Good parallel speedup with ABDADA and cutoff checks

[Milos]

If I run more than 2 copies of my engine on my i7, the NPS already drops ~20%.

That could be due to Turbo Boost if it's enabled.

Oh whoops, good catch.

I do all my speedup testing with turbo boost disabled.

Hope your 2670s are treating you well. I couldn't be more pleased with mine. I see that similar systems have become very rare and expensive on eBay, we really purchased at a good time!

They are! I love mine, too! We really lucked out I think.

They are still <100$ a piece on Aliexpress.
Amazing thing is that dual 2670s conf is as fast as Xeon E5-2690v4 which costs >2k$ just for CPU.

[matthewlai]

If I run more than 2 copies of my engine on my i7, the NPS already drops ~20%.

That could be due to Turbo Boost if it's enabled.

Oh whoops, good catch.

I do all my speedup testing with turbo boost disabled.

Hope your 2670s are treating you well. I couldn't be more pleased with mine. I see that similar systems have become very rare and expensive on eBay, we really purchased at a good time!

They are! I love mine, too! We really lucked out I think.

They are still <100$ a piece on Aliexpress.
Amazing thing is that dual 2670s conf is as fast as Xeon E5-2690v4 which costs >2k$ just for CPU.

I guess we have Intel's stagnation in the past few years to thank for that! In the past a chip 4 generations ago would be so slow that it wouldn't be worth the electricity to run it...

[TomKerrigan]

They are still <100$ a piece on Aliexpress.
Amazing thing is that dual 2670s conf is as fast as Xeon E5-2690v4 which costs >2k$ just for CPU.

The processors are still very cheap on eBay too (although not quite as cheap as they were--I got mine for $70 each) but the computers you can plug them into are more rare and expensive. When I bought last year, there were a bunch of Dell T5610s and HP Z620s for around $400-$500.

Now that I look again, there's still one relatively cheap Dell ($750) and several HPs (with the riser card for a 2nd CPU) for around $400, but overall the options seem to have become more limited and expensive.

(Building your own computer from new parts is a non-starter in terms of cost, since dual LGA 2011 motherboards alone tend to be in the mid-$300 range...)

[matthewlai]

They are still <100$ a piece on Aliexpress.
Amazing thing is that dual 2670s conf is as fast as Xeon E5-2690v4 which costs >2k$ just for CPU.

The processors are still very cheap on eBay too (although not quite as cheap as they were--I got mine for $70 each) but the computers you can plug them into are more rare and expensive. When I bought last year, there were a bunch of Dell T5610s and HP Z620s for around $400-$500.

Now that I look again, there's still one relatively cheap Dell ($750) and several HPs (with the riser card for a 2nd CPU) for around $400, but overall the options seem to have become more limited and expensive.

(Building your own computer from new parts is a non-starter in terms of cost, since dual LGA 2011 motherboards alone tend to be in the mid-$300 range...)

What I did was getting a 1U server and replacing the case. The servers are cheap presumably because they don't work very well as workstations out of the box (very loud, and most have pretty bad connectivity options that PC users care about). It was quite a bit of work because the screw hole locations are non-standard, and I had to build my own case with a laser cutter. It also requires a riser card to attach a video card (which is required because the motherboard only has VGA-out).

Probably wouldn't do that again, but it's one way to get a cheap dual-2011 motherboard.

[TomKerrigan]

...
I guess we have Intel's stagnation in the past few years to thank for that! In the past a chip 4 generations ago would be so slow that it wouldn't be worth the electricity to run it...

It will be interesting to see if that's because we have run up against a practical limit of x86 parallelism or if Intel is just being lazy due to lack of competition.

Certainly the slowdown in fab technology plays a role. New nodes are less frequent and often delayed. And these days the feature size (e.g., 14nm) is really more to do with marketing than the size of any particular thing on the chip, so the benefits of shrinking aren't as clear as they once were.

Happily, Apple is pushing the envelope in terms of IPC although unfortunately they don't compete directly with Intel, so Intel probably isn't feeling much competitive pressure from them.

Also happily, AMD's Ryzen is supposed to come out in a few weeks and we will find out if their new cores are really competitive with Intel's.

[TomKerrigan]

They are still <100$ a piece on Aliexpress.
Amazing thing is that dual 2670s conf is as fast as Xeon E5-2690v4 which costs >2k$ just for CPU.

The processors are still very cheap on eBay too (although not quite as cheap as they were--I got mine for $70 each) but the computers you can plug them into are more rare and expensive. When I bought last year, there were a bunch of Dell T5610s and HP Z620s for around $400-$500.

Now that I look again, there's still one relatively cheap Dell ($750) and several HPs (with the riser card for a 2nd CPU) for around $400, but overall the options seem to have become more limited and expensive.

(Building your own computer from new parts is a non-starter in terms of cost, since dual LGA 2011 motherboards alone tend to be in the mid-$300 range...)

