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
To: "[email protected]" Subject: [phenixbb] Hardward phenix.refine Message-ID: <[email protected]> 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 [email protected]mailto:[email protected]
Manchester Institute of Biotechnology | University of Manchester | 3.020 Garside Building | 131 Princess Street | Manchester | M1 7DN