Octane2 Performance Question...

[N8]

Hi There All!!

I had a question for you. I am in the process of buying an Octane2 and
have these two options:

1 Octane 2 with Single 400MHz Processor
1 V8 Graphics
2 x 73GB SCSI HD's (10,000RPM)
8 x 256MB RAM Chips

1 Octane 2 with dual 300MHz Processor
1 V8 Graphics
2 x 73GB SCSI HD's (10,000RPM)
8 x 256MB RAM Chips

Now im my past experience the duals on Macs are always faster and a
Dual 400Mhz G4 will cook a 500Mhz single G4...but being unfarmiliar
with the SGI systems at all I was curiouse what the performance
difference would be. I tried searching for benchmarks and such but I
found nothing that compares the two.

Thank you!!! :)

[Tony 'Nicoya' Mantler]

In article <***@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
"N8" <***@comcast.net> wrote:

: Now im my past experience the duals on Macs are always faster and a
: Dual 400Mhz G4 will cook a 500Mhz single G4...but being unfarmiliar
: with the SGI systems at all I was curiouse what the performance
: difference would be. I tried searching for benchmarks and such but I
: found nothing that compares the two.

The differences will be roughly the same as any other unix systems going from
single to dual.

Personally I'd opt for the dual, but it depends on your desired applications.


Cheers - Tony 'Nicoya' Mantler :)

[N8]

Post by Tony 'Nicoya' Mantler
Personally I'd opt for the dual, but it depends on your desired applications.

so you think that the general overall performance will be the same or
better than the single 400? My uses will be image editing, maya, and
video

Thanks! :)

[Tony 'Nicoya' Mantler]

In article <***@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
"N8" <***@comcast.net> wrote:

: > Personally I'd opt for the dual, but it depends on your desired
: > applications.
:
:
: so you think that the general overall performance will be the same or
: better than the single 400? My uses will be image editing, maya, and
: video
:
: Thanks! :)

If your apps are multi-threaded, or if you do more than one thing at once you'll
see a boost from the dual.

If you just want the fastest single-threaded single-task performance, you'll get
an edge with the faster single.

Since I'm primarily a developer, most cpu-eating things I do are multi-threaded,
so I opt for the dual.


Cheers - Tony 'Nicoya' Mantler :)

[m***@yahoo.com]

Post by N8
so you think that the general overall performance will be the same or
better than the single 400? My uses will be image editing, maya, and
video

For Maya and video, the dual would definitely be better. Indeed, many
system functions are automatically speeded up on dual systems. The
machin will feel 'snappier'.

For image editing, I guess it depends on what application you use;
for basic tasks with imgview, the graphics is doing most of the hard
work anyway, ie. hw-accelerated functions for rotate, zoom, and
adjustment
of brightness, contrast, sharpness, etc. A dual should make file
loading
quicker though.

Your choice of V8 is good. Plenty of available resolutions, and lots
of texture RAM space for Maya, imaging, etc.

Btw, 15k rpm drives can speed up some tasks by as much as 30%,
certainly for dealing with lots of small files anyway. Not had a
chance to test differences for processing a small number of large
files.

Lastly, the dual does offer you one other chunk of flexibility: the
ability to use one CPU for rendering or something, while using the
other for the main application, thus allowing you to continue working
uninterupted. This is definitely better in terms of overall
productivity.

Ian.

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