Mathematics and Statistics Packages....what limits them?

[thebski]

Hey all,

For programs such as SAS, Stata, MatLab, R, etc. what limits them hardware wise? I'm going to be upgrading my desktop soon and want to know if its worth worry about going to 6 cores or not. Are these applications multithreaded so simulations and iterations can be done simultaneously across all cores/threads? Just need to know what hardware components limit programs like these. Thanks!

 

[hang-the-9]

They are for sure multi-threaded, but for specifics you need to check each of the programs for their system reqs. The biggest issue would be not so much if they are multi-threaded but how much so. Some applications can't handle more than 2 cores. In your case, we can't make a sweeping statement about every program in this field, need to find out for each one how they will work on a multi-core system.

 

[thebski]

Ok, thanks for the reply. Any idea on how to get this information? Company websites? I will say in order of use for me goes 1. Stata, 2. Matlab, 3. SAS. I only use R in classes that teach out of it.

I have an i7 920 and I'm going to be upgrading in the next few months. I'm trying to decide if a 6 core SB-E will benefit me, or if I'm better of sticking with regular SB and saving some money. I'm willing to pony up for the 6 core if it will benefit me, but If basically everything can use a max of 4 cores then I'm not going to spend the extra 300 on 2 more cores.

 

[hang-the-9]

The sites for the programs are for sure where you want to look. There are probably some in-depth reviews of performance of these programs out there also that may have more detailed info and less marketing to wade though. If you are looking at info for these programs I'm sure you can get a good web query to find that