I looked around for the most powerful desktop and settled on the Mac Pro.
Here are the specs (i configured a few):
Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
2GB (2x1GB)
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB or 4 x ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB
Whats the power guys?
Two ridiculously powerful processors and nice graphic cards.
I dont think I can buy since this setup costs like $3500. Seems cheaper if someone were to build it but I cant build computers myself. Awful at it. I feel proud when i can open up the desktop and clean out the dust and thats the best i can do.
This and two PS3 with home desktops running would be a pretty good small farm
What can Mac Pro do?!?!
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toTOW
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Re: What can Mac Pro do?!?!
Way too expensive for the PPD it'll produce ... 
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VijayPande
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Re: What can Mac Pro do?!?!
All of our desktops in our lab are 4-core or 8-core Mac Pros. They do very well with the OSX SMP client.
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toTOW
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Re: What can Mac Pro do?!?!
PPD ? PPD / $ ? 
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VijayPande
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Re: What can Mac Pro do?!?!
There's 2 questions here. Does it run well and does it produce the best PPD. I'm addressing the former and you're interested in the latter.
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toTOW
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Re: What can Mac Pro do?!?!
Always
But I still think that PPD is always the best way (for us, folders) to compare similar machines (ie : Linux/OSX SMP client). And the PPD/$ is a good indicator for the "investment" (don't forget to add 3 year of power cost in the machine cost).
But I still think that PPD is always the best way (for us, folders) to compare similar machines (ie : Linux/OSX SMP client). And the PPD/$ is a good indicator for the "investment" (don't forget to add 3 year of power cost in the machine cost).
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VijayPande
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Re: What can Mac Pro do?!?!
True, but note that not all folders are farmers. Some want to do something else in addition to folding with their machine 
If that's the case, one might want to buy something like a Mac pro (over a white box running linux or Windows) based on the other apps they want to run, etc.
If that's the case, one might want to buy something like a Mac pro (over a white box running linux or Windows) based on the other apps they want to run, etc.-
bowman
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Re: What can Mac Pro do?!?!
I thought SMP didn't scale beyond 4 cores, do you run two clients on those boxes?
Also, what are your plans regarding scaling for Intel's Nehalem, will we have to turn off simultaneous multithreading or will it be SMT aware? I saw a benchmark in which SMT yielded a 2x improvement in BOINC WCG. It can't be all that bad, can it?
Also, what are your plans regarding scaling for Intel's Nehalem, will we have to turn off simultaneous multithreading or will it be SMT aware? I saw a benchmark in which SMT yielded a 2x improvement in BOINC WCG. It can't be all that bad, can it?
FYI: not Professor Greg Bowman.
Re: What can Mac Pro do?!?!
It also makes more sense to buy 3 good Quad Core machines with a good Graphics cards to run GPU client on it also.
Rather than one machine.
Rather than one machine.