dual core processor

Hello,

Does anyone have experience with solidworks and dual core processors?
Especially in combination with quatro fx video cards from nvidea.

Or can someone give me some great specs for a computer configuration for
solidworks.

Geo Hagen

 

I think there was some data posted on this newsgroup not too long ago.
Dual core doesn't help SW in general, but might help it peripherally in
drawings and in Photoworks rendering.

NVidia doesn't make a Quattro. That would be Audi. NVidia makes a
Quadro and that works fine with single or dual core processors.

 

Stability? How can 24/7 and 28 days of continuous operation be
improved upon? The Intel across the hall with almost identical hardware
aside from the CPU croaks 3/4 times a day and generally has to be
rebooted to fix it.

My system has 4GB of Registered ECC ram and an AMD 64 FX53. The
reliability comes from a decent power supply and proper cooling of both
the CPU and memory and a reliable motherboard. The CPU is rarely going
to be the culprit when stability is the question. OS setup and drivers
are the usual stability culprits.

So the question is, just how fast is your new system? What does Ship in
a Bottle do?

 

....(comparing setting the processor affinity to one > versus two in task
manager)...

How do you do that? I don't find naything to that effect?

WT

 

Mike,

I had some minor problems with some K7 based machines several years ago, but
they were problems with the particular motherboard, not the CPU.

Our current FX and Opteron based machines are more stable than any Intel
machines we ever had. They use less power and run cooler than current Intel
chips as well. The reliabilty" argument doesn't hold much water anymore, if
it ever did. Look at the current top of the line super workstations from HP,
all dual Opteron. So are most of the IBM blade servers. And (almost forgot),
they're ALOT faster.

Regards

Mark

 

You're contradicting yourself, in the first paragraph you say that you
have an identical computer to the Intel except for the CPU and that the
Intel crashes all of the time. Then you go on to say that the CPU is
rarely the problem and it's cooling etc. (the later assertion being
correct btw.)

If his computer is crashing that much it's probably something other
than the fact that it's an Intel CPU. I have laptop 3.8 P4 and it never
crashes. Good RAM, Quadro card too. The thing is smokin fast and
stable.

 

Ok, no wonder I couldn't find it - not there on mine. I thought maybe I had
overlooked something that would make a difference with hyperthreading or
dual core.

WT

 

Hmmm, I have a dual core Xeon - then it should be there. When I look at a
process in Task Manager, I don't get the option you pointed out. Curious.

WT

 

Mike

Didn't think you "were" knocking AMD. I was just pointing out that the
reliability "myth" isn't really a reason for making such a decision. We used
to be all Intel as well, but when our first two P4 systems ran SW 25% slower
than our PIII 2.2ghz machines, I knew they had taken a giant step backwards.
The P4 is just a lousy chip for the types of operations used by modern 3D
CAD systems in general. It's optimized for consumer level multimedia. It
does do video decompression faster than AMD, but not by much.

Regards

Mark

 

XP Pro

WT

 

Rockstar,

I'm using the same logic that MJS is using. It is fallacious to say
that either an AMD or Intel CPU is the primary cause of instability in
most cases. In the case of my associate's computer it is more a case
of Dellitis than the CPU. I have been running various AMD chips from
the Athlon 700 on up to an XP64 FX53 24/7 for years. I have three Intel
CPUs running 24/7 also. The hardware problems I have had are two bad
power supplies, overheated memory, cat fur in the heat sink, a bad hard
drive and a bad CD ROM. When I set up, I give my systems a good
thrashing with various benchmarks including SPECapc and optimize system
settings for speed and stability. After that, routine housekeeping
like cleaning temp and defragging keep things humming. I hardly ever
reboot, especially my Linux box.

 

I'd really like to see some benchmark results for your system.

If anybody has some thoughts on how to benchmark the new drawing view
creation features let me know. I would sorely like to see what real
improvement this can give. And I would also like to see if two dual
core processors give additional improvement. From what I can see from
postings here the AMD64 4000+ is a tad faster than the FX53 with
straight SW. So with the dual core it should be really fast on
drawings. That is one place SW is sorely in need of help.

