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Re: Does Mathematica 5 use multiple processors on SPARC?

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg55168] Re: Does Mathematica 5 use multiple processors on SPARC?
• From: Dave <nospam at nowhere.com>
• Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 00:21:56 -0500 (EST)
• References: <d13j25$qjl$1@smc.vnet.net>
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Dave wrote:
> I assume this technical FAQ
> 
> http://support.wolfram.com/mathematica/systems/allplatforms/multipleprocessors.html
> 
> is out of date since it says "The current version of Mathematica does 
> not take direct advantage of multiple processors on any platform"
> 
> whereas
> 
> http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/newin5/performance/
> 
> says "Mathematica 5 also takes advantage of multiple processors for a 
> range of numerical operations on those operating systems such as Linux, 
> Windows, and HP-UX that support this multithreaded capability."
> 
> Now my question is does Mathematica 5 support multiple processors on 
> Solaris? Since the kernel code is very similar across platforms, I 
> assume it does, although it is odd to mention HP-UX and not Solaris, 
> when the latter is probably used much more.
> 
> 
> 
Actually, more to the point, can it use multiple-CPUs on SPARC on 
version 5.1? I just installed a copy from the univeristy today, and see 
it is 5.1

I just tried multipling two 5000x5000 matrices of random numbers 
together and found it did not seem to be using more than one CPU, which 
is should be able to do on this problem, as it can be done in parallel 
quite easily.

Interestingly it run out of memory when trying to multiply two 10,000 x 
10,000 matrices, which given they should only take up 800MB each, and I 
have 4GB RAM plus a few GB swap, I'm surprised it could not manage this. 
There was nothing much on the computer apart from Mathematica running, 
so why it run out of RAM is beyond me.

Hardware = Sun Ultra 80, 4 x 450 MHz UltraSPARC CPUs with 4GB RAM.

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Re: Does Mathematica 5 use multiple processors on SPARC?
    • From: Igor Antonio <igora@wolf-ram.com>