Multiproccessing

[Awaxx 0]

I currently have an "old" PII400->448 running on ASUS P2B with 256 RAM.

 

Does multiprocessing work and does it worth the cost of a new mainboard and a second PII400 or 2 brand new PIII or Athlon ?

 

I need power cos I'm working on 13000x8000 pix images with Photoshop, and waiting 20 minutes for a gaussian blur is too much.

 

Awx

 

(maybe buying a 10k HD or a RAID should be the solution, but I already have 44 Go in 5 HD, no more room in my tower (a big one) and it's nearly the same price)

[YuppieScum 0]

SMP does work. Any code that is written to be multithreaded will benefit from additional CPUs, and I reasonably sure that PhotoShop falls in to this category.

 

However, you may well find that another 256Mb of memory will give you a much bigger bang/buck ratio, given the tasks you're doing. Consider, how big (in Mb) are the images you're processing? If the OS is swapping out to disk all the time, an extra CPU won't help much . . .

 

Also, try doing things in stages...

1. Get the memory first (more memory is ALWAYS good)

2. Then get a fast P3 - the SIMD stuff will give PhotoShop an extra kick.

3. Then get a good SMP board - something with SCSI and a RAID option like the SuperMicro boards.

4. Then get the second CPU

 

You can swap the order of 2 & 3 if you like, but this means you can see the incremental difference of the updates, and you can spread the cost over several weeks/months.

[JKstang 0]

I would have to agree. You would probably find adding memory would be more helpful at this point. Keep in mind. That if you do decide to go with a dual motherboard later, you need to make sure your memory is registered memory, if you want more than 512Meg. Also, if you wait until the 840i boards are available in mid to late December, the prices for dual BX and GX boards should come down. If you want the latest, the new boards coming out from Supermicro and Tyan are very sweet. Namely the P3DM6 and the S2232 Thunder2000. Just wish they would come out with dual Athlon boards

 

If you do get a newer PIII and don't know what to do with your old PII400, maybe you could find someone to buy it.....

 

....hint, hint

[Awaxx 0]

For the SCSI, I already have a SCSI U2W card, with 38 Go in 4 SCSI disks (from 4.5 Go UW to 18.2 Go LVD).

 

Thx for the hint of waiting 840i, so dual card price will go down.

 

Right now, RAM is VERY expensive (200 $ for a 128 Mo, and I bought my 2 128 at 100 $ each 6 month ago) and I have only one slot left (new motherboard needed ?).

 

So I thk I will :

- buy a 22 inch display (only 1100 $ for an IIYAMA)

- wait for motherboard and RAM price to go down

- buy another 256 Mo RAM

- buy a dual ATHLON ....

 

 

Dreams are my reality.

 

Awx

 

 

PS : by the way, I'm just an engineer high school student, spending is nights and money on Photoshop.

[FearCourage 0]

As for your memory having to be registered, I don't believe that matters...Supermicro told me that my dual board with dual 600's didn't have to have registered memory..

[cyb97 0]

Multiprocessing in Photoshop works perfectly... If you have the money go for a clean SGI solution (www.sgi.com), if not I would recommend getting more RAM, if you can't afford a new motherboard and 1 or two more processors, upgrade the one you have to latest and hottest technology... (of course staying clear of AMD's emulated FPU CPU's (that would be all of them)). P3 and RAM would probably increase your speed more than new harddrives would, given that you have defragged and you have 10k rpm drives...

[Awaxx 0]

R U crazy guy ? I said I'm just a student not a professional user. So putting 4000 $ in single box with no screen is too much U know (I think I've already put 5000 $ in mine but have a 22" screen, 5 SCSI HD, a scanner and a big drawing tablet).

 

I know that a SGI solution would be cleaner than mine but, buying components and building my solution is MUCH cheaper.

[YuppieScum 0]

Check www.pricewatch.com - 128Mb is $140 at the moment, and 6 months ago I got some for $57 a pop . . .(sob)

[LocalHero 0]

Hey the Ram isnt anyones fault but that big guy in the sky bud...DAMN EARTHQUAKE, 238 for 128 here in the desert and online is no better....AHHHH however buy P3s while you can anyway I just wanted to say something to the dude who wrote about SGI machines....If you wanna buy name you bought a poor one. SGI suck bro 3rd in prefessional software (3d Designs lastest benchmarks) You coulda saved nearly 2000 and bought numero uno Intergraph with a wildcat 96 meg Video card and Quads got this one for 8999 hehehe awesome machine....Except This case its well totally awesome hehe lol Intergraph is the way to got 82 percent faster than home built and 28 percent faster the SGI (under Max R3 and photoshop and Maya 2.5) Adios Amigo

 

Keep Studying

 

Local

[chameleon 0]

Now that's putting your numbers where your mouth is! ;o)

 

chameleon win2kbox.8m.com

[Goaks 1]

Atually I have a Helios dual processor board. They were first made by Micronics then Diamond bought them out, then decided they did not want to be in the mother board business. They have four memory slots and will take 256 meg dimms. It will also support pII or pIII processors, I am currently runing dual pII 400, but am planing a migration to pIII 500's soon.

 

I am not sure of what scsi card you have but remember if you mix U2 and U all divices will run at only U speeds. I have a 2940 U2W which as different connectors for a U2 cable and a U cable.