 

Mike,

I use MSI and Gigabyte boards. Bothe brands use either VIA or Nforce
(Nvidia) chipsets.

I used to be a big fan of ASUS, but they made the problamatic boards I spoke
of. They're probably OK now, but they left a bad taste in my mouth. (sound
familiar). My last Tyan board caught fire while I was at lunch, and a whole
group of Tyan based Tri Star machines that I bought all went bad. So,
needless to say, I avoid them as well. But then again, they may be OK now.

Regards

Mark

 

Well that's sort of what I had expected, but not here. Keep in mind that
this is XP32, if that makes a difference.

On the General tab of System Properties under the Computer heading, it
shows:

Intel(R)
Xeon(TM) CPU 3.20GHz
3.19 GHz, 3.00 GB of RAM
Physical Address Extension


Then on the Device Manager page it shows:

Computer
ACPI Multiprocessor PC

Processors
Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 3.20Ghz

Going to the View menu and checking Show Hidden Devices doesn't make any
more show up.

Thoughts? I was lead to believe that this processor was dual core, but I
never could prove it.

WT

 

1 graph. However, when this machine had XP64 on it, I noticed that it did
have two CPU graphs. I also took another look at the BIOS and it's only
showing CPU 0: and none other. So, all this is making me wonder if it's not
going to happen with XP32 on this machine. On the other hand, why not??

WT

 

I would suggest, (although you may have tried all this)

1. Task Manager, click the performance TAB, then View / CPU History /
check One CPU per graph.
http://www.solidengineering.co.nz/help/taskmanager.jpg

2. Is there a switch in the BIOS to enable both cores?

3. check to see if there is a BIOS upgrade available.

And once you get it going read link below, it has some interesting
reading regarding Hyperthreading. Maybe I shouldn't have turned
Hyperthreading off on my clients SolidWorks PC after all.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040528/


John Layne
www.solidengineering.co.nz

 

1. No choice there.

2. No, or I haven't found it, although I have studied it several times.

3. Haven't yet, but will.

Read the link - interesting. I had tried HT on & off and came to the
conclusion that my machine was slightly better at doing other work while SW
was chunking away if HT were turned off. Seemed backwards, but that was my
gut feel. I'm not done with this thing yet.......

WT

 

Keep us posted!

Found this info below from

http://www.digit-life.com/articles/pentium4xeonhyperthreading/

"When we installed one Xeon on the Prestonia core the BIOS informed
about two CPUs; in case of two processors it informs of 4. The operating
system identifies "both processors" without problems, but only if two
conditions below are met.

First of all, the CMOS Setup of the latest BIOS versions of the
Supermicro P4DCxx board has item Enable Hyper-Threading; if it is
disabled the OS identifies only physical processors. Secondly, the ACPI
is used to inform the OS about additional logical processors. That is
why to enable the Hyper-Threading the ACPI must be activated in the CMOS
Setup, and the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) with ACPI support must
also be enabled for the OS. Fortunately, in the Windows 2000 it's easy
to change the HAL from the Standard PC (or MPS Uni-/Multiprocessor PC)
to ACPI Uni-/Multiprocessor PC by changing the "computer driver" in the
device manager. At the same time, the only way in the Windows XP to
switch to the ACPI HAL is to install the system over the current one."

You seem to hav the correct HAL installed

 

Maybe this explains it???? I turned on HT and now can see 2
processors both in Device Manager & Task Manager. So dual core at this time
is a myth???





Intel® Processor Family
Projected Platform Release Date

Intel® Itanium® 2 Dual-Core Processor
4QTR, 2005

Intel® XeonT Dual-Core Processor MP
4QTR, 2005

Intel® XeonT Dual-Core Processor
4QTR, 2005


None of the Intel links list dual core - bah humbug! What a misuse of time
& expectation. I am still investigating the effect of turning HT on/off and
setting the affinity. I'm tired - time to go home to
sleeeeeeeeeeppppppzzzzzzzz..........................

WT