[R] Dual Core vs Quad Core

[Simon Blomberg]

I've been running R on a quad-core using Debian Gnu/Linux since March
this year, and I am very pleased with the performance.

Simon.


On Mon, 2007-12-17 at 20:13 -0500, Andrew Perrin wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Dec 2007, Kitty Lee wrote:
> 
> > Dear R-users,
> >
> > I use R to run spatial stuff and it takes up a lot of ram. Runs can take hours or days. I am thinking of getting a new desktop. Can R take advantage of the dual-core system?
> >
> > I have a dual-core computer at work. But it seems that right now R is using only one processor.
> >
> > The new computers feature quad core with 3GB of RAM. Can R take advantage of the 4 chips? Or am I better off getting a dual core with faster processing speed per chip?
> >
> > Thanks! Any advice would be really appreciated!
> >
> > K.
> 
> If I have my information right, R will use dual- or quad-cores if it's 
> doing two (or four) things at once. The second core will help a little bit 
> insofar as whatever else your machine is doing won't interfere with the 
> one core on which it's running, but generally things that take a single 
> thread will remain on a single core.
> 
> As for RAM, if you're doing memory-bound work you should certainly be 
> using a 64-bit machine and OS so you can utilize the larger memory space.
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Andrew J Perrin - andrew_perrin (at) unc.edu - http://perrin.socsci.unc.edu
> Associate Professor of Sociology; Book Review Editor, _Social Forces_
> University of North Carolina - CB#3210, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3210 USA
> 
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-- 
Simon Blomberg, BSc (Hons), PhD, MAppStat. 
Lecturer and Consultant Statistician 
Faculty of Biological and Chemical Sciences 
The University of Queensland 
St. Lucia Queensland 4072 
Australia
Room 320 Goddard Building (8)
T: +61 7 3365 2506 
email: S.Blomberg1_at_uq.edu.au

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