Re: st: Stata MP performance

[Hua Peng <hpeng@stata.com>]

Alfonso Miranda <A.Miranda@ioe.ac.uk> has an analysis which is faster
when run in Stata/SE on a 2.8GHz Mac Pro as compared to Stata/MP8
on a 2.66GHz Windows 2008.

Alfonso should contact Stata technical support at
tech-support@stata.com with the program and the dataset since the
speed differences on two machines may very well depend on the
nature of the program. For example, if the main task of the
program is to merge datasets, then disk I/O speed becomes the
dominating factor. Of course, this is pure speculation without
seeing Miranda's program and dataset.

I will report back to the list for any findings.

Hua
--hpeng@stata.com


On 7/26/2010 8:10 AM, Alfonso Miranda wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> I just notice something strange about Stata/MP performance. I have access to
> two different systems:
>
> SYSTEM 1 (Desktop)
> - Hardware: Mac Pro computer with 2 Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors (2.8
> GHz, 12 MB L2 Cache per processor, 1.6 GHz Bus Speed), and 4 GB in memory.
>
> - Operating system: Mac OS X 10.5.8 (Leopard).
>
> - Stata Stata/SE 11.1 for Mac (64-bit Intel).
>
>
> SYSTEM 2 (MP Server)
> - Hardware: Dell PowerEdge R900 with 2 x 6 core Xeon X7460 (2.6GHz, 16MB L3
> cache, 1066MHz FSB, 130W TDP) 64GB memory ((16x4GB Dual Rank DIMMs) 667MHz
> FDB) The OS and page file are running on RAID1 2x300GB SAS 15k 3.5" disks
> run by a PERC 6/I internal RAID controller.
>
> The data (F and G drives) are sitting on an MD3000 external SAS array, which
> contains a RAID1 implementation of 4 x 1TB SATA II 7.2K 3.5 inch HD
>
> - Operating system: Windows 2008 (NOT R2), including all latest critical
> security patches
>
> - Stata / 8-core  MP for Windows (64bit x86-64)
>
>
> I put a process in my Mac desktop and it takes 244.3750 seconds to conclude
> (i.e., around 4min). Running the same process (same programme + same data)
> in my MP server takes 717.7790 seconds to conclude (I.e., around 12min). In
> other words, Stata/MP with 8 processors on SRC1 is at the moment 3 times
> slower than my Stata/SE in my Mac desktop, which I understand can only
> exploit the resources of a single core. This is strange indeed.
>
> Have you experience something similar?
>
> Any comments?
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Alfonso.
>
>
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