Best PC HW (Dual? Quad?, 1 or 2 Processors?, 32 or 64 bit) regarding $/performance for LV 8.5 (DAQ and M-script intensive)?

[pieck@lanl.gov]

All,

we are looking forward to buy PC hardware that is worth the $$$ investment.

We intend to run a DAQ and M-script Data Analysis program (running sequentially) under LabVIEW 8.5.

I was hoping to find a benchmark sort-of-thing that would give me an idea on what type of performance improvement I could expect boosting the hardware.

I'm sure it is application dependent, however ...

So my question is:

    Is it worth spending the money for the stuff below or is a some point the return of invested money so low that one could go with less ????

- Dual or Quad Core Processor,

- 1 or 2 Processors

- Intel or AMD

- 32 or 64 bit

Has anyone some experience with that ???

What works and what doesn't work ???

Thanks for your time !!!

Martin 

[Wiebe@CARYA]

I've never bought anything out of the ordinairy for development with
LabVIEW. Any consumer PC will work. If you intend to do vision, or other
demanding stuff, buy a slightly higher end machine (although you might not
need it even then).

Dual or quad core can be benificial if you're going to run parallel tests.
Still, I never needed it. And dual core is very mainstream at the moment. I
think LabVIEW will run on 64 bit, but it won't help much since it's not
written for 64 bit.

It all depends on what you want to do. But when you're going to spend more
then 800$ (est.), you'll probably get less performance per $ since you'll
enter the early buyers market.

Regards,

Wiebe.

[SimonH]

Martin,

First of all if you haven't already seen it I'd recommend starting with this article discussing some of the factors that determine the speed of your application (multiple cores, multiple processors, clock speed, etc).

Multiple Cores/Processors

Going with multiple processing cores, whether it be a single multicore processor or multiple CPUs, will give you a significant speed increase for any parts of your code that can be executed in parallel.  You noted that your data acquisition and analysis will be running sequentially  -- however you can often still tweak your code to take advantage of parallelism.  I'd recommend taking a look at this whitepaper on optimizing test applications for multicore processors.  The examples and benchmarks in the whitepaper use NI-Scope but the same concepts would apply to a NI-DAQmx based application.


Additionally you will see the most benefit from switching to multiple cores if your application keeps a single core CPU very busy (high utilization).  Think of it like a road; adding more lanes won't help your car go any faster if you're the only car on the road.  However during rush hour additional lanes allow you to go faster because you don't have to wait behind other, slower cars.

CPU Brand

As far as I have seen there isn't much difference between similarly priced Intel and AMD processors although I am hardly the authority on that.  Perhaps the community can share their experiences there...

32 or 64 bit

Wiebe correctly notes that LabVIEW is not written for 64 bit so I'd recommend sticking with a 32 bit system for the time being.

Additional link you might find useful:

Multicore Programming Fundamentals Series


The optimal price/performance point for your hardware is going to depend on the specifics of your application and what you hope to get from it.  Hopefully some of the available resources help you make a more informed decision. 

Best of luck with your project!

Regards,

Simon H
Applications Engineer
National Instruments