes very useful.

Also, if you're like me, you have more than one process happening in your computer at any one given time. Between firewall and anti-virus software, email, word processing, etc. I often have at least 50 processes going on in the background. In this case, clearly another core/processor could help in stability and performance.

I'm using an AMD Opteron (64 bit) system that's now two years old and quite stable. I plan to purchase another system from Xi Computer quite soon, since from my own benchmarks and review checks my system excels in what I need it to do for little cost per performance. Intel seems to be stumbling in the non-consumer market and AMD certainly has a jump on them in many fronts.


Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reality is no respecter of good intentions.

 

[jt4ward]

Thanks guys.

Jeff thats what makes these decisions somewhat difficult. If I am understanding the reviews correctly. I would choose the fastest single core chip for just running Solidworks. However, I am constantly running AV, FW, Outlook, Solidworks, Viewer, Internet Explorer and a bunch of other stuff at the same time. I am not looking to have the best, but I am looking to be able to use 64 bit software and be able to possibly upgrade this box in the future.

Jason Forward
Solidworks 2006 sp2.1

 

[Theophilus]

In that case, I would think the dual core (with its motherboard and architecture) could still be the better option. Rendering with two processors is very cool and would have shaved a lot of time off a recent 30-hour animation I did. Plus, if you're using something like Norton for AV, it sucks up a lot of resources. The second core would be handy for managing that.

Get at least 2GB of RAM.


Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reality is no respecter of good intentions.

 

[pdybeck]

I recently built my own AMD box from scratch. It has the X2 4800+ in it. The system really performs well. I spent around $2500 to get a really good system (including LCD, TV Tuner card, and some other bells and whistles that were not necessary but are fun). I can confirm that Photoworks does really fly on this machine. I have been able to learn a bit more about rendering b/c my results are brought back to me so much faster and then I can re-render and learn more about the settings. Stability has been excellent so far. I also tend to run many services and apps and have seen the AMD dual core really handle things very well. I would highly recommend a dual core AMD processor. Currently Intel doesn't come close in terms of performance. On the software side, it seems as tough there will be and probably already is a push for software vendors to make their code take advantage of multi-core CPUs. AMD and Intel are already talking about 4 and 8 core CPUs in the not too distant future. If and when software is re-structured, then by having a dual core system you will realize a performance increase in those apps. It will be interesting to follow this trend. I think the dawn of Windows Vista (less than a year away now) may help to push some of this along.

Pete

 

[Theophilus]

<cynicism>
". ..less than a year away now. .."

HA! It was last year, too!

Intel:Microsoft as AMD:Linux ?

</cynicism>


Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reality is no respecter of good intentions.