[R] Hardware for a new Workstation for best performance using R

[Andrew Perrin]

I can speak to some of these issues. I don't know about how much benefit 
you can get from SMP for *single* instances of R, though.

1.) Multicore will be helpful, at least, if you are running several 
instances of R at once.  So, for example, if you have people running two 
different models at the same time, the OS can use separate processors or 
cores for each instance.

2.) Yes, by all means you should use linux instead of windows. The 
graphics output is completely compatible with whatever applications you 
want to paste them into on Windows.  Linux is cheaper, stabler, and better 
at using the system's resources.

3.) If you're doing big datasets, you certainly need a 64-bit processor, 
operating system, and R.  Consider, perhaps, a dual-Athlon XP 64 machine 
with a big pile of RAM?

Andy

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew J Perrin - andrew_perrin (at) unc.edu - http://perrin.socsci.unc.edu
Assistant Professor of Sociology; Book Review Editor, _Social Forces_
University of North Carolina - CB#3210, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3210 USA
New Book: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/178592.ctl



On Thu, 15 Mar 2007, Sascha Morach wrote:

> Hi,
>
> we are looking for a new workstation for big datasets/applications (easily
> up to 100'000 records and up to 300 Variables) using R. As an example:
> Variable Selection for a multivariate regression using stepAIC.
>
> What is the best configuration for a workstation to reach a high performance
> level for computing with R?
>
> Single core or multi core (is R together with nws package really able to use
> advantage of multi core processors, any experience/benchmarks on that)?
>
> Shall we use Linux instead of Windows? If yes, how is the compatibility of
> graphics computed on Linux if we like to use them after on windows? And what
> are the advantages using Linux instead of Windows?
>
> What kind of workstations are you using (hardware and operating system) for
> big data computations? And are you satisfied with it?
>
> I'm quite familiar with pc or server hardware.
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> Sascha Morach
>
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