new computer

[catbird]

Computer take 2

Comments

[donaithnen]

When i try to follow the link it takes me to a sign in page =/

[catbird]

fixed now!

[zwilichkl]

Alright I'll bite (again). I'd get more RAM if at all possible. The linux box I do most of my calculations on has 32GB.

[catbird]

Thanks for all your suggestions btw!

So this will be a dev box, I will have a dedicated node on a cluster. Not sure on the exact spec's but at $15K I think it will be larger then anything I can reasonably get my hands on. The Dell machine has 4 memory slots (I've maxed out the memory they offer) as opposed to only 2 in the PforE machine.

All that being said right now the simulation size is ridiculously small. My PI claims he can't get it down past a 9hr run on an older cluster on campus (not the previously mentioned node) but I suspect that there is much room for optimization even though it's C code (for example, he overwrites a file at each iteration with the latest simulation data).

What flavor of Linux are you using?

[zwilichkl]

Ubuntu, and the other time I was doing computationally intensive stuff it was CentOS. I haven't been in charge of the administration on either one, though. That does remind me of the other reason I was thinking about an nVIDIA graphics card though, the drivers for ATI cards on linux boxes can be crappy. It looks like my info might be old (I guess ATI was bought?).

[catbird]

I'm not overly concerned with graphics (right now we are working on a 100x100 cell simulation with only a few thousand iterations). I figured that would be fairly easy to upgrade if I decided I needed to. Nothing was bought yet but the nVidia card is about $250 more expensive.

[xmuskrat]

Who uses a floppy drive anymore?

[catbird]

Not me but you can order one (I didn't).

[scherzoid]

I have an XPS 410 running Vista Ultimate. It rocks. And more RAM is always better.