What I did was getting a 1U server and replacing the case. The servers are cheap presumably because they don't work very well as workstations out of the box (very loud, and most have pretty bad connectivity options that PC users care about). It was quite a bit of work because the screw hole locations are non-standard, and I had to build my own case with a laser cutter. It also requires a riser card to attach a video card (which is required because the motherboard only has VGA-out).

Probably wouldn't do that again, but it's one way to get a cheap dual-2011 motherboard.

Oh wow, that's very industrious of you.

A couple years ago I bought a 1U server with dual 12-core AMDs for only $200. My apartment had a storage room under it and I put the server down there and didn't have to listen to it. (That being said, the wifi connection was spotty between floors and that was a constant headache...)

But I moved last year and my new place has a different storage situation, so to use the server I had to lug it out of storage (man those things seem heavy even though they're only ~40 lbs... very awkward shape!) and then be annoyed by the noise the whole time, because the thing was so loud that there was nowhere in my condo I could put it and no number of doors that I could close between me and it that would effectively dampen the noise.

Besides the noise, the weight, and the shape, the server was also annoying because it used so much power (200W+ when idle) and it [understandably] had an ancient Matrox graphics chip from the mid-90s and if I plugged it into a monitor in order to configure anything, I would spend literally minutes waiting for windows, etc. to draw.

That all being said, it did have 24 cores that ran at a pretty respectable clip, and that was great.

After I bought my Dell, I ended up selling the server on eBay. I stupidly charged a flat $30 for shipping because that's what I had paid originally, but shipping ended up being $120 because of the shape and weight of the thing and I only made a few dollars on the whole transaction. Oops!

In comparison, the Dell has been really great. It's the same weight, but a more convenient shape and it has nice handles so it can be moved very easily. It only uses 70W idle (270W under full load) and it's as quiet as most other modern desktop computers when idle... under load it makes a very noticeable amount of noise but it's still an order of magnitude quieter than the server. The performance is somewhat better (fewer cores, but each one is twice as fast). The BIOS is super modern (GUI, mouse support, etc.) and the graphics is a very-low-end but recent Nvidia Quadro which is very snappy at regular GUI stuff even at 1440p. So, everything about it is much better and I would recommend a similar setup to anyone. (Although I guess it's a bit of an unfair comparison since it did cost 3x more...)

[Milos]

They are still <100$ a piece on Aliexpress.
Amazing thing is that dual 2670s conf is as fast as Xeon E5-2690v4 which costs >2k$ just for CPU.

The processors are still very cheap on eBay too (although not quite as cheap as they were--I got mine for $70 each) but the computers you can plug them into are more rare and expensive. When I bought last year, there were a bunch of Dell T5610s and HP Z620s for around $400-$500.

Now that I look again, there's still one relatively cheap Dell ($750) and several HPs (with the riser card for a 2nd CPU) for around $400, but overall the options seem to have become more limited and expensive.

(Building your own computer from new parts is a non-starter in terms of cost, since dual LGA 2011 motherboards alone tend to be in the mid-$300 range...)

Building of your own is actually not that expensive at all, I got mine for under 600$ total, board (new ASUS ATX one, server board not different than any modern desktop board, i.e. VGA on board, USB3.0, PCIe Gen3 16x, 8 memory slots, etc.) was just under 300$, memory I bought from ebay for 2$/GB (Reg. DDR3 1600MHz), and CPUs for 80$ each, cooler bought only 1 (1 reused), case, power supply, GPU, SDDs and HDDs reused from older machine. And the best of all, it's so quiet, 35dB under full load, and 27-28dB in idle, i.e. completely inaudible.

[TomKerrigan]

They are still <100$ a piece on Aliexpress.
Amazing thing is that dual 2670s conf is as fast as Xeon E5-2690v4 which costs >2k$ just for CPU.

The processors are still very cheap on eBay too (although not quite as cheap as they were--I got mine for $70 each) but the computers you can plug them into are more rare and expensive. When I bought last year, there were a bunch of Dell T5610s and HP Z620s for around $400-$500.

Now that I look again, there's still one relatively cheap Dell ($750) and several HPs (with the riser card for a 2nd CPU) for around $400, but overall the options seem to have become more limited and expensive.

(Building your own computer from new parts is a non-starter in terms of cost, since dual LGA 2011 motherboards alone tend to be in the mid-$300 range...)

Building of your own is actually not that expensive at all, I got mine for under 600$ total, board (new ASUS ATX one) was just under 300$, memory I bought from ebay for 2$/GB (Reg. DDR3 1600MHz), and CPUs for 80$ each, cooler bought only 1 (1 reused), case, power supply, GPU, SDDs and HDDs reused from older machine.

I suppose it costs less if you already own a bunch of components.

Here's the breakdown on the computer I bought:

- $150 for the CPUs from eBay, includes shipping
- $399 for a Dell T5610, includes motherboard, coolers, 32GB RAM, power supply, case, DVD-RW drive, and low-end Nvidia Quadro
- ~$65 for a cheap SSD, USB wifi adapter, and DisplayPort cable from Amazon

Total cost ended up at $615 including shipping, etc. with no reused components.

