Dear Colin,

I agree with everything Tim and Kay said above. i5 or i7 of the same frequency and core count will perform similarly with Xeons (even across all generations of intel core/xeon processors). Adding more cores will help the refining process (under linux and mac only), but unless the computer is being used simultaneously by multiple users, I do not see the cost-effectiveness in running a 36-core/72-thread dual Xeon E5.

As to the OS choice, another interesting point regarding cost arises. Top performance Mac you can buy as of April 2016 is a 12-core 2.7Ghz Xeon (a 3-year old processor), setting you back a whooping 9000 USD. With the help of a tech-savvy student or postdoc, you can easily build something that runs circles around that mac pro with 1/3 of the cost. However you will have to live with Linux, which is not half bad if you get used to it.

I personally still prefer OSX and I run an old dell optiplex with a quad-core i5 (apple won't be happy but it is their fault for not updating their product). It only took me half a day to put OSX and all crystallization software I need on it and everything run like a dream. Due to the lack of performance and high price of Mac Pros, if you want a fast Mac, building a hackintosh is your only choice as of today.

Hope it helps.

Changrui

On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 3:57 AM, Kay Diederichs <kay.diederichs@uni-konstanz.de> wrote:

Colin,

check out the first option in the FAQ at
https://www.phenix-online.org/documentation/faqs/refine.html

A core i7 and a Xeon of the same generation are equally fast if their
frequency is the same. The main differences are that
- Xeon E3 supports ECC memory (most core i* don't)
- Xeon E5 supports Dual-CPU (core i* is just one)
- Xeon E7 supports multi-CPU and is very expensive
- most Xeons don't have built-in graphics whereas most core i* do
There are many other small differences but most of them irrelevant;
inspect the Wikipedia pages!

Xeons won't be faster with phenix.refine; a core i7 already has enough
cores - to increase their usage you'll have to recompile as per the FAQ.

HTH,

Kay

>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 07:56:39 +0000
> From: Colin Levy <C.Levy@manchester.ac.uk>
> To: "phenixbb@phenix-online.org" <phenixbb@phenix-online.org>
> Subject: [phenixbb] Hardward phenix.refine
> Message-ID: <773C4580-FA01-4246-86E9-2D73AFD98421@manchester.ac.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>
> Dear all,
>
> Having read the FAQ regarding hardware I have a few ideas but would greatly appreciate any input from the community or developers.
>
> Would anyone like to suggest the best configuration of hardware for running phenix.refine? I mainly operate in OSX but have no issue with switching operating system if I can get a faster setup.  My current thoughts are either something running a 4GHz Quad core i7 or an alternative would be a 3.7GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5 (iMac v Mac Pro) or equivalent Linux builds.
>
> I know that the i7 is reasonably fast as I have this setup in a different machine and phenix.refine runs reasonably quickly but as ever I would like it to be faster. Budget is not unlimited by any means but I would be interested in learning what an optimal setup might look like.
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Colin
>
>
> Manchester
> Protein
> Structure
> Facility
>
> Dr. Colin W. Levy
> MIB G034
> Tel.  0161 275 5090
> Mob.07786 197 554
> c.levy@manchester.ac.uk<mailto:c.levy@manchester.ac.uk>
>
>  Manchester Institute of Biotechnology | University of Manchester | 3.020 Garside Building | 131 Princess Street | Manchester | M1 7DN

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