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Re: PC Requirements for Mathematica

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg60162] Re: PC Requirements for Mathematica
• From: David Bailey <dave at Remove_Thisdbailey.co.uk>
• Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 02:27:54 -0400 (EDT)
• References: <dfe8b3$7jr$1@smc.vnet.net>
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Mike wrote:
> My buddy is a retired analyst. His son built him a PC w/ 3.0G Celeron CPU, 
> 512MD RAM and Intel motherboard with 911 or 915 chipset.  For a new PC it 
> seems slow to me.
> 
> Questions:  does Mathematica require a math coprocessor?   What do you want in 
> a PC that's going to run Mathematica?
> I don't know which  Mathematica functions he's going to use.
> 
> Mike 
> 
Hello,

Surely the math coprocessor issue went away when the old 486 machines 
were replaced by Pentium one's about a decade ago! Every modern CPU can 
handle the instructions that used to be passed over to the coprocessor.

Mathematica should certainly run fine on a machine with a spec like 
that, but if you have a specific very intensive algorithm in mind you 
might want to research it further. Many people do sophisticated things 
with Mathematica without ever stretching the CPU at all.

David Bailey
http://www.dbaileyconsultancy.co.uk