CPU choice for specific tasks

[unix and linux]

Go to andonetech and checkout their compiler benchmarks with hyperthreading enabled. The p4 with ht compiled way faster than the amd proccessors did. even the fx53 compiled slower. I cant give the link cuz i dont have time at work

 

[JigPu]

Something to take note of: If you cannot compile the code to use multiple threads (wether the compiler dosen't support it, or you just don't know how), the Hyperthreading will be of minimal use to you (since the only benifit on a single threaded app will come from better multi-tasking... which I wouldn't think you're doing much of while intensivly calculating). I personally don't know how to run multiple threads, so just in case you don't either, just be aware of it

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In my personal (and rather limited) experience, I have found AMD to be a bit faster than the P4 in raw unoptimized calculation. My P4 system is quite a bit slower in SETI (FPU and memory intensive), and quite a bit slower in my Prime Number program (FPU and Integer intensive). In stuff that is optimized for the P4 to use SSE and such, then the P4 usually wins by anwhere from a small margin to a landslide.

If you can't optimize your program to make use of Intel's features, AMD should be faster for you. If you can find a way to use SSE or something, the Intel will probably be faster.

JigPu

 

[mongoled]

Schlotkins,

From what u have said there are a few choices u have to make. Firstly, check to c if the program u use to compile can make use of hyperthreading just as JigPu has mentioned.

Seeing that the media side of your work isnt the most important then i would say go AMD. AMD reign supreme clock for clock in unoptimised ALU calculations. You seem to have done your own research abt this and im sure you are in a better position then myself to answer your own question, but tis always good to get other peeps opinions.

Prob as u know if your work was mainly media based (editing, rendering etc) then P4 would be your best bet they generally dominate those types of applications

Gluck with whatever choice u make

L8rz

 

[dguy6789]

If it is a buisiness type App, an athlon xp 2000+ would woop a P4 3.2EE. But it has to be buisiness or science type stuff, i dont remember why, but amd is supposed to be the very best at Buisiness apps.

 

[unix and linux]

I dont think an XP 2000+ would beat a p4 3.2ghz ee in buisness apps. I definetly know a 2500+ will though

 

[Gnufsh]

Go to andonetech and checkout their compiler benchmarks with hyperthreading enabled. The p4 with ht compiled way faster than the amd proccessors did. even the fx53 compiled slower. I cant give the link cuz i dont have time at work

Here's the results of the latest benchmarks I could find at anandtech.com:

These results shouldn't be too surprising as compilers are very branch-happy applications, which definitely penalize long pipelines like the Pentium 4's. There will be more optimized compilers available for the Pentium 4 in the future that may exploit multithreaded compiling with the generation of helper threads to show performance improvements courtesy of Hyper Threading, but for now if you want a good development workstation - AMD is the way to go.

http://anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1884&p=14

And VisualStudio is a windows program, a 64-bit optimised compilier should do better (remember the 8 extra regisers in 64-bit long mode). If you have seen other benchmarks, please point me to them. I'd also like to see some gcc and icc compiler benchmarks under linux, as that's what I use.

 

[Virgin Atlantic]

Hi there-

I'm doing a ton of work with financial data and modeling and I'm looking for the best solution. Most of the tough stuff is either in Excel or custom C++ code that involves a lot of computations/if's/loops etc. I do some personal media stuff on the side, but nothing too serious, so that's a secondary concern.

This sounds like stuff AMD chips would be better at, but I just want to make sure. Since the code is custom (and only for me), I could use a SSE2 specific compiler for some PIV optimization. (Using Visual C++ now.. not sure if something else is better...)

Thanks for any help,
Schloktins

Howdy Schlotkins,
This looks like a tough question. Since you are doing mostly buisness applications(EX. Excel), the AMD proccessors seems to outperform Intel but with 1 Exception. If your working with enormous sizes of data like huge databases, The P4 will excel in this area because of Hyperthreading ESPECIALLY in opening the large databases. Both are terrific and both will win and loose in some situations. IMHO I bieleve the benchmarks done on Buissness APPS are all Hype because they focus on one area of the Application rather than in General.

As for compiling, The P4 with Hyperthreading should be much faster than a XP IF your using a P4 optimized compiler with support for hyperthreading. Basically you would not feel the performance difference significantly when using either proccessor unless its a Celeron/Duron/Via

If you go with either one, XP or P4, both would make you happy. They both have their strengths and weakness but its just a matter of personal preference and I highly doubt you will feel a performance gain significantly by going with etiehr.

Hope this post has helped
~Virgin Atlantic~