[ILUG] Thoughts on a compile box

[Kenn Humborg]

On Fri, Apr 28, 2000 at 10:03:49AM +0100, John N S Gill wrote:
>  
> > And the working set of a compile is probably a lot larger
> > than SETI, which disadvantages the Celeron even more, so
> > the Athlon with the 50% faster core, ??% faster memory
> > bus and larger cache would probably be faster overall.
> > Yea or nay?
> 
> > And if Dabs have Athlon 750s for the same price as 
> > two Celeron 533s, then I guess the Athlon is the one
> > to go for...
> 
> Another factor is that you only get significant benefit from multiple 
> processors when you are running multiple cpu bound processes simultaneously 
> ie if it is a single cpu bound process it will run on just one of your 
> celery chips and the Athlon wins hands down.... 

That's why we have make -j2.  It tells make to run two commands 
simultaneously, thus actually using both processors.

Remember, my primary motivation for buying a faster machine is to
speed up kernel compiles (much to the amusement of Niall O'Broin!).

So, choices, choices...  Athlon 750 or dual Celeron 533?  The
quest continues.

Later,
Kenn