Quad vs Duo Processors

[vscorsa]

Hi All,

I am in the process of ordering a couple of machines for work to carry out Mine design using Surpac.

I am wondering whether I am better off going with the Intel Quad processor instead of the Duo processor. The 2 I am looking at are:

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6850, LGA775, 3.0GHz 4MB L2 Cache 1333Mhz FSB

OR

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 - LGA775 Pkg, 2.66 GHz, 8MB L2 Cache Total, 1066MHz FSB

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Dave

[taint]

Are the programs in use optimised for multi-cores? Do you have a price limit at all.

Database work is great for multi-cored processors but a single threaded application will see more of a benefit from a faster single core machine.

I know nothing about surpac so take my opinion with a grain of salt

[Rhino]

AFAIK quad's are a waste of $s at the moment... but more to the point, so is too much ram.

Windows only detects 3.5gb or ram and will only allocate a max of 2gb to any program. So, not worth buying more than 2.

[taint]

AFAIK quad's are a waste of at the moment... but more to the point, so is too much ram.

Windows only detects 3.5gb or ram and will only allocate a max of 2gb to any program. So, not worth buying more than 2.

Vista picks up the RAM properly. XP has issues with it. Actually I think it was more to do with the memory controller on the older chips/motherboards.

[vscorsa]

Taint, I am not to sure about surpac. It does a lot of 3d modelling and number crunching, I guess you could call it a design package.

Rhino, I was thinking of getting 2 x 2gb sticks so that in the future when we switch the machines to vista we can use the extra memory. Is this the right way to think?

The budget isn't unlimited but is around $3000 per box.

[Pkunk]

The Q6600's overclock quite nicely to 3ghz with air cooling

Check out the application you are using (surpac) to see if it supports proper multithreading. If not, both dual or quad cores will be a waste

Checking out the Surpac website, the "recommended" specs ask for a dual core. Id just go with the dual core you listed above, simply because any gains (if at all) will be marginal on the quad core.

Unless you want to decode some DVD's in the background

[taint]

pffft, $3k. Go large

Whats the operating system that they are on

[Jonchilds]

Core2Duo on the laptop is great for converting files to go on my mp3 player, but it only uses 50% of the processor at any one time unless I have two separate threads running CPU intensive programs.

Basically, treat the Duo/Quad core as a multi-processor machine (which it is). Ring/email surpac and find if it's multi-processor capable.

[taint]

The Q6600's overclock quite nicely to 3ghz with air cooling

Check out the application you are using (surpac) to see if it supports proper multithreading. If not, both dual or quad cores will be a waste

Checking out the Surpac website, the "recommended" specs ask for a dual core. Id just go with the dual core you listed above, simply because any gains (if at all) will be marginal on the quad core.

Unless you want to decode some DVD's in the background

hehe, overclocking of the work machine. Caution: May affect warranty

[smeghead]

XP64 or Vista will use all RAM you provide, my XP64 box sees all its 4GB of RAM.

System needs to be whats best for the software you use; years ago client was using Solidworks & bought some dual proc boxes to suit, 6 months later changed to Pro Engineer that couldn't use dual procs. meh!

If you data isn't server based have seperate drive in da box for the Surpac data & scratch space.

[vscorsa]

No probs, thanks for all the replies. Currently we are running Xp but I bet we will change over the next 6 months.

From the replies I think I will stick with the duo processor.

I am better running SCSI rather than 10000rpm Sata II drives?

[taint]

scsi can be a pain in the arse but you can get 15,000rpm HDD's. Not really much performance difference to the 10,000 SataII's but a lot more screwing around

SCSI for server, Sata for desktop use dude

[vscorsa]

Taint, thats the way i understood it also. Thanks for your help.

[taint]

NP
10char

[thro]

Go quad.

For the extra 150 bucks or whatever - it will be worth it. Yes, software support is lagging a bit, but you'll likely keep the machine for 2-3yrs plus - and you can bet your arse that software support will be forthcoming in the next 12 months or so.

After all, 8 cores is on intel's roadmap for release within that time-frame. The clock-speed increases are no longer easy to get - so intel/amd are now going for number of cores...


Surpac 6 supports multi-core - we've just upgraded a few people at work and they've noticed a marked improvement with the duos vs with surpac 5.x

I'd suggest perhaps doing some benchmarking, but i would wager that surpac 6.0+ WILL benefit from more cores - it certainly benefits from having 2 instead of 1...