If I were to buy the same thing now, it would end up being significantly more expensive, considering the cheapest Dell T5610 on eBay is $750...

[Milos]

I suppose it costs less if you already own a bunch of components.

Here's the breakdown on the computer I bought:

- $150 for the CPUs from eBay, includes shipping
- $399 for a Dell T5610, includes motherboard, coolers, 32GB RAM, power supply, case, DVD-RW drive, and low-end Nvidia Quadro
- ~$65 for a cheap SSD, USB wifi adapter, and DisplayPort cable from Amazon

Total cost ended up at $615 including shipping, etc. with no reused components.

If I were to buy the same thing now, it would end up being significantly more expensive, considering the cheapest Dell T5610 on eBay is $750...

I thought every one has some desktop laying around, or would be upgrading an existing desktop machine.
Big advantage is really that modern air coolers (and I am not talking Noctua's that cost 70-80$ a piece) but basic CoolMaster 212EVOs are more than adequate for cooling down non-OC Xeons and are even on full load almost inaudible. Plus you buy modern mainboard, so you get all the nice features, can plug in any GPU, have best PCIe performance, have bunch of USB3.0, most modern BIOS, organize your RAID as you wish, it is extremely power-efficient (much better than old server-box MBs), Xeons at idle are 20W each, MB is additional 30W and GPU is 20W (and I can even work without GPU, in case I really don't need it). Plus it works perfect on Win7/10 and you don't need server OS.

[matthewlai]

They are still <100$ a piece on Aliexpress.
Amazing thing is that dual 2670s conf is as fast as Xeon E5-2690v4 which costs >2k$ just for CPU.

The processors are still very cheap on eBay too (although not quite as cheap as they were--I got mine for $70 each) but the computers you can plug them into are more rare and expensive. When I bought last year, there were a bunch of Dell T5610s and HP Z620s for around $400-$500.

Now that I look again, there's still one relatively cheap Dell ($750) and several HPs (with the riser card for a 2nd CPU) for around $400, but overall the options seem to have become more limited and expensive.

(Building your own computer from new parts is a non-starter in terms of cost, since dual LGA 2011 motherboards alone tend to be in the mid-$300 range...)

What I did was getting a 1U server and replacing the case. The servers are cheap presumably because they don't work very well as workstations out of the box (very loud, and most have pretty bad connectivity options that PC users care about). It was quite a bit of work because the screw hole locations are non-standard, and I had to build my own case with a laser cutter. It also requires a riser card to attach a video card (which is required because the motherboard only has VGA-out).

Probably wouldn't do that again, but it's one way to get a cheap dual-2011 motherboard.

Oh wow, that's very industrious of you.

A couple years ago I bought a 1U server with dual 12-core AMDs for only $200. My apartment had a storage room under it and I put the server down there and didn't have to listen to it. (That being said, the wifi connection was spotty between floors and that was a constant headache...)

But I moved last year and my new place has a different storage situation, so to use the server I had to lug it out of storage (man those things seem heavy even though they're only ~40 lbs... very awkward shape!) and then be annoyed by the noise the whole time, because the thing was so loud that there was nowhere in my condo I could put it and no number of doors that I could close between me and it that would effectively dampen the noise.

Besides the noise, the weight, and the shape, the server was also annoying because it used so much power (200W+ when idle) and it [understandably] had an ancient Matrox graphics chip from the mid-90s and if I plugged it into a monitor in order to configure anything, I would spend literally minutes waiting for windows, etc. to draw.

That all being said, it did have 24 cores that ran at a pretty respectable clip, and that was great.

After I bought my Dell, I ended up selling the server on eBay. I stupidly charged a flat $30 for shipping because that's what I had paid originally, but shipping ended up being $120 because of the shape and weight of the thing and I only made a few dollars on the whole transaction. Oops!

In comparison, the Dell has been really great. It's the same weight, but a more convenient shape and it has nice handles so it can be moved very easily. It only uses 70W idle (270W under full load) and it's as quiet as most other modern desktop computers when idle... under load it makes a very noticeable amount of noise but it's still an order of magnitude quieter than the server. The performance is somewhat better (fewer cores, but each one is twice as fast). The BIOS is super modern (GUI, mouse support, etc.) and the graphics is a very-low-end but recent Nvidia Quadro which is very snappy at regular GUI stuff even at 1440p. So, everything about it is much better and I would recommend a similar setup to anyone. (Although I guess it's a bit of an unfair comparison since it did cost 3x more...)

Yeah I originally planned on just leaving it in my laundry room... but I could still hear it behind a closed door. It sounded like a jet engine at takeoff power when it's next to me, and a jet engine at cruise power behind a closed door.

My first mod attempt was to cut holes on the top of the case where the CPU heatsinks are, and use large fans blowing down at them to cool the CPUs (and disconnect the internal fans). That wasn't good enough however. 1U heatsinks are tiny, and they need extremely high airflow to be able to cool the CPUs. That's when I decided to just throw away the case entirely and build my own.

Mine also has an ancient Matrox chip (probably the same one?!), but I added a GTX 1060, so all is well now.