Best platform for non-graphic applications ! Need help !

Pentium D 920 + Intel motherboard*
2x 512 MB DDR2-533/667 RAM

*There are quite a few for the Pentium D, you just need to select one with features suiting you best.

Why?

I use Visual Studio at the labs at Phoenix College. They are running Visual Studio on P3 machines successfully, so you really don't need a high end machine to run that program.

Since it doesn't seem to be much of an issue for you, I would suggest you get whichever processor/motherboard combo is cheaper, and spend the saved money on RAM and/or video card, as they seem to make a bigger difference than the processor.

For compiling (e.g. C++), AMD is definitely far better than the netburst Intel.

Get 3800+X2. Or maybe higher frequency single core with 1MB cache.

Mirek

I`d say stay with AMD and get a Dual-Core system (if you can afford one) or an Athlon 64 System with a MB with integrated Graphics and at least a 512megs of ram with a 40gb hd (or larger).

Opteron 165 + 2GB PC3200 RAM.

Semper Fi Carry^H^H^H^H^H Linux on :-D

If your going to go for the Intel, get the Pentium D 9xx series. I have a 950 and it's incredible. Blazing fast and doesn't sweat.

After doing some heavy surfing it seems the AMD is somewhat better for this kind of thing. I'm leaning towards the AMD 3800 + X2. Anyway the dual core is def a good idea for almost anyone except heavy gamers, where there isn't much use for the 2nd proc nowdays.

Long time reader, first time poster, but I can lend experience to this question.

I am a developer for a major corporation and I work a lot in Visual Studio 6 and VS 2003. My current project has well over 1500 C++ files. I use a Dell Precision 470 with dual Xeon 3.6 GHz (single cores) and 2GB ram and it still takes over 10 minutes to build. If you are going to be doing hard core development get all the horsepower you can!

Since we are exclusively Dell I don't have personal experience with Opterons but either way I would get a workstation/server class proc for development. I can say that when maxed out doing a build you can almost see the heat roll off the Xeons!

I do know from pricing it out you get build a dual proc, dual core Opteron system with hot swap SATA Raid for about $2200 which is probaly half what a comparable Dell would run.

Indeed VS is a major resource hog.

The more CPUs / CPU cores and RAM you can throw at it the better.

OK, to add numbers, one of my projects has 750 C++ files, 300000 lines and using MSC71 and U++ Blitz build, it rebuilds in

1:20 on single core AMD64@2.4Ghz/754/512KB cache/1GB ram,
1:05 on single core AMD64@2.4Ghz/939/512KB cache/2GB ram,
0:40 on dual core AMD64X2@2.4Ghz/939/512KB cache/2GB ram using multiprocess concurrent building (U++ HYDRA)



Agree!



Actually, similar with AMD64 after first 30 seconds.



I am not so sure about dual-core and Visual Studio. Are you sure that visual studio is able to actually USE dual core?

MSC++ compiler is designed in a way that makes it somewhat difficult : .pdb files are shared across several sources files, that is the real trouble when using more concurrent processes to do things and only possible solution makes is less than ideal for 2 cores, going over 2 cores is almost useless. If Visual Studion does not support concurrent compiling, going multicore is wasting of money (unless you are going to use alternative build system, of course).

Mirek

Oh well, I thought he might not want to spend THAT much?

I am not so sure about dual-core and Visual Studio. Are you sure that visual studio is able to actually USE dual core?

Mirek[/quote]

I'm pretty sure VS doesn't support dual core builds but I thought that one proc
would do the build and another any other apps running. Plus with the explosion of dual core popularity I think Microsoft will prolly do somthing about this.

I'm pretty sure VS doesn't support dual core builds but I thought that one proc
would do the build and another any other apps running. Plus with the explosion of dual core popularity I think Microsoft will prolly do somthing about this.

LOL

gcc/g++ can use multiple CPUs and multiple cores.    

I'm pretty sure VS doesn't support dual core builds but I thought that one proc
would do the build and another any other apps running. Plus with the explosion of dual core popularity I think Microsoft will prolly do somthing about this.

LOL

gcc/g++ can use multiple CPUs and multiple cores.    

What a pity that gcc/g++ is so much slower than MSC that even with dual core build it builds 50-100% slower than MSC singlecore...

Mirek

I just searched thru the Microsoft site and VS 2005 builds a solution automatically using multiple processors ... with a project/ proc ratio.

I'm pretty sure VS doesn't support dual core builds but I thought that one proc
would do the build and another any other apps running. Plus with the explosion of dual core popularity I think Microsoft will prolly do somthing about this.

LOL

gcc/g++ can use multiple CPUs and multiple cores.    

What a pity that gcc/g++ is so much slower than MSC that even with dual core build it builds 50-100% slower than MSC singlecore...

Mirek


gcc/g++ is slow but not that slow.

Hey if you don't like it write your own       :wink: