View Single Post
Old 15th September 2008
TerryP's Avatar
TerryP TerryP is offline
Arp Constable
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: USofA
Posts: 1,547
Default

Well, not that any of this is on topic... but since you asked.

(I feel most of this belongs in pm's btw, not here)

Quote:
Originally Posted by vermaden View Post
Pretty nice but you will not use even 30% of that horsepower on daily basis, but maybe wou will find a cat that is amused
Quote:
Originally Posted by DrJ View Post
I agree with Vermaden, you have an odd list, TerryP. Eight cores is worthwhile only if you are doing tasks that can easily be parallelized, like rendering, numerical simulations, CAD/CAM in general, and a few other specialized areas. It really is way overkill for most things.
I don't need that much computing power and don't know anyone who does outside the world of science. But then again, I don't really need a computer with even the 384MB of PC100 and a 500Mhz P3 I used to use for an nfs/mysql server --- most of my needs could be solved with a typewriter and a telephone. but I much prefer a computer ;-)


A work load for me on the computer is fairly light and has been getting lighter these days, the other day my peak abuse to my windows machine was: 2 web browsers (flock and google chrome) across 4 windows, and about 14 tabs. With flash plugin streaming music, XChat, Pidgin (6 accounts), XFire, Teamspeak, two runs of gvim, a few console/cmd.exe windows, working on php scripts, and 'background' stuff that's always on but rarely used running.

Even with a Pentium D 930 and 2GB of DDR, the machine didn't blink. However doing all of this and compiling large things (e.g. world or full gcc4) might put a wee bit of a dent in that, since my much slower laptop can't handle the added load without swapping. I once tried testing Netbeans 6.1 on my FreeBSD laptop, on top of my normal work load... It was at least 10 minutes before my system was as responsive as normal, before that it was straining quite hard and (for what they are worth, since I don't rely on it for accuracy) top wa reporting a lot of extra resource usage.


I don't expect a 64-bit OS, 8 cores, and a crap load of RAM to help with the way I use computers, as much as a quad of monitors and a second brain would... If I could, I'd have a circle like desk with monitors arranged almost in a panorama, with a keyboard, cup holder, and a mouse bolted onto my swivel chairs arms (and slinding out to let me out of the chair). But I hate wireless peripherals and can't afford it! But I like a computer that is responsive, even when pushed hard.

But hey, if you've got to dream, may as well dream about a very sexy lady ;-)

Quote:
Originally Posted by vermaden View Post
... and by the way, Intel Qxxxx series quad core CPU cannot be used in SMP setup, you will have to use a Xeon XPU here
Nuts !

Quote:
Originally Posted by vermaden View Post
2 x DVDRW will be ok, but what that CDRW for?
I am paranoid, so it is an emergency spare lol.


I've heard about such hard drives as the WD VelociRaptor, but they just don't seem worth the cost to me. The only time any of my 7200rpm hard drives has been to slow, writing large files -- and I don't mind that. A quad of 250gb drives in RAID 4 would be more to my taste, although I'm not sure if I would enjoy using RAID as much as implementing an automated backup.



And I don't believe in overclocking hardware, just making it work hard around the clock.
__________________
My Journal

Thou shalt check the array bounds of all strings (indeed, all arrays), for surely where thou typest ``foo'' someone someday shall type ``supercalifragilisticexpialidocious''.

Last edited by TerryP; 15th September 2008 at 04:55 AM.
Reply With Quote