Ideal Development Machine Specifications

Hi I'm sorry to post this question here, I just wasn't able to find a suitable answer elsewhere. What is the actual (read : verifiable and/or presented in a report) gain in synthesis/p&r/map times and general usability of the ISE toolchain that can be achieved from using a dual-CPU modern PC (read : 3 GHz Pentium IV running under WinXP Pro) ? Is there actually something to gain from purchasing a second CPU (since the machine itself is bi-processorable) ? The typical device targetted device during development is a XC2V6000, so RAM will have to be in the 2/3 Gb range, but I'm especially interested in the CPU issue : 1 or 2 ? Thanks in advance to whoever might have an answer to this... Eric

Eric,

I don't think any of the tools currently available use the second processor for synth/P+R etc, but it means you can do other things while the machine's chomping away on your design.

Nial

------------------------------------------------ Nial Stewart Developments Ltd FPGA and High Speed Digital Design Cyclone PCI development/eval board

I use dual processor machines running NT4/Win2000 with ISE. I have not checked the latest version fully but with previous versions the dual processor does not usually give greater performance on place and route. The second processor is useful when you want to something else other than the place and route. If you are running tools outside the graphical interface then you can do 2 things. I often run two MPPRs simultaneously or run a MPPR whilst using Timing Analyser on completed result.

If you are after performance for a XC2V6000 design then consider more memory. Task manager will tell you how much is being used and if more would be useful. Be careful though, I believe NT4/WIn2000(Workstation) has a 2GB limit, I am not sure about XP limits. Linux can support more but I have not run this OS so I can't say any more about it.

Look at your disk performance. Consider a RAID array if don't already have one. Fast disk access will help a small bit.

John Adair Enterpoint Ltd.

The Xilinx tools are single threaded, but having two processors allows you to run two instances of the Xilinx software at the same time.

This can halve the number of machines you need in your server farm, which saves a lot of money, power and space.

In my current job, we have three designers running routes on one dual processor server. This works quite well.

In my last job, we had (before the redundancies) about 25 designers using about 10 machines in the server farm. Most of the servers could handle two jobs at once. The fastest machines usually had one or two jobs running; the slower ones were rarely used.

(Note: you'll need to have some custom software to allocate jobs to servers. This is a lot easier if you don't use the Xilinx GUI.)

None of this will make much sense if you are a "one-person shop" with only a single computer.

Regards, Allan.

Use Linux and you can take advantage of the second processor as well as processors on other Linux systems. The -m switch to par allows you to do a multi task run

-m = Multi task par run. File ", contains a list of node names on which to run the jobs. (This option is not currently supported on WIN NT/WIN 95 systems).

Even if there is no gain from the toolflow time, there is often a huge gain from a user-time, as now you can do ssh/email/web surfing while your jobs are running.

--
Nicholas C. Weaver                                 nweaver@cs.berkeley.edu

I agree. Throw in a GeForce FX 5800 card, and it'll be truely an Ideal machine :_)

snipped-for-privacy@cs.berkeley.edu

I'd rather have my Matrox dual head card with two big monitors, I recon it makes me a fair bit more productive.

Nial.

------------------------------------------------ Nial Stewart Developments Ltd FPGA and High Speed Digital Design

Yeah the extra desktop space is rather nice. Do you have LCD screens also by chance?

Thanks a lot to everyone for the various advices. For the techie lovers out there, the video car will be a NVidia Quadro 4 280 NVS with dual-screen output and DVI adapters, for the two Eizo 19" LCD screens. And yes, I'm drooling while I'm writing this... Once again, thanks a lot, and have a nice day... Eric

Unfortunately not :-(

Although the price of a decent 17" screen's down to just over £300, and the screen area is nearly as big as my 21" monitor. The thinner surrounds would mean there would be less breaking up the desktop too.

Matrox also do 4 monitor output graphics cards :-)

Nial.

------------------------------------------------ Nial Stewart Developments Ltd FPGA and High Speed Digital Design

Yeah considering 21" doesn't mean 21" of useful screen space, for CRTs. LCDs are a bit more honest. They're easier on the eyes too.

Though getting cheaper still a bit pricey for me. I really hope they can bring organic LED into high volume manufacturing.

Yeah so not only more virutal desktop space, but more real desktop space. I got enough junk on my desk already.

LOL. I think your brain would mutate from the EM waves coming from those CRTs ;_)

Regards, Vinh

P.S. Sorry Eric, for going off topic here, but it seems everyone has given you good advice already :_) In general sufficent RAM (to prevent the use of virtual memory) is more useful in all situations, while a dual CPU will only help when you do a lot of seedhunting or want to run another app while routing.

280 NVS with dual-screen output > and DVI adapters, for the two Eizo 19" LCD screens.

You gloating bastard ;_) How did you convince your boss, that's what I want to know! Enjoy and happy routing.

Vinh