[gmx-users] AMD vs. XEON

[Ilya Chorny]

Hello All

I am trying to decide between building a very small cluster using XEON
or ATHLON. What would you recommend? I have a dual 2800MP+ workstation
thats been working great and I would like to add two or three nodes to
it.

I benchmarked my computer and a dual 2.4 GHZ XEON  using the gromacs
benchmark systems d.dppc and d.villin. The XEON performed 7% better in
serial and 9% in parallel with two processors when running the d.dppc
code which has a much larger systen than d.villin. The reverse was true
for the d.villin calculation.

The price difference is roughly 20% with the AMD being cheaper

All input is appreciated.


Ilya