Computer hardware: Difference between revisions

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(New page: As of April 4, 2008: a Dell Vostro 400 MT costs 549,- € (plus tax and shipping, but on the other hand Dell gives a discount to universities). It comes with a (extremely fast) NVidia 880...)
 
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As of April 4, 2008:
== 2020 ==


a Dell Vostro 400 MT costs 549,- € (plus tax and shipping, but on the other hand Dell gives a discount to universities). It comes with a (extremely fast) NVidia 8800GT graphics card, a 500 GB disk, and a quadcore Q6600 CPU running @ 2.4GHz. If your data reside on a fileserver then you might want an additional GB ethernet card (5-10€).
The recent [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryzen#CPUs:_Matisse_(Ryzen)_and_Castle_Peak_(Ryzen_Threadripper) Ryzen Threadripper 3xxx series processors] with up to 64 cores (128 threads) have a significantly better cost/performance ratio than other processor families. For example, a TR 3970X workstation can be bought for less than 5000€, and offers 64 threads.  


If you want to install Linux then it is a good idea to switch the SATA mode from (default) IDE to RAID, because this activates the very good Linux AHCI driver and makes the use of the Linux kernel option "irqpoll" unnecessary.
Make sure to buy DDR4-3200 JEDEC memory, but observe the following [https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-ryzen-threadripper-3990x-review,2.html table],  
Memory  Rank Official JEDEC frequency support
4x8 Single DDR4-3200
8x8 Single DDR4-2933
4x16 Dual DDR4-3200
8x16 Dual DDR4-2667
4x32 Dual DDR4-3200
8x32 Dual DDR4-2667
which shows that the maximum speed with which the memory controller can drive the RAM may be less than that of DDR4-3200.  


This NVidia card is quite suitable for coot, O, pymol and so on, but it does not have [[stereo]].
The data transfer may become the bottleneck in keeping the cores busy; but 10Gb networking ports may be used, using the PCIe 4.0 bus.
 
The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epyc#Second_generation_Epyc_(Rome) 2nd generation AMD Epyc "Rome" processors] are the server variant of the Threadripper 3xxx workstation processors. They are more expensive and not quite as fast, but offer 8-channel memory and a higher maximum amount of memory than Threadripper.

Latest revision as of 20:06, 20 February 2020

2020[edit | edit source]

The recent Ryzen Threadripper 3xxx series processors with up to 64 cores (128 threads) have a significantly better cost/performance ratio than other processor families. For example, a TR 3970X workstation can be bought for less than 5000€, and offers 64 threads.

Make sure to buy DDR4-3200 JEDEC memory, but observe the following table,

Memory  Rank	Official JEDEC frequency support
4x8	Single	DDR4-3200
8x8	Single	DDR4-2933
4x16	Dual	DDR4-3200
8x16	Dual	DDR4-2667
4x32	Dual	DDR4-3200
8x32	Dual	DDR4-2667

which shows that the maximum speed with which the memory controller can drive the RAM may be less than that of DDR4-3200.

The data transfer may become the bottleneck in keeping the cores busy; but 10Gb networking ports may be used, using the PCIe 4.0 bus.

The 2nd generation AMD Epyc "Rome" processors are the server variant of the Threadripper 3xxx workstation processors. They are more expensive and not quite as fast, but offer 8-channel memory and a higher maximum amount of memory than Threadripper.