Integer performance/$ for scientific computing

Hey guys!

Been away from the computer hardware scene for the past year or 2.

I am now looking to build a computer for scientific computing, and I am looking for the best bang/$.

The workload is all integer, and perfectly scalable (4 cores = 4x performance).

Ideally mini-ITX, but not crucial.

The price will just need to include motherboard + CPU, since everything else is the same. Must have integrated graphics, otherwise + the cheapest GPU.

Dual cores are pretty much out since they aren't that much cheaper than quads when price of the motherboard is included, and they are half as fast.

AMD 8-cores are pretty interesting. Each of the cores have an integer unit, so integer performance is supposed to be close to 8x, but how much performance hit does it get with the shared frontends?

Cache is not very important, as long as it's not tiny.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

If you're wanting mITX go Intel.
There's not an AMD AM3+ board worth getting that's mITX.

AMD is definitely the best value for integer operations, however power can be an issue.

If you want ITX, you have to go Intel.

Yeah I figured about ITX from my quick search. It's not very important though, just nice to have.

Power is a good point. It will be running at 100% pretty much 24/7, so power bills can add up. I'll have to do some calculations.

I am only going to use it for 1 year, too (for my Master's dissertation), and will probably sell it afterwards. If they will lose about the same value (in $, not %), it may be cheaper to go Intel just to save power.

Another option I am considering is to use Amazon EC2. It's about $0.25/hr for a 32-core Sandy Bridge Xeon, and only charged when the server is being used (I'll just turn it on when I need it).

Ditch the ITX - you're limiting yourself from some good options.

Normally if you want real power, you look at Intel. But your scenario is practically a dream come true for AMD. Integer only and proper use of multiple cores. Your AMD chip is going to be the envy of every other one out there stuck running games still half-written around single-core performance and software dealing with floating point maths.

Basically, I would say get yourself an FX-8350 or similar and build your system around that. For reference look at this:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/the-vishera-review-amd-fx8350-fx8320-fx6300-and-fx4300-tested/2

The 7-zip test at the top of that page is the closest thing you'll find to your scenario - very multithreaded, integer focused. And look at the 8350 go. It lags further down in a lot of the "real world" tests but here it's awesome.

I know you said integrated graphics but I don't see the point. You can get some old graphics card for dirt cheap and it will be fine if all you want to do is see some results on a monitor. Hell, I have an old Radeon just gathering dust which would do that job and probably isn't even worth my time to sell. I bet most people here are the same. You should be able to pick up something that will do the job for next to nothing.

h4rm0ny said:

Ditch the ITX - you're limiting yourself from some good options.

Normally if you want real power, you look at Intel. But your scenario is practically a dream come true for AMD. Integer only and proper use of multiple cores. Your AMD chip is going to be the envy of every other one out there stuck running games still half-written around single-core performance and software dealing with floating point maths.

Basically, I would say get yourself an FX-8350 or similar and build your system around that. For reference look at this:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/the-vishera-review-amd-fx8350-fx8320-fx6300-and-fx4300-tested/2

The 7-zip test at the top of that page is the closest thing you'll find to your scenario - very multithreaded, integer focused. And look at the 8350 go. It lags further down in a lot of the "real world" tests but here it's awesome.

I know you said integrated graphics but I don't see the point. You can get some old graphics card for dirt cheap and it will be fine if all you want to do is see some results on a monitor. Hell, I have an old Radeon just gathering dust which would do that job and probably isn't even worth my time to sell. I bet most people here are the same. You should be able to pick up something that will do the job for next to nothing.

Click to expand...

Hate to tell you, but a 4770K or 4790K is faster than the FX-8350 in 7-zip (and almost every other test).

Have you considered getting a dual socket 1156 system and running dual 6-core chips? While it will be larger than a mITX system, it should absolutely wipe the floor for the same price or cheaper. For example, you can get desktop versions of the Poweredge servers, which will give you dual processor sockets, tons of RAM slots, ECC memory, and server-quality hardware.

If you are doing extensive scientific computing, I would figure that ECC memory would be near the top of your "must have" list.

h4rm0ny said:

Ditch the ITX - you're limiting yourself from some good options.

Normally if you want real power, you look at Intel. But your scenario is practically a dream come true for AMD. Integer only and proper use of multiple cores. Your AMD chip is going to be the envy of every other one out there stuck running games still half-written around single-core performance and software dealing with floating point maths.

Basically, I would say get yourself an FX-8350 or similar and build your system around that. For reference look at this:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/the-vishera-review-amd-fx8350-fx8320-fx6300-and-fx4300-tested/2

The 7-zip test at the top of that page is the closest thing you'll find to your scenario - very multithreaded, integer focused. And look at the 8350 go. It lags further down in a lot of the "real world" tests but here it's awesome.

I know you said integrated graphics but I don't see the point. You can get some old graphics card for dirt cheap and it will be fine if all you want to do is see some results on a monitor. Hell, I have an old Radeon just gathering dust which would do that job and probably isn't even worth my time to sell. I bet most people here are the same. You should be able to pick up something that will do the job for next to nothing.

Click to expand...

That is true. AMD is looking very awesome at this point.

