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| Re: Best,Fastest platform for IDL 5.2 (NT or UNIX) [message #17147 is a reply to message #17090] |
Wed, 15 September 1999 00:00   |
Patrick V. Ford
Messages: 14
Registered: February 1997
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Junior Member |
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In article <37DD70F9.D76719BB@sbrc.umanitoba.ca>, Richard Tyc
<richt@sbrc.umanitoba.ca> wrote:
> IDL users,
>
> To add to the another similar post, I would like to know from the
> experts what system they would buy if they had $10K - $30K (speed being
> an important factor) ?
>
> We are running on a SGI O2 R5K, 576Mb RAM and it is pathetically
> slow!! Our project has recently received some infusion of capital and I
> would like to ask what hardware platform would be ideal ? I am not
> opposed to switching over to NT.
>
> The application makes heavy use of object graphics, volume rendering
> with cutting planes etc. (eg. render volumes of 512x512x100 with
> real-time motion updates using the trackball object)
>
> I was thinking of moving up to a SGI Octane with the R12K CPU (or
> multiple CPU).
> Any performance comparisons with IDL on the new Pentium III 600 MHz
> machines vs. UNIX workstations ?
>
> Any benefit in moving into a multi-CPU system (NT or IRIX ) for IDL ?
> does it even make use of multi-processor for rendering etc. ?
>
> Thanks
>
>
> Rich
If you must have UNIX or NT and can wait several months, then you
should look at
MacOS X. It has a BSD kernal (Mach 3?) and, if you wish, the Mac
look-and-feel can
be stripped off and replace with a CLI or X-windows. Comments re:
Linux-PPC and
MacOS X
http://macos-x.com/
The G4 PPC with AltiVec accelerates certain numerically intensive
process by up to
5x. It is claimed at the current clock speeds to perform 1Gflop with
burst of 4Gflops.
IDL currently supports AltiVec.
http://www.mot.com/SPS/PowerPC/AltiVec/
http://www.rsinc.com/pressrelease/pr_083199.cfm
Clock speed for clock speed, the G4 is significantly faster than the
PIII, but currently it
is not running at 700Mhz to 1 GHz either.
In terms of multiprocessors systems the current offerings on the Mac
are weak, but as
far as clusters or parallel processing, it is far stronger than
reported in most media.
http://www.macintouch.com/cluster.html
Since IBM released its mother-board specs for the PPC, rumor has it
that several
companies are going to make UNIX- based versions.
I hope this helps.
As an aside, does IDL support Linux-PPC and OpenGL? It seems to me that
support
for graphics card like 3DFx would improve performance across multiple
platforms.
Regards
Patrick Ford
Baylor College of Medicine
Pford@bcm.tmc.edu
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| Re: Best,Fastest platform for IDL 5.2 (NT or UNIX) [message #17213 is a reply to message #17090] |
Tue, 21 September 1999 00:00 |
Richard Tyc
Messages: 69
Registered: June 1999
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Member |
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Anyone out there using IDL 5.2 with the new SGI Visual Workstations (540)
for NT.
They can be fitted with up to 4 Pentium III Xeon 550 MHz processors.
These things look impressive on paper but I am really curious about the
performance of their IVC graphics architecture which has a much higher
bandwidth than AGP (up to 3.2 Gb/sec compared to 528 Mb/sec (peak) for AGP).
I'd like to see this machine against something like a Dell Presicion 610,
dual PIII 550MHz with a high end graphics card (like a Intense 3D Wildcat
4000)
Anyone know of any benchmark tests ?
Rich
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| Re: Best,Fastest platform for IDL 5.2 (NT or UNIX) [message #17214 is a reply to message #17090] |
Tue, 21 September 1999 00:00 |
edors
Messages: 7
Registered: November 1998
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Junior Member |
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Hello,
I had the website with the results from this survey bookmarked, look
here:
http://astrosun.tn.cornell.edu/staff/jdsmith/IDLSPEC.html
Eric
>>>> > "Patrick" == Patrick Ford <pford@texas.net> writes:
Patrick> wmc@bas.ac.uk wrote:
>> Richard Tyc <richt@sbrc.umanitoba.ca> wrote: >To add to the
>> another similar post, I would like to know from the >experts
>> what system they would buy if they had $10K - $30K (speed being
>> >an important factor) ?
>>
>> My recollection is that about 1 year to 6 months ago someone
>> organised a set of speed tests in IDL for a variety of
>> platforms and published the results on the web. Someone else
>> will surely know the real reference or perhaps dejanews will
>> tell you.
>>
>> I particularly liked the survey because our alpha-600 won in
>> the cpu section ;-)
>>
>> However, in terms of performance/price, I recall that
>> pentium-type objects came out on top.
>>
>> -W.
>>
>> [just looked it up: see ftp://iras2.tn.cornell.edu/pub/jdsmith/
>> for the results, or search deja for "Speed Survey". It was in
>> apr 1998 - perhaps time for a re-run?]
