AMD CPU is better for Mastercam!!

[Stefan Salmen]

Just for info!!

 

Hardware -Test: AMD XP3000+ against INTEL Pentium 4 3GHz with Mastercam v9.1 on Windows XP

 

CPU: AMD XP 3000+ (399 Euro)

ASUS Mainboard A7N8X Deluxe (LAN,Sound and RAID Controller on Board)

RAM: 2 x 512MB DDR RAM 400 MHz

Graphicboard: PNY Quadro4 380 XGL AGP 64MB DDR (200 Euro)

 

CPU: Intel-Pentium IV 3,06 GHz (519 Euro)

ASUS Mainboard P4G8X Deluxe (LAN,Sound und RAID Controller on Board)

RAM: 4 x 512MB DDR RAM

Graphicboard: ATI Fire GL X1 AGP-Pro 256 MB DDR-RAM (999 Euro)

 

 

We used a capricious test part with about 5800 surfaces!

 

 

1. Rough pocket 3d (HSC) AMD - 30 Min Intel - 41 Min

AMD was 26,8 % faster

 

2. Finish contour 3d AMD - 114 Min Intel - 170 Min

AMD was 32,9 % faster

 

3. Finish parallel 3d AMD - 3 Min Intel - 4 Min

AMD was 25 % faster

 

 

We recommend our customers only graphicboards with NVIDIA chipsets.

E. g.

PNY Quadro4 380 XGL AGP8 64MB DDR

PNY Quadro4 750 XGL AGP 128MB DDR

 

 

Stefan

[kwolf]

Nice result for Athlon.

BTW are other parameters such as allocated RAM the same on both machines?

[Roger Peterson]

We did similar tests 6 to 8 months ago on athlon xp2200 and p4 2400 with rdram. At that time the Athlon was 100% faster. Supposedly the latest generation of p4, the northwood??, does handles calculations better. Appparently not enough. We have recommended Athlons with 512 mb of DDR ram and a NVIDIA G force 4 ti as a base system for quite some time.

 

We have had problems with raid though, has anyone tried "promise" raid. I am not farmiliar with it but any info would be appreciated.

[Bullines]

Stefan,

 

I'm just curious:

 

Did you try using identical video cards for both machines?

 

Are the hard drives running at the same speed (both DMA6, or 5 or etc.)?

 

The RAM on the Intel machine...is that DDR333?

 

What were the ambient case and CPU temperatures for each computer?

 

quote:

---

We have had problems with raid though, has anyone tried "promise" raid.

---

My advice is to avoid Promise IDE RAID controllers.

 

[ 05-06-2003, 02:41 PM: Message edited by: Bullines ]

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

quote:

---

We have had problems with raid though, has anyone tried "promise" raid. I am not farmiliar with it but any info would be appreciated.

---

RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Promise RAID = TROUBLE

 

Go Adaptec if you want to run RAID.

 

We've covered this before. If you do a Search, you can find a "spririted"discussion on the matter.

[Roger Peterson]

I personally don't want to run raid. I have had nothing but problems with many different programs. But, many of our customers continue to try. The lure of raid is a bit adictive to some. Anyhow on the boxes I tested they had the same graphics card with identical ram allocations in mastercam as well as the virtual memory. The only real difference between the two was the athlon had 512mb ddr and the p4 had 764mb rdram, I don't recall the speed of the ddr but the rdram was pc800. The p4 performed better on graphics benchmarks but I couldn't tell too much difference in rotating a large file around but there was a difference. But the time waiting for the toolpath to calculate was drastically reduced.

[Stefan Salmen]

Hi Bullines

quote:

---

Did you try using identical video cards for both machines?

---

No! We used a highend CAD-Graphic board into the Intel system (ATI Fire GL X1 AGP-Pro 256 MB DDR-RAM (999 Euro)and a low cost NVIDIA QUADRO 4 into the AMD system.

 

quote:

---

Are the hard drives running at the same speed (both DMA6, or 5 or etc.)?

---

The AMD-System was driven with a HARDWARE PROMISE RAID Contoller TX2000 (no problems with it)We don´t have any trouble with RAID 0 in our office.

 

I think the secret of the high performance of the AMD-system ist the NFORCE2 chipset of the motherborad. If you use 2 equal RAM Modules the system access with 128 bit to the memory. The magic word is "DUAL CHANNEL DDR400"

quote:

---

What were the ambient case and CPU temperatures for each computer?

---

The temperature of the AMD-system goes up to 65° Celsius (149°F)

 

Fact is, the AMD-System is cheaper with more performance as the Intel System!

