Thread Subject: Processor for matlab

Hello.
I'm trying to get a new computer for matlab tasks.
The main reason is the function "subs" is too slow with my current computer with AMD turion TL-56 (2 cores, each 1.8 ghz)

The candidates are
1. Macbook pro: intel core2duo 2.53 ghz 1066MHz frontside bus and 3MB of shared L2 cache, 4gb ram
2. Dell studio desktop: intel core 2 Quad Q9650 3.00GHz, 1333 frontside bus and 12MB L2 , 8gb ram

I heard that matlab with windows or linux on Mac is pretty fast, and that is the reason why I consider Macbook.

Question is,

Which one do you think is faster for matlab between 1. and 2. and how faster?

FYI, my job is mainly hugh matrix calculation including trigonometry and again, "subs" function makes my code run too slow.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

J

"Jae Sung " <zealot75@hotmail.com> wrote in message <h7p38i$c43$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> Hello.
> I'm trying to get a new computer for matlab tasks.
> The main reason is the function "subs" is too slow with my current computer with AMD turion TL-56 (2 cores, each 1.8 ghz)
>
> The candidates are
> 1. Macbook pro: intel core2duo 2.53 ghz 1066MHz frontside bus and 3MB of shared L2 cache, 4gb ram
> 2. Dell studio desktop: intel core 2 Quad Q9650 3.00GHz, 1333 frontside bus and 12MB L2 , 8gb ram
>
> I heard that matlab with windows or linux on Mac is pretty fast, and that is the reason why I consider Macbook.
>
> Question is,
>
> Which one do you think is faster for matlab between 1. and 2. and how faster?
>
> FYI, my job is mainly hugh matrix calculation including trigonometry and again, "subs" function makes my code run too slow.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> J

I haven't heard much about MATLAB being particularly faster on Macs. In fact, there have been about a dozen posts over the last few days about problems with MATLAB on Macs running Snow Leopard. From a hardware perspective, the Dell will be enormously faster than the Mac. Even if MATLAB were a little faster on Macs compared to Windows or Linux on equivalent hardware, there's no way it makes up the differences of:
1) quad core over dual core
2) 3 GHz over 2.53 GHz
3) 8gb ram over 4 gb ram (assuming 64-bit machines)

I would think the choice between the two candidates you proposed is clear. But could you provide model numbers or links? Also, is building your own an option?

Macbook pro's link is
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro?mco=NzcwNjc3MA

Dell's link is
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=dddoma4&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&kc=desktops_great_deals
Then, I customized.

I really appreciate for your opinion.
Additionally, could you just "guess" how much dell will be faster with proposed spec?

Thank you.



"Andy " <theorigamist@gmail.com> wrote in message <h7p42r$9la$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> "Jae Sung " <zealot75@hotmail.com> wrote in message <h7p38i$c43$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> > Hello.
> > I'm trying to get a new computer for matlab tasks.
> > The main reason is the function "subs" is too slow with my current computer with AMD turion TL-56 (2 cores, each 1.8 ghz)
> >
> > The candidates are
> > 1. Macbook pro: intel core2duo 2.53 ghz 1066MHz frontside bus and 3MB of shared L2 cache, 4gb ram
> > 2. Dell studio desktop: intel core 2 Quad Q9650 3.00GHz, 1333 frontside bus and 12MB L2 , 8gb ram
> >
> > I heard that matlab with windows or linux on Mac is pretty fast, and that is the reason why I consider Macbook.
> >
> > Question is,
> >
> > Which one do you think is faster for matlab between 1. and 2. and how faster?
> >
> > FYI, my job is mainly hugh matrix calculation including trigonometry and again, "subs" function makes my code run too slow.
> >
> > Thank you.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> >
> > J
>
> I haven't heard much about MATLAB being particularly faster on Macs. In fact, there have been about a dozen posts over the last few days about problems with MATLAB on Macs running Snow Leopard. From a hardware perspective, the Dell will be enormously faster than the Mac. Even if MATLAB were a little faster on Macs compared to Windows or Linux on equivalent hardware, there's no way it makes up the differences of:
> 1) quad core over dual core
> 2) 3 GHz over 2.53 GHz
> 3) 8gb ram over 4 gb ram (assuming 64-bit machines)
>
> I would think the choice between the two candidates you proposed is clear. But could you provide model numbers or links? Also, is building your own an option?