 

The 10k drives will not increase your data threw put, but will decrease you access and seek times.

 

I just purchase a 256 meg dimm,Kingston for $297 on an auction. True this is only 8ns memory, but for a server or normal applications such as you have, this is plenty fast enough.

 

I am not sure what Diamond is selling those helios boards for now, but they work pretty darn good, and you dont have to have 2 cpu's to start with. They have a filler card so you can run one cpu then purchase another later.

[Awaxx 0]

OK, let's put every together :

 

* limitation are mainly from my CPU and my memory : boosting both will increase my speed, like a PIII 500, and 128 Mo or even 256 Mo more.

* multiproc mainboard aren't really good actualy or too expensive, must wait for i840 so old mainboard will go cheaper

* solution from big constructors (Intergraph or SGI) are better (cos build for) but much more expensive

* I shouldn't buy an AMD cos of emulated FPU

* if I have more RAM, my system won't have to swap to disk and a 10k disk won't be useful (anyway, a HD will never be as fast as RAM).

* I must be carefull when mixing Ultra and non Ultra SCSI devices or have a special card (like the one I actually own : Tekram DC390U2W)

 

but I wanna know, does multiproccessing REALLY increase performance or buying a PIII-600 and/or more RAM will be better than a dual PII 400.

 

Thk U for all Ur answers.

[JKstang 0]

Yes! Multiprocessing does really increase your performance. As long as certain conditions are met. 1)OS must be multiprocessor capable 2)The application you work with uses the power of additional CPU.

You will still see a slight profermance increase even if your application doesn't use multiprocessing, due to the fact that OS (Win2k) does use multiprocessors.

 

But enough babbling.

 

I believe, (unless I'm wrong), that what you what to know is: Is it a cost effective performance increase? Will dual PII 400s show a higher performance increase than an upgrade to PIII 600 and/or more memory?

 

In my humble opinion. No. It won't. I'm currently running dual PII 400s. And I personally notice no difference in performance from when I was running a single PIII 450. In fact, the single PIII 450 seemed to perform better. IMHO.

 

JK

[cyb97 0]

Quote:

Yes! Multiprocessing does really increase your performance. As long as certain conditions are met. 1)OS must be multiprocessor capable 2)The application you work with uses the power of additional CPU.

True true... but the increase you would see is not even near 80%... you must remember that the 2 CPU's share memory and other i/o buses.... Photoshop would definatly sport from 2 cpu's since it can perform multiple calculations... I recommend going for 2 cpu's... or at least go for a good dual mainboard with one good processor, and then save for the next one....
And as for the 10K rpm disks... you would benefit from them... (if you can afford it you should use a simple RAID solution). Lower access-time, means less waiting for writing and reading operations, which is alpha-omega when talking about paging and swapping...


[This message has been edited by cyb97 (edited 22 November 1999).]

[Steo 0]

On a cheaper scale,

 

the Kryotech Super cooled 1Ghz Athlon is a very nice single processor machine. Even got a warranty.

 

Fastest single chip system out there.

[Awaxx 0]

Thk U everybody for Ur answers. I finally made up my mind : I'll save money.

 

First because I don't have anymore right now (just bought IIYAMA Vision Master Pro 510 22 inch screen, hummmmmmm).

 

Later, I'll buy 32 SGI i540 quad-PIII-700 Xeon to put them in a HUGE cluster under Win2k Adv Server. So finally, I'll have the power I need (?). But, what about buying a Cray ?

 

Awx

 

[This message has been edited by Awaxx (edited 23 November 1999).]

[JKstang 0]

Quote:

Originally posted by Awaxx on 11-23-1999 12:46 AM
Later, I'll buy 32 SGI i540 quad-PIII-700 Xeon to put them in a HUGE cluster under Win2k Adv Server. So finally, I'll have the power I need (?). But, what about buying a Cray ?

Awx

[This message has been edited by Awaxx (edited 23 November 1999).]

Boy! You weren't kidding when you said dreams were your reality!

But, I like it! If your gonna dream, DREAM BIG!

Personally I want this: http://www.digital.com/alphaserver/gs140/gs140.html

Namely because a Cray or CrayII won't run any OS that I know and use.

JK

[FeeDBaCK 0]

Oh yeah... The GS140 rocks. I am currently running on an 8-way 700MHz GS140 running Tru64. Unfortunately, if you plan on running NT on this box, I suggest going with an 8-way Xeon instead. NT runs like sh*t on the Alpha, which is the main reason Compaq dropped NT. If you really want one of these bad boys, well, install Linux or Tru64.

 

Just for jollies:

 

GS140:

8 6/700MHz 21264 Alpha CPU

8 GB ECC SDRAM

2 HSZ80 Storage Array Controllers

24 9 GB 10K RPM U2W Hotswap SCSI Drives

2 18.2 GB 10K RPM U2W Hotswap SCSI Drives

Rackmount cabinet (for drives)

Tru64 UNIX 5.0 Server License & OS

 

Total System Cost: $748,943

 

PS - I am a Unix Admin and this is the system we just got as an upgrade for our aging AlphaServer 4100. This quote is only a month old, so it is fairly accurate. If anyone would like more information on this system (or Alphas in general) e-mail me at cgianelloni@revman.com