Hardware recommendations for factoring

[Mr. Odd]

Over 4 years ago, based on discussions on this board, I built a Linux box around the idea of "maximum cheap cores" for factoring large numbers and pursuing aliquot sequences:

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition
Asus M4A87TD/ USB3 Motherboard
16GB DDR3/1333 Memory
ATX Mid Tower w/ 600W Power supply
Nvidia GT560Ti Graphics w/ 1GB
1Tb 7200RPM SATA HD

It now runs really hot and, in fact, overheats the CPU and shuts down if I try to do any factoring. So, time to upgrade! A couple of questions:

- Is AMD still the preferred choice or is Intel the clear winner?
- I mostly use YAFU, which doesn't use the GPU. I know msieve does, though, so which graphics card would you recommend?

Thanks!

[Antonio]

Originally Posted by Mr. Odd

It now runs really hot and, in fact, overheats the CPU and shuts down if I try to do any factoring.Thanks!

Assuming you have kept the heatsink, fans and vents clear of dust this could be an indication that it's time to replace the thermal paste on your processor.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Mr. Odd

Over 4 years ago, based on discussions on this board, I built a Linux box around the idea of "maximum cheap cores" for factoring large numbers and pursuing aliquot sequences:

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition
Asus M4A87TD/ USB3 Motherboard
16GB DDR3/1333 Memory
ATX Mid Tower w/ 600W Power supply
Nvidia GT560Ti Graphics w/ 1GB
1Tb 7200RPM SATA HD

It now runs really hot and, in fact, overheats the CPU and shuts down if I try to do any factoring. So, time to upgrade! A couple of questions:

- Is AMD still the preferred choice or is Intel the clear winner?
- I mostly use YAFU, which doesn't use the GPU. I know msieve does, though, so which graphics card would you recommend?

Thanks!

That sounds a lot like the system which still runs here but was superseded a few months ago. It's the machine on which I'm typing this material.

/proc/cpuinfo reports:

processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 63
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz
stepping        : 2
microcode       : 0x2d
cpu MHz         : 3301.000
cache size      : 15360 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 12
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 6
apicid          : 0
initial apicid  : 0
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 15
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid dca sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm ida arat epb pln pts dtherm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid cqm xsaveopt cqm_llc cqm_occup_llc
bugs            :
bogomips        : 6732.55
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 46 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

with similar results for the other 11 cpus. In reality, of course, this is a 6-core hyperthreaded cpu. It's water-cooled for reliability.

32GB RAM seemed a good compromise between cost and the ability to run reasonably large LA jobs and/or multiple high-B2ECM processes concurrently.

I went for a Nvidia 970 for decent price-performance at factoring --- both ECM and for msieve's polynomial finding. GMP-ECM runs 832 curves in parallel.

[VBCurtis]

I second the 5820. I chose Nvidia 750ti for GPU-poly search and ECM stage 1.
I have 16GB ram, but 32 is cheaper now than 16 was when I built it.

[bsquared]

Originally Posted by Mr. Odd

- Is AMD still the preferred choice or is Intel the clear winner?
- I mostly use YAFU, which doesn't use the GPU. I know msieve does, though, so which graphics card would you recommend?

Thanks!

In my view Intel is the clear winner for factoring performance. So if that is your primary discriminator then go with Intel. Maybe in performance/$ AMD is competitive, but I have no data there. FWIW I stopped optimizing my SIQS code in yafu for AMD some time ago.

[henryzz]

If you include power then Intel will win hands down at least until Zen comes out. It will also win hands down verses your current system.
Broadwell-e has just come out in the last day or two. Either worth considering or waiting for prices to go down slightly on the haswell-e

[fivemack]

I too have an i7-5820K system with a GTX970 in it. I think I would be inclined to wait for the GTX1070 to come out before buying a new system; I don't think the Broadwell-E is much more exciting than the Haswell-E.

I also have a couple of bare-bones Haswell systems (an i7-4770 and an i7-4790K) which do sieving reasonably quickly.

[Mr. Odd]

Thanks for all the ideas so far!

Any particular motherboard/case recommendations?

Any significant impact from DDR3 vs DDR4 memory?