[Xyzzy]

I have an 800MHz G4 running RC5 24x7 that I need to trade for 1 fast (2.4GHz) or 2 slow (1.3GHz) P4s running Prime95 24x7...

Right now I am getting somewhere around 6 million keys per second sustained... I think I can do 8 million per second, but I do use the computer...

Setting up Prime95 is easy... I can walk you through it via phone if necessary...

Thanks!

Mike (Xyzzy)
xyzzy@teamprimerib.com
919-286-4726

[Scotttheking]

Originally posted by Xyzzy:
<STRONG>I have an 800MHz G4 running RC5 24x7 that I need to trade for 1 fast (2.4GHz) or 2 slow (1.3GHz) P4s running Prime95 24x7...

Right now I am getting somewhere around 6 million keys per second sustained... I think I can do 8 million per second, but I do use the computer...

Setting up Prime95 is easy... I can walk you through it via phone if necessary...

Thanks!

Mike (Xyzzy)
xyzzy@teamprimerib.com
919-286-4726</STRONG>

No offense, but unless I'm mistaken, this trade is break even at best for the person who accepts this, while it'd give you a large increase.
I don't have a benchmark on RC5 production using the new P4 client in testing, so I can't say for sure, but this trade seems to be a little one sided to me.
I'll get back when I have more info.
If anyone can run the new beta client on a P4 and report on the benchmark score, I'd appreciate it.

--Scott

[Xyzzy]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:

No offense, but unless I'm mistaken, this trade is break even at best for the person who accepts this, while it'd give you a large increase.

My hope is there is someone out there stuck with a P4 or two, which I believe really does poorly at RC5, who wants to enhance their RC5 stats... I want to enhance my Prime95 stats... I looked at the processor charts at distributed.net and saw that the G4 is a lot faster than the P4 so I figured maybe someone would be up for it... If I read the chart properly, it would take several P4s to equal my G4...

But, maybe I read it wrong...

http://n0cgi.distributed.net/speed/q...mp;contest=rc5

In a nutshell:

800MHz G4 = ~8M keys per second...
1300MHz P4 = ~2M keys per second...
2400MHz P4 = ~3-3.5M keys per second...

I do know the G4 doesn't do prime checking very well...

In other words, you give me a setup that can do from 3-4M keys a second and I give you one that can do 8... These numbers, of course, are benchmark numbers...

It looks fair to me...

[ 05-12-2002: Message edited by: Xyzzy ]

[SkiBikeSki]

I don't think you'll find many Mac users with a P4. Most us of would have the self-repect to keep buying non-mainstream equipment, and get an Athlon. Also Mac users a likely to be more informed about the P4 lackluster performance.

PS A 800MHz G4 would check for primes a little better than an 800 PIII or Athlon. It's all integer math. And one could adapt the program to check four primes simultaneouly using Alti-Vec, so a G4 would outperform the rest.

[Xyzzy]

Originally posted by SkiBikeSki:

PS A 800MHz G4 would check for primes a little better than an 800 PIII or Athlon. It's all integer math. And one could adapt the program to check four primes simultaneouly using Alti-Vec, so a G4 would outperform the rest.

I can assure you that the G4 is a lousy platform for prime checking... I happen to "run" one (arguably the second largest) of the most powerful GIMPS teams (Team Prime Rib) in existance and from my experience it isn't even worth wasting the electricity to run a prime checking client on a Mac... The x86 client is highly optimised for the P4 and is written in assembly language... This particular project is the one project where the P4 kicks serious butt... It is vastly superior for Prime95 like the Altivec G4 is to RC5... I try to encourage team members to exploit the capabilities of their computers and honestly, I could never suggest to anyone to run GIMPS on a Mac... I also have a hard time justifying slow computers (200MHz and below) due to the cost of electricity...

If you get bored someday, we have a 108 page thread all about it here:
http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=122097561&m=36 80928671

Anyways, I posted here in desperation... I like my Mac, but it just sux at GIMPS... We already have a commanding lead in factoring, which is best suited for Athlons, and we are in 5th place (soon to be 4th) in the primality testing... I'm just scrambling for more boxes...

Home page - http://www.teamprimerib.com/
Stats page - http://rr1.teamprimerib.com/

I just thought maybe there was a hard core Macnn user who happened to have some P4s through no fault of his own...

[ 05-13-2002: Message edited by: Xyzzy ]

[reader50]

We have sometimes talked about processor swapping, but no deals have happened that I am aware of. Perhaps you will have better luck.

The premise is reasonable, there may well be users who have a P4 at work (and permission to run DC on it), but happen to prefer RC5 power. If we do get altivec clients on Folding/dFold, your sales position will improve dramatically.

Anyway, no need to be desperate in order to post here, we seldom bite.

[Scotttheking]

Sorry, there's a new P4 client in testing.
Apparently they used SSE2 or something to increase performance.
As a result, it's about twice as fast.
Those are the #s you'd need to use, not the old ones.

[SkiBikeSki]

I understand that the code is very optimized for a P4. I was just saying that the G4 isn't slow, just not as fast as the high MHz intel chips in this case. MHz for MHz they 'could' be equalls, provided there were optimizations for both.

[Xyzzy]

I returned my iMac for a 933 tower... It does ~9.5 million keys per second... My original offer still stands...

Mike (Xyzzy)