I just like to keep things a little simpler with integrated graphics, but it's not that important and I can definitely work with ancient video cards, too. It will basically just be used to install the OS (Linux). I will do everything remotely from my laptop after that. It can probably even just borrow a card from another machine, but I'm not sure if motherboards will actually boot with no video card at all.

Hate to tell you, but a 4770K or 4790K is faster than the FX-8350 in 7-zip (and almost every other test).

Click to expand...

That is true, but 4770K is also much more expensive.

The cheapest LGA1150 mobo I see is about $75, and the 4770K is $360.
The cheapest AM3+ board I see is about $50, and the FX-8350 is $200.

So it's $435 vs $250, and the 4770K is not 74% faster for my workload.

Have you considered getting a dual socket 1156 system and running dual 6-core chips? While it will be larger than a mITX system, it should absolutely wipe the floor for the same price or cheaper. For example, you can get desktop versions of the Poweredge servers, which will give you dual processor sockets, tons of RAM slots, ECC memory, and server-quality hardware.

If you are doing extensive scientific computing, I would figure that ECC memory would be near the top of your "must have" list.

Click to expand...

I did look into dual socket, but wasn't able to find anything that's cost effective for my workload. It seems like dual socket systems are more than twice as expensive as single socket ones (with 1x the same CPU), and my workload doesn't require much memory sharing or communication between cores, so I wouldn't benefit from the shared memory.

ECC would be nice, but the problem is this is only master level research, so I don't get research funding and have to buy things myself, so I'd like to get some of the money back afterwards by selling the stuff, and I'm assuming server grade stuff is harder to sell (more expensive and less demand).

I also just found out that the university I am going to has a 13000 cores (13 thousand cores!) supercomputing cluster that I may be able to use. Most of the cores are Sandy Bridge Xeons.

I don't know how much that would cost, but it would be another option. I am hoping it will be cheaper than Amazon EC2 (~$2/hr for 32 SB Xeon cores).

cyberfish said:

I also just found out that the university I am going to has a 13000 cores (13 thousand cores!) supercomputing cluster that I may be able to use. Most of the cores are Sandy Bridge Xeons.

I don't know how much that would cost, but it would be another option. I am hoping it will be cheaper than Amazon EC2 (~$2/hr for 32 SB Xeon cores).

Click to expand...

They charge you to use the server? Most I've heard of require you to sign up (including reasoning, goal, and time required) and they approve/deny you.

thideras said:

They charge you to use the server? Most I've heard of require you to sign up (including reasoning, goal, and time required) and they approve/deny you.

Click to expand...

Yeah it depends on the university. Some universities only give 32 or 64 CPUs to free users, and you have to pay for more, etc. Usually it's paid using research funding, to fund the supercomputer upgrades.

ATMINSIDE said:

Hate to tell you, but a 4770K or 4790K is faster than the FX-8350 in 7-zip (and almost every other test).

Click to expand...

It's over double the price here in the UK. I got the impression that the OP wants performance/$. Also, is that right? Maybe I've missed something but here is Anand's 4770K review:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7003/the-haswell-review-intel-core-i74770k-i54560k-tested/6

It gives a result for 7-zip of 23,101 and for the 8350 I linked previously it gives 23,407. Maybe they changed something on their tests. At any rate, it's comparable performance at half the cost. OP has lucked into AMD's perfect scenario, I think. I'm not at all disputing that the 4770K is a more powerful chip in general. I'm just saying for this I would go AMD.

cyberfish said:

I did look into dual socket, but wasn't able to find anything that's cost effective for my workload. It seems like dual socket systems are more than twice as expensive as single socket ones (with 1x the same CPU), and my workload doesn't require much memory sharing or communication between cores, so I wouldn't benefit from the shared memory.

Click to expand...

You'll have a lot more trouble selling that afterwards as well. I haven't run the costs so take this as a suggestion of something to look into rather than a suggestion of something to do, but you can cluster machines as a cheaper alternative. I haven't done this myself but as you're using GNU/Linux it should be possible. There are a couple of distros designed to make the process easier including one based on Ubuntu:
There's also a Knoppix cluster solution. The nice thing with that is that if you're reaching dissertation time and you're just not getting your sums done fast enough, you could probably borrow a few machines from friends or anywhere and stick bootable GNU/Linux CDs in and add them to the cluster. Your friends are probably just using them to play games anyway. Hell, if you get your head around the clustering and you have housemates on the same network, maybe you can use their machines while they sleep.

Again, I haven't done this myself - I just know the principles. If you have the time, take a little look at it. Might get you a lot of power per dollar and increase your flexibility.

cyberfish said:

ECC would be nice, but the problem is this is only master level research, so I don't get research funding and have to buy things myself, so I'd like to get some of the money back afterwards by selling the stuff, and I'm assuming server grade stuff is harder to sell (more expensive and less demand).

Click to expand...

