New Computer specification?

M

mefizto

Greetings all,

for while, I have been contemplating building a new computer. What prompted me to ask for the specification was the fact that I started compiling some packages to, e.g., having OSS for all audio devices, having the compiled packages consistently distributed on all the FreeBSD boxes, etc. I had a notion that such would take a lot of time and resources, but I was still surprised that e.g., rebuilding ports-mgmt/synth without the watchdog timer on a 4-cores, 3.0 GHz, 12 GB RAM, took close to 2 hours.

The other use will be general computing, i.e.,drafting documents, spreadsheet calculations, writing scripts, and audio and video processing. These, apart perhaps from the video processing, do not appear to be resource intensive, so the packages' building likely sets the resources' requirements.

At this point of time I do not anticipate building all the packages I use, though there are not many of them, but for future-proofing (if this term is not an oxymoron), perhaps a more powerful computer should be considered?

Any help regarding the resources' requirements, i.e., number of cores, amount of RAM, processor clock speed, and the interrelationship, e.g., more RAM vs more cores, would be appreciated. In that regard, given the current RAM prices, could adding an NVME drive in lieu of RAM be considered?

Kindest regards,

M
 
It really depends on the exact configuration. If you just watch top during the synth work, do you see a lot of idle CPU? Then you need faster storage because the system outruns it. If high swap usage is daily business, you need more RAM, and if the average system load is above 50% you might like a faster processor.

I personaaly take a good look at kernel and world build times and kind of use it as overall system performance indicator.
 
Hi MG,

thank you for the reply and, specifically, to look at the top statistics.

I have also looked at the logs and I now wonder if I have potential misconfiguration in the ports-mgmt/synth. I summarize my (mis)understanding of the configuration and post in a different thread to keep the issues separate.

At this time, I do not intend to build kernel and world.

Kindest regards,

M
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I replaced a 2012 Mac mini (quad core i7, 16G memory, 256G SSD) with this:
  • Beelink Ser 5 Pro MIni PC, AMD Ryzen 7 5825U 2 - 4.5GHz 8 core/16 thread CPU, 32GB DDR4 SODIMM RAM, Kingston NVMe 1TB SSD,
    AMD Radeon Graphics 8 core 2GHz, Intel AX200 WiFi, Bluetooth 5.2, 2.5Gbps Ethernet, 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2, USB 2.0, USB Type-C (data + video), HDMI 2.0, Display Port 1.4, Audio jack (HP + MIC).
for a tad under 500 AUD (deduct ~1/3rd for USD) from Amazon in July last year. The difference? Night and day. Firefox now builds in an hour compared with a full day.

Of course, this was before RAMageddon and SSDapocalypse. The closest machine now is:

Beelink SER5 MAX Mini PC, AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS(8C/16T, up to 4.75GHz), 24GB LPDDR5 RAM 500GB M.2 2280 PCIe SSD, Mini Computer Support 4K Triple Screen Display/WiFi6/BT5.4/2.5G LAN/USB3.2

for 753 AUD/469 USD. The 7735HS supposedly outperforms 5625U by 55%.
 
Hi trev,

thank you.

The problem with that solution, due to my failure to disclose additional information is, that I would like to add at least two 3.5 hard-drives (due to $/capacity), and have ECC memory, which these do not support. However, your suggestion is still valid, as the specifications give me an idea regarding the specification.

Hi richardtoohey2,

ROTFLMAO. In a thread https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/potential-ports-mgmt-synth-misconfiguration.103449/, I reported that a re-build of a single package built not only all the dependent packages, but in addition, e.g., gcc12, gcc14, rust-1.97.1, and so on, although they are not listed in the dependencies, and I used synth install [the specific port], which I understand should build only the particular port and its dependencies if they are affected by the changed options or downloaded if not.

Perhaps I am just too stupid for this.

Hi MG,

please see above.

Kindest regards,

M
 
mefizto said:
Any help regarding the resources' requirements, i.e., number of cores, amount of RAM, processor clock speed, and the interrelationship, e.g., more RAM vs more cores, would be appreciated. In that regard, given the current RAM prices, could adding an NVME drive in lieu of RAM be considered?
Click to expand...

Compilation runs at unlimited speed, so you buy as fast a computer as possible.

As far as RAM is concerned you need about 700 MB per core (plus hyperthreading if you turn that on) for the base system, but things like Chromium can have up to 1300-1400 compilation processes.

Swapping is not recommended even with a NVMe. It is overall faster to limit the number of parallel processes so that things fit except for rare swapping e.g. during linking.

A 16-core 5950x is still doing quite nicely and uses DDR4, which costs half as much as DDR5.
 
Hi cracauer@,

thank you very much, the breakdown of required memory per core is extremely helpful.

Yes, I am looking for a DDR4 based system, as a friend gave me 32GB of such a memory. UNfortunatelly, it is not ECC, so I am looking at a motherboard that supports registered RAM, as the prices are quite lower, I would think due to the fact that they are pulls form server farms.

I really like Supermicro, I have the X9 generation that I have never had any problems with. I have rcommnded Supermicro to several of my friends, and all are satisfied.

Kindest regards,

M
 
Unless money is no object I think you should give some serious consideration to how much benefit you will get. You could easily end-up spending several times what you needed for just running the software. I gave up building ports years ago and all that happened was everything went more smoothly. Nothing was noticeably slower, and I've never missed a feature - don't fall into the trap of building a port just to get a dependency that could be added manually.

There's also the question of how fast you really need the build to be. If the computer can be run 24/7, you might just run it in the background for a few days. If you aren't a developer there's not much downside to this anymore.
 
Hi bob2112,

thank you for your perspective.

I do need to replace my computer anyway as some of the peripherals, e.g., USB ports, HDMI port, are no longer working, or flaky. Second, your advise does not account for the scenario that I need a feature that is turned off, e.g., audio/jack.

And yes, I am in no rush so running in background is not a problem.

Kindest regards,

M
 
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