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From: Scot T. Martin on 13 Aug 2010 06:59
In case any one else runs into a similar problem, I sorted out the answer
to the slowness below. I pulled out one memory strip to drop from 8 MB to
6 MB and, presto, performance went from slow (rating of 1.13) to ultrafast
(rating of 5.50).

How to explain this? I believe it goes back to "following the
manufacturer's recommendation". That is, this computer is provided in
configurations of 6 MB or 12 MB. My IT department bought a 2 MB memory
strip and pumped it up from 6 to 8 MB. It seems there must be some kind of
hardware inbalancing in the memory that influences the speed of some
calculations; details are beyond my technical level. But the problem has
been fixed by "following the manufacturer's suggestion on memory
configurations".



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:38:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: Scot T. Martin <smartin(a)seas.harvard.edu>
Subject: further // Benchmark - 64 bit much slower than 32 bit (fwd)

This issue is more subtle than outlined in the last email because I ran
Benchmark[] on yet another computer that also has Windows 7 64-bit and got very
good results. Here is a full comparison --- any insights on the slow one?

**** FASTEST ****
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 650 @3.20GHz, 8.00 GB
=== System Information ===
Machine Name: smartin-t1500pc
System: Microsoft Windows (64-bit)
Date: August 11, 2010
Mathematica Version: 7.0.0
Benchmark Result: 4.71

smartin-t1500pc
Microsoft Windows (64-bit) 18.3 1.05 0.36 0.52 1.22 1.67 0.22
0.50 1.81 2.11 1.08 1.84 1.34 1.11 1.59 1.89


**** NEXT FASTEST ****
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8500(a)3.16 Ghz, 2.75 GB RAM
=== System Information ===
Machine Name: martin2
System: Microsoft Windows (32-bit)
Date: August 11, 2010
Mathematica Version: 7.0.0
Benchmark Result: 4.12


martin2
Microsoft Windows (32-bit) 20.9 1.20 0.59 0.83 1.25 1.89 0.44
0.77 2.61 1.83 1.42 2.05 1.45 1.25 1.42 1.91



*** WAY TOO SLOW (new system) ***
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU, W3680(a)3.33 GHz, 8.00 GB install, Windows 7 professional
64 bit
=== System Information ===
Machine Name: profmartinoffic
System: Microsoft Windows (64-bit)
Date: August 11, 2010
Mathematica Version: 7.0.0
Benchmark Result: 1.13

profmartinoffic
Microsoft Windows (64-bit) 76.2 1.87 0.33 0.39 26.10 1.83 0.23
0.48 1.89 1.70 0.84 1.72 1.05 1.15 23.80 12.80



original email:

Folks, just installed Mathematica on new Windows 7 64-bit machine and
Benchmark[] is much slower than on 32-bit Windows XP.
MathematicaMark7 Rating of new system is 1.13 compared to 4.12 of old system.

Any explanations for this? Details are below. Are many of Mathematica's
routines still in 32-bit and thus slower on 64-bit
machine? Is this an issue related to Windows XP compared to Windows 7 vis-a-vis
Mathematica?

Needless to say, new system is much better in terms of CPU, memory, etc., so
this result is very surprising to me. I'd like to
know what I can adjust to get a blazing Benchmark!


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