Not so much less demand as trust, I would say. I can't speak for others but there's no way I would be buying servers for my critical applications from some random person on the Internet selling a one-off. I want guarantees, service contracts and quite frankly just knowing it hasn't been abused. I imagine you could sell server motherboards and RAM to someone like me who would use it for personal projects. But generally server stuff is a distinct market and you're not going to walk up to a business's door and say 'hi, happen to need one of these boards'. I would actually consider firing one of my staff who tried to cut corners by buying your board. We have contracts with providers for a reason. So unless you're planning on keeping it, I wouldn't buy server level stuff.

h4rm0ny said:

It's over double the price here in the UK. I got the impression that the OP wants performance/$. Also, is that right? Maybe I've missed something but here is Anand's 4770K review:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7003/the-haswell-review-intel-core-i74770k-i54560k-tested/6

It gives a result for 7-zip of 23,101 and for the 8350 I linked previously it gives 23,407. Maybe they changed something on their tests. At any rate, it's comparable performance at half the cost. OP has lucked into AMD's perfect scenario, I think. I'm not at all disputing that the 4770K is a more powerful chip in general. I'm just saying for this I would go AMD.

Click to expand...

I'm checking in their side-by-side comparison tool: http://anandtech.com/bench/product/697?vs=836

Performance/$? Do what thideras said. 12 Hyperthreaded cores of used server equipment will wipe the floor with any desktop setup.

Additionally, server equipment holds its value better than its desktop equivalent. As long as you get commonly used hardware (Poweredge series, etc), selling it should be easy.

ATMINSIDE said:

I'm checking in their side-by-side comparison tool: http://anandtech.com/bench/product/697?vs=836

Performance/$? Do what thideras said. 12 Hyperthreaded cores of used server equipment will wipe the floor with any desktop setup.

Click to expand...

Huh, I wonder why the one in their review is different. Okay well with these figures we see the following for the 7zip test (best comparison to OP's situation):

AMD chip: 23223
4770K : 24100

So a grand total of 3.64% improvement for more than double the price (retail). And then there's the fact that an equivalent motherboard is likely to be pricier too. I think that's a very clear argument for the AMD chip, myself.

As to server, I disagree. Firstly, I'm not so convinced it will be so easy to sell it. Secondly, you pay for server components typically because you want the assurance of reliability or some feature uncommon to the desktop market such as dual-socket. You don't get better performance $ for $ because you, e.g., buy EC RAM (in fact, it can be slightly worse), you get reliability with it. Given the OP has already looked into server, I really advise against paying the premium for little to no gain. The OP can't afford to max out the capacity of even the Desktop market, so there's no need for them to go looking at the higher end server stuff. I mean if they find a great deal and can snap it up, fine. But I don't think it's what they should be looking for.

h4rm0ny said:

Huh, I wonder why the one in their review is different. Okay well with these figures we see the following for the 7zip test (best comparison to OP's situation):

AMD chip: 23223
4770K : 24100

So a grand total of 3.64% improvement for more than double the price (retail). And then there's the fact that an equivalent motherboard is likely to be pricier too. I think that's a very clear argument for the AMD chip, myself.

As to server, I disagree. Firstly, I'm not so convinced it will be so easy to sell it. Secondly, you pay for server components typically because you want the assurance of reliability or some feature uncommon to the desktop market such as dual-socket. You don't get better performance $ for $ because you, e.g., buy EC RAM (in fact, it can be slightly worse), you get reliability with it. Given the OP has already looked into server, I really advise against paying the premium for little to no gain. The OP can't afford to max out the capacity of even the Desktop market, so there's no need for them to go looking at the higher end server stuff.

Click to expand...

Except, if you're wanting to push 24/7 on an 8-Core AMD you need a top end board.
Any 1150 board will handle a 4770K for 24/7 loading.
So, no, the Intel motherboard will actually be CHEAPER!

Not easy to sell server equipment? What rock are you under?
I know guys that make half a living by buying and selling server equipment...

Yes, reliability, which is key for computational calculations that run for days on end.

Also, let's not forget heat produced and power draw here. A dual 6-core low-power Xeon server will use about the same power as an FX-8350.
But you'll have 24 threads instead of 8.
Power and heat make a big difference in 24/7 operation.

What about opteron 6164? Was looking last night at 12 cores for only about 225$ for one cpu. The boards can be pricey, but I think there are single socket boards and have no idea if the overclock. G34.

Server equipment is hard to sell, because like h4rm0ny said, most server equipment is bought by companies, and companies don't buy from random guys with 1 used server to sell.

AMD is definitely much more cost-effective for my workload, just because of the huge difference in CPU price. I'll have to calculate cost of the difference in power consumption, but I am only expecting to run it for a few hundred hours, so I don't think it's going to matter too much.

I am leaning toward using university's hardware or Amazon EC2, though. At 500-1000 hours, EC2 still seems to be cheaper, especially since I can use spot instances.

cyberfish said:

Server equipment is hard to sell, because like h4rm0ny said, most server equipment is bought by companies, and companies don't buy from random guys with 1 used server to sell.

Click to expand...

Yes, because businesses never go on eBay and buy replacement parts/servers from individuals.
And no individuals ever buy server equipment for home use.
There's also no chance I know of at least four different people on this site alone with server racks in their home.

Server equipment is very easy to sell, put it on eBay at a decent price and it's gone.