Hi Jan;
Indeed you consider buying more machines with less cores per CPU:
In multi-core, the memory bandwidth is limited per CPU, (the current specific case of intel is even worth, there a strong limit on the shared CPU bandwidth).
If the process you plan to be running are memory bandwidth bound, you will be better off with multiple machines. The main difficulty is to know if you are in such a situation, the only realistic way to know is to experiment!
Now that I have answered the non asked question, here's my opinion on your question : unless you have very large problem, using 32bits executable will be safer. Still you can have a large memory >4GB and a 64bits system (the system will use all the memory, but each process will have acces to max 4GB -indeed likely less, but at least 2GB-).
Hope this helps.
Serge.
Hi all,
we are looking into a multicore Xeon number cruncher with loads of memory. Are there any known issues we should consider regarding large memory (>4GB), 32bit vs. 64bit, and ccp4 or other crystallographic programs running on these systems? Only thinking linux at this point...
Thanks a lot for any input!
Jan
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Jan Abendroth
deCODE biostructures
Seattle / Bainbridge Island, WA, USA
work: JAbendroth_at_decode.com
home:
Jan.Abendroth_at_gmail.com