Laptop for CUDA development

[mstockman]

Need some advice. I’m a newbie to cuda. Just finished Dr. Hwu’s class. I will be starting a Phd in the fall and would like to do something involving cuda. I’m considering buying the following system to develop on. Will that be ok to develop cuda applications on?

Dell XPS M1530
2GB SDRAM
160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT

Thanks for your advice.

[tmurray]

Yeah, it’s fine to develop CUDA apps on; just keep in mind that it will be a pretty small fraction of what a high-end desktop would get you (32 SPs versus 240 on GT200).

I would keep a desktop with at least a GTX 260 lying around somewhere simply because the 256 MB on that card will become a bottleneck, especially if it’s being used for display as well.

[mstockman]

Yeah, it’s fine to develop CUDA apps on; just keep in mind that it will be a pretty small fraction of what a high-end desktop would get you (32 SPs versus 240 on GT200).

I would keep a desktop with at least a GTX 260 lying around somewhere simply because the 256 MB on that card will become a bottleneck, especially if it’s being used for display as well.

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Thanks for the quick response. I’ll get the desktop when I get into it a little more and maybe get the University to fund it.

[mstockman]

Thanks for the quick response.  I’ll get the desktop when I get into it a little more and maybe get the University to fund it.

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One more question. Will Windows Vista (home edition) be a problem?

[tmurray]

One more question.  Will Windows Vista (home edition) be a problem?

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CUDA function call overhead is significantly greater in Vista than in XP due to the different driver model, but considering you can’t use a non-display card in a laptop in the first place (which Vista doesn’t support while XP and Linux do), no, it’s not a huge deal.

(or if you REALLY need more than 5s, run your application in Linux without X, and voila, no watchdog timer)

[mstockman]

CUDA function call overhead is significantly greater in Vista than in XP due to the different driver model, but considering you can’t use a non-display card in a laptop in the first place (which Vista doesn’t support while XP and Linux do), no, it’s not a huge deal.

(or if you REALLY need more than 5s, run your application in Linux without X, and voila, no watchdog timer)

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Ok, thanks.

[LightRaven]

Need some advice.  I’m a newbie to cuda.  Just finished Dr. Hwu’s class.  I will be starting a Phd in the fall and would like to do something involving cuda. I’m considering buying the following system to develop on.  Will that be ok to develop cuda applications on?

Dell XPS M1530

2GB SDRAM

160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive

256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT

Thanks for your advice.

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I considered buying a laptop for CUDA development as well when I am away from my desktop. It’s just a shame that you can’t get double precision cards for laptop else I would have bought one instant ( yes size matters :) ) .