My "Evesham" node, (I don't know why the name shows as it does, it is Evesham, not evesham.opasia.dk), recently had a brain transplant.

Before, it ran with a 2.533GHz 533MHz FSB Northwood without HT. This was swapped with a 2.8GHz 800MHz with HT during the week. The MoBo etc, is relatively new and HT capable.

The thing is, it runs NT4, which does not allow HT to work.

Now I know very little about Linux, but am told the modern Linux distros will run HT. I also know from the boards here that Linux is not the best BOINC platform.

So, should I install Linux, (I have an "Ubuntu" disk), gain HT but loose whatever makes Linux bad for BOINC, or stay with NT4 without HT?

Answers like "Microsoft suck Linux is great", unless backed by a reasoned argument will be ignored.

*** EDIT ***

If it helps/makes a difference it runs

Rosetta 55%
Einstein 15%
SIMAP 15%
MCDN 15%

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Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

I would go with the Linux w/HT. The OS has little to do with the computing of the work units. I have a 2.8 ghz 800FSB and it has a RAC of 275 plus or minus, it runs 24/7. The fact of the HT will give you a 2nd logical processor and the 800 FSB will certainly have more throughput than without HT. Your L2 cache size will also make a difference. At present I use windows XP pro but am thinking of switching to a Linux distrubution also.

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The OS has little to do with the computing of the work units.

You would think not, but if you read the boards here and at the other projects, it would certainly seem to be the case that Linux equipped boxes return less then Windows ones, and Mac's return more than anything.

My "Foniks" node is a 3.2GHz 800FSB HT Prescott under XP, and it certainly chews up a lot of wu's relative to Evesham.

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Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

Adrian if it were a P4 800FSB Northwood it runs better without HT but Prescotts run better with HT on Windows boxes. I believe the difference to be 10-20% in favour of HT on Prescotts !

You will gain performance with a linux OS because of less background apps etc., but the main agent has been utilized for Windows XP which is the average main OS. The linux boy`s are more likely to find an optimisation sooner rather than later !

BTW I have seen of late that most Macs now are returning far less than Windows with the new credit scoring !

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Not all Czech`s bounce but I`d like to try with Barbar ;-)

Make no mistake This IS the TEDDIES TEAM.

if it were a P4 800FSB Northwood

It is an SL6WJ, thus 100% 2.8GHz, 800FSB Northwood. It is known as a "30 capper" by those that count such things, (I did look, yes it does have 30 capacitors on the under surface).

I know very little about Linux, so am unlikely to be able to tweak it for throughput. Thus it is a bog standard, as installed Linux, v a very tidy NT4 system running BOINC and a hot standby, but inactive Apache server, all extraneous tasks gone.

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Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

HT on vs off was one of the things I was interested in showing here:
old vs new comparison

Linux vs Windows was also supposed to have a dramatic effect; but it wasn't the 50% decrease that was being claimed.

The P4s that had a whole week's data were being sped up by the new credit system by 1.6 to 1.86 times the old credit system. The single P4 with HT on got a speedup of 1.98. I was having trouble finding identical machines to compare, although I should go back and add dgnuff's P4s running with HT on so there's a larger sample of HT on.

With your mix of Boinc apps, Rosetta should be running along side some other app almost all the time - so HT might benefit more than two Rosetta apps running side by side.

If you'll go through your 4 projects and identify what you've done in the last week for each project on that node; and then switch to HT on mode under Linux for a week - you can answer whether there's any change in your Rosetta scores; and if the other projects see an overall increase in credit (from HT on) or a decrease from the Linux benchmarks.

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Adrian believe me I was running Northwoods for a long time, they are NOT the same as Prescotts and run better/faster single threaded.

There was/is a vast amount of difference between the two.

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Not all Czech`s bounce but I`d like to try with Barbar ;-)

Make no mistake This IS the TEDDIES TEAM.