 

Stefan

 

[ 05-07-2003, 04:50 AM: Message edited by: Stefan Salmen from InterCAM ]

[n_tydingco]

Interesting. Thanks for posting your test results. I'm wondering if those differences would also apply to other applications (i.e. video-editing, etc.).

[Bullines]

quote:

---

I think the secret of the high performance of the AMD-system ist the NFORCE2 chipset of the motherborad. If you use 2 equal RAM Modules the system access with 128 bit to the memory. The magic word is "DUAL CHANNEL DDR400".

---

Of course I don't want to sound like an Intel fanboy, but because of that fact alone, the benchmark's environment is not objective. Comparing a system using DDR333 (2.6GB/sec) with that containing dual channel DDR400 (6.4 GB/sec) is not objective. If both systems were running DDR333, then it would be an even comparisson.

 

quote:

---

The temperature of the AMD-system goes up to 65° Celsius (149°F)

---

Such is the bane of AMD CPUs; they run hotter. High case temperatures result in early aging of hardware which can factor into the overall cost of a computer over its lifetime. Unless someone builds a computer themselves, whitebox and OEMs building AMD systems routinely under-cool AMD computers. In comparison, my personal P4 2.4GHz (using the fan, heat sink and thin layer of heatsink compound on the heatsink that ships with boxed Intel CPUs) with 512MB DDR33 and a PNY GeForce4 Ti 4400, it runs at a comfy 36° Celsius

 

If we could take Mastercam into a proper benchmarking lab such as ZD's for one day....

 

[ 05-07-2003, 10:10 AM: Message edited by: Bullines ]

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

quote:

---

We used a highend CAD-Graphic board into the Intel system (ATI Fire GL X1 AGP-Pro 256 MB DDR-RAM (999 Euro)

---

ATI??? High End??? Tsk, tsk, tsk.... That right there invalidates the test. ATI is notorious for horrible Open GL implementation ans xxxx poor(new technical term) drivers. The card on the AMD system while I'm sure it is lower on the benchmarks, it has far superior Open GL implementation and more stable drivers thus making it a better performer in our type of application.

 

I've got an AMD K7 1200 here at work, and a PIII 800 at home. Identical Video Cards, Identical RAM. You would expect roughly a 30% increase in performance right? WRONG!!! It's more like 10% I'll stick with Intel until AMD addresses their heat issues. All I neeed id for my other hardware to suffer because the CPU operates at a toasty temperature.

 

JM2C

[Stefan Salmen]

Hi James,

 

u are right! I never recommend a ATI card!

But the price is highend (approx 1000 bucks)

We only work with NVIDIA cards!

 

Stefan

 

[ 05-07-2003, 10:48 AM: Message edited by: Stefan Salmen from InterCAM ]

[cadcam]

As for the raid the IDE raid has proven it self many times that it dose not work well.

 

Now as for the box I am typing on right noew and programming with it has a LSI Scsi raid 5 card running in Raid 5 with a total of 5 drives.

And runs nice.

 

[ 05-07-2003, 11:12 AM: Message edited by: cadcam ]

[Roger Peterson]

In the testing I have done the PIII's faired much better than the p4's. I had a PIII machine around 800 mhz that outperformed a P4 in the 1.2 to 1.4 ghz range. This was way over a year ago so I don't remember the specifics. The documentation that I read stated that the athlon can do 3 floating point calculations in a cycle. The p4 can only do 1. I am assuming that this is the difference but I don't "know".

[tmachine]

Could I suggest placing a 3d part with saved tool paths on the ftp where everyone could download and do a test like regen the toolpath. Or some other task that would take long enouph to measure the time to provide an exact test to compare machines.

 

Users interested could post their times and list their equip.

 

I would be interested in reviewing the results next time I upgrade or purchase hardware.

 

It might also reveal setup and allocation problems that we might no even know about.

[Eazy]

not to be an AMD fan. But I have been told that intel processors handle heat issues by reducing the clock speed as it heats up. I'll stick to my AMD running a bit hotter, but at FULL SPEED.

[Bullines]

quote:

---

But I have been told that intel processors handle heat issues by reducing the clock speed as it heats up.

---

That would be Intel's mobile line of CPUs for notebooks.

[Rick Damiani]

James:

 

quote:

---

ATI??? High End??? Tsk, tsk, tsk.... That right there invalidates the test. ATI is notorious for horrible Open GL implementation ans xxxx poor(new technical term) drivers.

---

ATI's FireGL line of boards are actually designed by a german company ATI purchased several years ago. They don't use the same chips and drivers found in ATIs consumer boards, and they have ISV-certified drivers avalible for many CAD/CAM and vizualization software packages. While I personally would stick with NVidia in a system I was building, ATI's FireGL line actually is a reasonalbe (if a bit overpriced) alternative.