[vtkusers] Choice of PC's

[Volpe, Christopher R (CRD)]

I know the imaging pipeline is set up to work multi-threaded, and the graphics pipeline might be
also, but I don't know how many real filters actually take advantage of it. Also, if you're not doing
a lot of data manipulation (filter execution), just fast viewing of existing data, then taking
advantage of multiple CPUs would require a graphics card whose display drivers have multi-threaded
capability (like, for example, 3DLabs's Oxygen series with its PowerThreads (TM) drivers.


|> -----Original Message-----
|> From: Dave Reed [mailto:dreed at capital.edu]
|> Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2001 10:44 AM
|> To: Volpe, Christopher R (CRD)
|> Cc: jdb54 at pantheon-po01.its.yale.edu; vtkusers at public.kitware.com
|> Subject: Re: [vtkusers] Choice of PC's
|> 
|> 
|> 
|> Also, I don't believe the vtk code (although I haven't looked at the
|> internal details) is set up to take advantage of multiple processors
|> (I'm certain one of the developers will correct me if I'm wrong) so
|> you're probably going to see very little benefit from a dual 
|> processor
|> system.  The OS will hopefully run on one processor while the vtk
|> program runs on the other, but the vtk program will not run on both
|> processors simultaneously.
|> 
|> Dave
|> 
|> 
|> > From: "Volpe, Christopher R (CRD)" <volpecr at crd.ge.com>
|> > Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 09:31:41 -0500 
|> > 
|> > Before buying a Pentium IV, read the following articles:
|> > http://www4.tomshardware.com/cpu/00q4/001120/index.html
|> > http://www4.tomshardware.com/cpu/00q4/001122/index.html
|> > http://www4.tomshardware.com/cpu/00q4/001125/index.html
|> > http://www4.tomshardware.com/cpu/00q4/001206/index.html
|> > 
|> > I'd buy a 1.2 GHz Athlon Thunderbird and load it up with 
|> lots of SDRAM rather than buying an
|> > overly-expensive RDRAM solution. 
|> > 
|> > |> -----Original Message-----
|> > |> From: jdb54 at pantheon-po01.its.yale.edu
|> > |> [mailto:jdb54 at pantheon-po01.its.yale.edu]
|> > |> Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 11:05 PM
|> > |> To: vtkusers at public.kitware.com
|> > |> Subject: [vtkusers] Choice of PC's
|> > |> 
|> > |> 
|> > |> I am planning on using VTK to visiual some large 
|> datasets.  I am 
|> > |> debating on whether to oder a Dell Dimension 8100 with a 
|> > |> 1.4Ghz Pentium 
|> > |> IV processor or a workstation with dual 800Mhz Pentium III 
|> > |> processors. 
|> > |> Which do you think will work better visualizing the data.
|> > |> The memory and graphics cards on the two systems are 
|> > |> comparable. Thank 
|> > |> you.
|> > |> 
|> > |> -James
|>