Pentium 4s' and Distributed Computing (SETI, Folding) Will Hyperthreading give a boost?

[KDOG]

Ive been think about building several computers to do nothing but crack SETI and Folding and I was thinking, would the P4s HT capability give it a boost over the Athlon XPs? It seems to me that the "2 procs in one" would give a significant boost in this area. The plan is to get some cheap cases/PS, P4 mobo w/ onboard video, 256MB of PC2100 for each, cheap hard drive, CD rom, and hook them all up to a KB/mouse/monitor switchbox. Load up SETI on half of them, and Folding on the other half and let 'em rip. I'll need some kinda network setup since they gotta be able to connect to the net and dump their completed workload and get the new batch. So its a matter of cost/performance really. If there is no real diff in computing power in this area between the Athlon or P4, Ill get the Athlon cuz of the lower cost. But if not, it will be worth it to go P4 to get the better crunching power. What do you think?

 

[kazeakuma]

The P4s hyperthreading works on the assumption that there are enough spare cycles to run another task. Number crunching programs are very cpu intensive (obviously) but mostly do not stress the subsystem very much (which is where most of your missed cycles will come from as the cpu is waiting for more info). Of course it really depends on the program/datasets involved and I can't claim anything without actually benching HT versus non HT in seti etc. But I think that seeing as all they will be doing is straight number crunching it's unlikely that they will benefit from HT.

 

[Gatsby]

I believe you would get the effects of dual processors (almost a doubling of processor power but specifics are unsure) but if you want the best bang for the buck, go AMD. Intel HTs are damn expenisve (3 ghz only has it and that costs 300+ for the chip alone.

 

[sandorski]

Get some dual Opterons! Check out TomsHardware for the test results.

 

[Confused]

HyperThreading works best if there are 2 different types of processing going on, using totally different parts of the CPU.

Cost wise, you'd probably see a better output by getting a pair of Tbred B 1700+'s, nForce2 motherboards, RAM and setting up two seperate computers, and overclock the hell out of them!

Posting in the Distributed Computing forum would probably give you better answers, from people who actually have these processors and do this


Confused