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 > > ______________________________________________ > [email protected] mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > ______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
