Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 16:31:59 -0700
Reply-To: Dennis Fisher <dfisher@CSULB.EDU>
Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: Dennis Fisher <dfisher@CSULB.EDU>
Organization: California State University Long Beach
Subject: Re: Dual Pentium IIIs or P4?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Your statement about SAS not being able to take advantage of dual processors is
confusing in light of a statement in the SAS Companion for the Microsoft Windows
Environment, Version 8. On page 150 it states:
"If your PC has multiple processors, SAS takes advantage of symmetric
multiprocessing (SMP) with Version 8 I/O enhancements."
Is this different from what you are saying, or would you please provide more
explanation.
Thank you.
Dennis Fisher
"William W. Viergever" wrote:
> At 06:58 PM 4/19/2001 +0000, D. Musto RA wrote:
> >Doesn anyone have opinions
>
> Are you kidding? .. <g>
>
> >about wether a windows machine running SAS V8.x will be faster with two
> >1ghz PIIIs or 1 1.5ghz P4. I have seen things that say the P4 is slower
> >than a comparable PIII
>
> for the 1.3 & 1.4 P4, and Office-type apps, I've read the same thing; the
> 1.5 might be better on some tests
>
> >but 1.5 is faster than 1.
>
> Yes, but between most of the SAS literature I've read, and my experience
> with my own 800MG to 1.7GB SAS datasets, disk I/O is by far the biggest
> bottleneck. Related to that are spindles, i.e., more drives means you can
> have your OS on one, SAS temp files on another, swap space on one more,
> to-be-read datasets on one, and to-be-written on yet another .. you see
> where I'm going ...
>
> The only other issue -and with SAS dataset size limitations, it's a
> non-issue- is the overall ram afforded by a 64-bit P4 vs. a 32-bit PIII ...
> terabytes (?) compared to gigabytes (don't quote me on this last part). But
> given that P4's *only* can use RAMBUS memory, which is quite expensive
> right now (monopoly in fact), this is not that much of an advantage either
> (Note: PIII's can use PC-133 SDRAM *or* RAMBUS).
>
> I'd also throw in the issue of CPU price proper, but if you're going dual
> PIII's you be out more $$ than a single P4 anyhow, especially since I just
> read Intel will soon release a 1.7 ghz P4 at $750 and immediately lower the
> CPU cost to $375.
>
> Couple of more tid-bits:
>
> Pros/Cons PIII:
> 1) SAS is still 32-bit
>
> Pros/Cons Dual CPU's
> 1) SAS *cannot* take advantage of dual CPU's
> 2) even if SAS can't take advantage, the OS, and possible other apps can -
> thus when you're system screeches to a crawl as you run Proc Summary
> against a 1.3GB file (that's a lot of I/O!), at least dual processors will
> help alleviate your pain, and more than likely at least allow you to play
> in a editor, spreadsheet, or word processor.
>
> >I will ususally be running SAS jobs that use pretty big datasets,
>
> see above re. "spindles" and disk I/O
>
> >and some of teh jobs take several hours.
>
> this is about the only place the P4 beats the PIII -all other things equal-
> for as you say: 1.5 > 1 <vbg>
>
> >I would like to be able to run more than one job at a time
>
> unless you've got a *ton* of spindles <g>, I'd advise against running
> multiple SAS jobs, in particular, if they are both bouncing off the *big*
> datasets
>
> >and I would like to do other things while SAS is processing.
>
> see above under Pros for Dual CPU's
>
> >The machine will be configured from scratch, so let me know if tehre is
> >something even more important than the processor speed.
>
> DISK, DISK, DISK speed.
>
> If I had your wallet, I'd go with:
>
> 1) dual 933mhz PIII (if you've got much $$ - go dual Xeon, w/ 1MB cache
> ea.) b/c I'm not sure if the 1ghz PIII's are still having troubles (IIRC,
> they pulled the 1st round at this speed and above) - if the latest PIII's >
> 1ghz are clean go as fast as you can on the dual PIII.
>
> 2) get an Adaptec 2160 (?) - it's their re-branded DPT Ultra 160 cached
> RAID controller, put 64 or 128 MB of cache on this
>
> 3) Get 5 36GB IBM UltraStar 15K rpm drives (I just paid $599 ea. for 2) and
> do 'em as RAID 5 (or keep 1 as is (and load your OS and apps on partitions
> off this 1st drive), and do 2 ea. as RAID 0 - or all 4 as raid 0 *if* you
> feel lucky <g>). Of course go w/ 5 18GB's if you need less space.
>
> 4) A good 64MB video card. 3dfx went under and NVidia is doing them now -
> and I like Matrox (from my old OS/2 days), there's ELSAs ... it's sorta
> personal preferences here ... and depending on if you're gonna do any
> gaming on this box <g>.
>
> 5) Getting old and blind <g>, so I went for a 21" ViewSonic P810 monitor
> last year, and I run it at 1280 x 1024. If I get another monitor soon
> though, it'll be a big plasma display!!! (when I win the Lotto!), but more
> likely an 18.1 TFT (aka Laptop) flat panel display made by IBM that I hear
> can be had for < $1500 these days. It can do 1280 x 1024 at some
> unbelievable refresh rate and it's 1 - 2 inches thick - also available in
> black.
>
> 6) Requisite CD and/or burners (Note: DVD-RAM drives -you can burn/store
> 9.5 GBs on a dual sided disk- can be had for under $600 now)
>
> 7) 64-bit, PCI Soundblaster WAV card, and some of the newer surround-sound
> speaker setups (i.e., 2-4 satellite speakers + sub-woofer)
>
> 8) and last, but not least, a new Herman-Miller Aeron chair <g>:
> http://www.hermanmiller.com/us/index.bbk/3430
>
> HTH,
>
> Later
>
> >I will be using Windows 2000.
> >
> >Thanks for any input!
> >
> >Adam
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> William W. Viergever Voice : (916) 483-8398
> Viergever & Associates Fax : (916) 486-1488
> A SAS Institute Quality Partner (USA) E-mail : wwvierg@attglobal.net
> Sacramento, CA 95825
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Dennis G. Fisher, Ph.D.
Director
Center for Behavior Research and Services
1090 Atlantic Avenue
Long Beach, CA 90813
562-495-2330
562-983-1421 fax
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