Decisions!! Which will fold faster? and is it worth it?

[NxDS]

I'd really like to know how much more performance i'd get from folding on a xeon over a HTP4? (If its only like 5% or so then I'd wonder if its worth spending the extra $$$$$).

Looking at upgrading 4 of my surgery PC's to deal with digital (xray) systems which are on order. Upgrading from 1.3ghz celerons which I have had for about 2 1/2 years, all of which are folding.

Choices i'm considering at the moment are 4x 2.8ghz HT P4's //4x 2.8ghz Xeons //2x 2.8ghz HT P4's & 2x dual(!) 2.8ghz Xeon servers.

The most logical and cost effective choice would be 4 P4's. The other 2 options are way overpowered for my needs but im quite keen on folding and don't mind spending extra $$$.

I won't do "farms" as I have nowhere to put them and don't really want to explain to a tax auditor why I have heaps of extra computer bits bought through the company...

Any (constructive) input would be appreciated..... :) Oh.... and I have 2 days to decide....

[Red_Silver]

xeons don't outperform p4's. at least not to my knowledge, and i have both. the only thing a xeon will add to the whole situation is that you can have two procs per box. just remember these two basic rules:
1) more ghz is more points
2) more processsors means more points
3) HT add's ~12% to performance, but requires two instances of F@H
4) although i go to a wonderful college, I cannot count

[Mark620]

I think that you will get the most units from:

2x 2.8ghz HT P4's & 2x dual(!) 2.8ghz Xeon servers

Thats 6 processors which will allow 12 instances of folding

[@md0Cer]

Hyper threading will only yeild a 5-15 percent advantage over a normal P4. So, it is not like it is really a duallie machine. It pretends to be one though.

You would probably see a 95-85 percent increase by going with Xeons over a P4 with hyper threading of the same speed. Of course you would see a 100 percent increase if the P4 of the same speed did not have hyper threading, becuase it would be 2 CPU's and not one.

Now if the Xeons were the same speed, and had hyper threading, as well as the Pentium 4 being the same speed also with hyper threading, you would get a 100 percent increase, becuase it would be like having 2 P4's with hyper threading. Do you get what I am saying?

[TalRW]

/thread Hijack on

Also I know performance wise when concerning AMD's higher FSB means better performance in general use. But when it comes to folding with an Athlon XP would it be better to have a higher FSB with a lower overall clockspeed or a higher clockspeed with a lower FSB

[Quailane]

higher clockspeed wins out.

[@md0Cer]

Folding does not benefit from memory speed as much as clockspeed. Meaning things like L2 cache and FSB do not really help that much.

L1 cache does help, I beleive that feeds the CPU's branch predictor.

The best thing is raw MHz and work done per cycle for Folding :)

[FizzledFiend]

ok so whats better a p4 HT or an equivelant AMD? I have AMDs and NON-HT P4 and the AMD's just rock the p4's butt!

[Cerberus2k7]

Actually, I believe the AMDs are better than their intel counterparts when it comes to folding for some reason.

[stratcatprowlin]

Well,they are faster clock for clock but I think some of the AMD cpu ratings are a bit high.

[@md0Cer]

An AMD 2800+ would come close to or beat a 2.8Ghz P4, but if that P4 had hyper threading it might even the score a bit. I am not absolutely shure of this, but that is based off of what I have acuired here in the forums. Please correct me if I am wrong.

But I do know one thing, it would take one hell of an AMD to beat an overclocked Prescott with hyper threading at 4GHz.

[FizzledFiend]

hmm how do you purpose we test that theory?

[NxDS]

Right-o... Thanks to those who were kind enough to answer my question :) Still unsure about xeon/P4 but have signed off on 4x 3.4ghz HT P4's due to lack of info.

Why hijack my question/thread when you can start your own.

[hrdwrjnkie]

yeah NxDS, the P4s will be your better $$ vs. points than the Xeons. The onlyh advantage to Xeons is you can slap two of them in a MB and run Quad clients.