On Sat, Jan 22, 2011 at 6:37 PM, Santosh Srinivas <santosh.srini...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Marc, > > I've exactly the same question and it looks like most of the heavy users > from the threads I've followed use Unix/Linux/Mac. > Some threads have given rationale for a 64bit system due to memory benefits > but there seems to be not much buy-in from the guys here (so I'd give that a > pass). The CRAN page also isn't very excited about 64bit for now.
Really? Perhaps I do not understand what you meant, but doesn't most HPC work take > (2^32) bytes of memory? > > As David mentioned, Dirk's work seems to be hungry from speed and I closely > (try to) follow his work. > >From his blog, he uses a "Debian Linux system" and that is what I've set up > for myself. This obviously may just be a matter of coincidence. > (But, saves me a lot of time trying to figure out issues related to the > other OS's. Also, many authors of the packages that I use really don't have > the time or inclination to make is Windoze friendly.) > > My 2p in transition. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: r-help-boun...@r-project.org [mailto:r-help-boun...@r-project.org] On > Behalf Of David Winsemius > Sent: 22 January 2011 21:02 > To: Marc Jekel > Cc: r-help@r-project.org Help > Subject: Re: [R] which operating system + computer specifications lead to > the best performance for R? > > > On Jan 22, 2011, at 10:03 AM, Sascha Vieweg wrote: > >> On 11-01-22 14:56, Marc Jekel wrote: >> >>> I have the opportunity to buy a new computer for my simulations in >>> R. My goal is to get the execution of R code as fast as possible. I >>> know that the number of cores and the working memory capacity are >>> crucial for computer performance but maybe someone has experience/ >>> knowledge which comp specifications are especially crucial >>> (especially in relation to R). Is there any knowledge on the >>> performance of R for different operating systems (Linux, Win, Mac >>> etc.) resp. is performance dependent on the operating system at >>> all? Even small differences in performance (i.e., speed of >>> calculations) matter for me (quite large datasets + repeated >>> calculations etc.). >> >> Not really a recommendation, just my considerations: That depends on >> your budget, Mac Pro (5k$ in the U.S.) would probably serve your >> needs for a long time ;-). I am running R 2.12.0 on a MacBook Pro, >> 2.4 Dual Core with (only) 2G ram, together with (paid) TextMate as >> editor, and Sweave. 2G ram is few! And I noted remarkable >> improvements whan I was lucky to use a MBP Intel Core i5 for a >> couple of days. Whatever processor and memory, I like the easy >> interplay between R and the Unix environment (things like passing >> shell commands from R to my system or other interpreters), easy >> graphics etc. > > I also use a MacPro (circa early 1998) R 2.12.1 with 24 GB and still > find it generally very capable for a dataset of 5.5 MM rows and about > 150 variables using the survival and rms packages. I seem to remember > a price of 4KUS$ but I didn't write that check. I haven't succeeded in > getting the multi-processor applications to work, however, and my > guess is that Linux boxes (and Linux users) may be more likely to > offer paths to success if that is an expectation. I am mostly > interested in having adequate memory space for one core anyway, as > most of the packages I use don't seem to be set up for parallel > execution. > > It may depend on what development system you use and which packages > you expect to install. I know there are people with the StatET- > equipped systems out there but I have never been able to get a working > setup on my Mac. Too many moving parts and the gears don't seem to > mesh out of the box. Same with GTK2+ and its R friends. > > This would be better posted on the HPC mailing list anyway: > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-hpc > > You might want to search with "Dirk Eddelbuettel" in your search > string, since he seems to share your "need for speed" and has > championed various approaches to High Performance Computing with R: > http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/bio/presentations.html >> > > -- > > David Winsemius, MD > West Hartford, CT -- Joshua Wiley Ph.D. Student, Health Psychology University of California, Los Angeles http://www.joshuawiley.com/ ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.