[gmx-users] Benchmarking for Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 CPU

[Erik Lindahl]

Hi,

On Jan 2, 2007, at 4:15 PM, Eran Bosis wrote:

>
> We are considering purchasing an HP xw4400 workstation with
> Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 CPU. It is a quad-core and we were  
> wondering
> whether it would be 2x faster than a dual-core Intel Core 2 Duo E6700.
> Meaning, we intend to run two seperate processes, each one using  
> two cores,
> would each of the processors run in the speed of a E6700?
>
> Anyone has experience/benchmarking for this new processor ?

We've run quite a few tests on quad-core Xeons (clovertown), and  
while the CPUs are quite nice you will not get perfect scaling due to  
memory bandwidth limitations.

In best case, you can expect 80-90% efficiency for each job when  
running four independent ones in parallel, compared to running only a  
single job on the machine. If my memory serves me right the standard  
(non-Xeon) Core2 motherboards has slower memory, but hopefully it's  
not completely different.

Cheers,

Erik