>>
>> -- William M Connolley | wmc@bas.ac.uk |
>> http://www.nbs.ac.uk/public/icd/wmc/ Climate Modeller, British
>> Antarctic Survey | Disclaimer: I speak for myself
Patrick> As I recall the test, my Mac was near the top in CPU
Patrick> performance and it really sucked in the video display. I
Patrick> don't believe with the newer mother boards that this is
Patrick> this case now. I would really like to see an update
Patrick> because I don't believe the last statement is true.
Patrick> Patrick Ford Baylor College of Medicine pford@bcm.tcm.edu
--
==================================
| Eric E. Dors |
| Los Alamos National Laboratory |
==================================
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| Re: Best,Fastest platform for IDL 5.2 (NT or UNIX) [message #17252 is a reply to message #17090] |
Fri, 17 September 1999 00:00 |
Patrick Ford
Messages: 1
Registered: September 1999
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Junior Member |
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wmc@bas.ac.uk wrote:
> Richard Tyc <richt@sbrc.umanitoba.ca> wrote:
>> To add to the another similar post, I would like to know from the
>> experts what system they would buy if they had $10K - $30K (speed being
>> an important factor) ?
>
> My recollection is that about 1 year to 6 months ago someone organised a
> set of speed tests in IDL for a variety of platforms and published the
> results on the web. Someone else will surely know the real reference or
> perhaps dejanews will tell you.
>
> I particularly liked the survey because our alpha-600 won in the cpu section ;-)
>
> However, in terms of performance/price, I recall that pentium-type objects
> came out on top.
>
> -W.
>
> [just looked it up: see ftp://iras2.tn.cornell.edu/pub/jdsmith/ for the results,
> or search deja for "Speed Survey". It was in apr 1998 - perhaps time for a
> re-run?]
>
> --
> William M Connolley | wmc@bas.ac.uk | http://www.nbs.ac.uk/public/icd/wmc/
> Climate Modeller, British Antarctic Survey | Disclaimer: I speak for myself
As I recall the test, my Mac was near the top in CPU performance and it really
sucked in the video display. I don't believe with the newer mother boards that
this is this case now. I would really like to see an update because I don't
believe the last statement is true.
Patrick Ford
Baylor College of Medicine
pford@bcm.tcm.edu
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| Re: Best,Fastest platform for IDL 5.2 (NT or UNIX) [message #17259 is a reply to message #17090] |
Fri, 17 September 1999 00:00 |
Michael Werger
Messages: 34
Registered: May 1997
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Member |
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Hy,
If you think moving from SGI to a reasonable(!) Intel machine,
only some HP workstations are comparable - even in price).
Personally, I would stay with the UNIX machine: using the command
line or the GUI when you like it (with 95/98 not possible - NT
also not, probably?). Then you have also to keep in mind the
different memory handling in the the UNIX/LINUX/Windows world.
However, I'm happy with a ASUS P2B-S with Intel BX, PII-400MHz
and 128Mb RAM and a big IBM HD. And for you money you can build
a farm of these kind of cheap computers then ;-)
I doubt that IDL makes use of the special PIII commands, so you
get only the speed factor of the CPU more performance.
(Note: I do not speak for HP or any other company or institution
here)
--
Michael Werger ------------o
ESA ESTEC & Praesepe B.V. |
Astrophysics Division mwerger@astro.estec.esa.nl|
| Postbus 299 http://astro.estec.esa.nl |
| 2200 AG Noordwijk +31 71 565 3783 (Voice)
o------------------- The Netherlands +31 71 565 4690 (FAX)
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| Re: Best,Fastest platform for IDL 5.2 (NT or UNIX) [message #17260 is a reply to message #17090] |
Fri, 17 September 1999 00:00 |
wmc
Messages: 117
Registered: February 1995
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Senior Member |
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Richard Tyc <richt@sbrc.umanitoba.ca> wrote:
> To add to the another similar post, I would like to know from the
> experts what system they would buy if they had $10K - $30K (speed being
> an important factor) ?
My recollection is that about 1 year to 6 months ago someone organised a
set of speed tests in IDL for a variety of platforms and published the
results on the web. Someone else will surely know the real reference or
perhaps dejanews will tell you.
I particularly liked the survey because our alpha-600 won in the cpu section ;-)
However, in terms of performance/price, I recall that pentium-type objects
came out on top.
-W.
[just looked it up: see ftp://iras2.tn.cornell.edu/pub/jdsmith/ for the results,
or search deja for "Speed Survey". It was in apr 1998 - perhaps time for a
re-run?]
--
William M Connolley | wmc@bas.ac.uk | http://www.nbs.ac.uk/public/icd/wmc/
Climate Modeller, British Antarctic Survey | Disclaimer: I speak for myself
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