"Jae sung " <zealot75@hotmail.com> wrote in message <h7p54i$mkk$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> Macbook pro's link is
> http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro?mco=NzcwNjc3MA
>
> Dell's link is
> http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=dddoma4&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&kc=desktops_great_deals
> Then, I customized.
>
> I really appreciate for your opinion.
> Additionally, could you just "guess" how much dell will be faster with proposed spec?
>
> Thank you.
>
>
>
> "Andy " <theorigamist@gmail.com> wrote in message <h7p42r$9la$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> > "Jae Sung " <zealot75@hotmail.com> wrote in message <h7p38i$c43$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> > > Hello.
> > > I'm trying to get a new computer for matlab tasks.
> > > The main reason is the function "subs" is too slow with my current computer with AMD turion TL-56 (2 cores, each 1.8 ghz)
> > >
> > > The candidates are
> > > 1. Macbook pro: intel core2duo 2.53 ghz 1066MHz frontside bus and 3MB of shared L2 cache, 4gb ram
> > > 2. Dell studio desktop: intel core 2 Quad Q9650 3.00GHz, 1333 frontside bus and 12MB L2 , 8gb ram
> > >
> > > I heard that matlab with windows or linux on Mac is pretty fast, and that is the reason why I consider Macbook.
> > >
> > > Question is,
> > >
> > > Which one do you think is faster for matlab between 1. and 2. and how faster?
> > >
> > > FYI, my job is mainly hugh matrix calculation including trigonometry and again, "subs" function makes my code run too slow.
> > >
> > > Thank you.
> > >
> > > Sincerely,
> > >
> > > J
> >
> > I haven't heard much about MATLAB being particularly faster on Macs. In fact, there have been about a dozen posts over the last few days about problems with MATLAB on Macs running Snow Leopard. From a hardware perspective, the Dell will be enormously faster than the Mac. Even if MATLAB were a little faster on Macs compared to Windows or Linux on equivalent hardware, there's no way it makes up the differences of:
> > 1) quad core over dual core
> > 2) 3 GHz over 2.53 GHz
> > 3) 8gb ram over 4 gb ram (assuming 64-bit machines)
> >
> > I would think the choice between the two candidates you proposed is clear. But could you provide model numbers or links? Also, is building your own an option?

It's hard to quantify how much faster it would be. An average user probably wouldn't often notice the differences between them. But compiling code/running intense computations would bring out those differences immediately. At the very least, the Dell will certainly be faster than the Mac, and appears to cost hundreds of dollars less. For the two price points of the computers you linked to, you should not be deciding between that Mac and that Dell. You should be deciding between that Dell and a pre-built/home-made Core i7 machine costing around the same as that Mac. I would think a Core i7 920 machine with sufficient ram might give that Dell a run for its money. I don't know the specific speed differences well enough to comment on whether it's worth the jump in price.

> 1. Macbook pro: intel core2duo 2.53 ghz 1066MHz frontside bus and 3MB of shared L2 cache, 4gb ram

I think that the problems with MATLAB on Snow Leopard are relatively minor and most of them have been solved within the last week already, including the Java problems I had with fonts (see my other posts). It runs fine on my unibody Macbook Pro since the beginning and also after a clean install of Snow Leopard on the three-year old Mac Pro.

Speed differences are usually not significant between machines with similar components. We have observed slightly faster Mac Pro's compared to DELLs and HPs, all running Windows, all having the same Xeon processors, RAM, Harddrives. Apple explained this by saying, 'we built the mainboards as Intel wants us to build them". I cant comment on that. MATLAB 2009b Prerelease is 64bit and runs amazingly well and fast on my Macbook Pro (2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3), much faster than the current 32bit 2009a.

The main argument for Macs is the nice UNIX-based operating system that is - compared to Linux and other UNIXes - a full desktop operation system with the Adobe Creative Suite, MS Office (if you like that) and everything else you need to work with your computer aside of using MATLAB. That's why many of us here have switched to Macs who used LINUX PCs or - some years back - SUN workstations. You won't ever care much about drivers for new periphery or graphics cards, compatibilities with other operating systems (except for Windows that seems to be the only operating system that is not compatible with anything else), stability, performance etc. That is a critical point if productibility and efficiency is important for you.

The other argument for Macs is the very good (I do not say perfect) hardware. Having hundreds of computers at our department we observe lower rates of failures with Apple computers compared with other machines. And that's why we recently purchased 70 Mac Pro's and displays for teaching. We are running three operating systems on those, Mac OS 10.5, Windows XP and Suse Linux. As I start teaching MATLAB I ask the students to boot the operating system of their choice since I have installed MATLAB on all systems. Many of them are ending up with Mac OS X at the end of the semester.

I hope that this is a relatively fair description?

Martin