Re: Advice for offline image analysis computer

Posted by Shalin Mehta on
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/Advice-for-offline-image-analysis-computer-tp1109084p1109126.html

Dear Christophe,

In MATLAB, I particularly found parfor loop useful.  It can be used instead of standard for-loop if iterations in the loop are independent of each other (e.g. when batch processing a set of images in the same way). If you have sufficient memory, using parfor loop should give speed up close to the number of cores. I use MATLAB 2007b, but MATLAB has since introduced other features for multi-threading. A good analysis of what functions should benefit from multi-threading is here:
http://www.mathworks.com/support/solutions/data/1-4PG4AN.html?solution=1-4PG4AN

So buying a 64 bit, quad-core, 16 GB computer may be worthwhile.
best
shalin

On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 4:33 PM, Christophe Leterrier <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dear listers,

I have to buy a new computer for our team that will be used as for offline image analysis. The software required (ImageJ, Metamorph, Matlab) require to build a Windows/Vista machine. The cost would be around $5,000 / 5000€. The job would be processing (a lot) and rendering. My questions are :
- Should I go for a "traditionnal" computer, I mean a 32-bits, dual core, XP computer with maxed RAM (I guess it is 3GB or so) ? Is it usefull to go to more fancy stuff like 64 bits, 4 or 8 core, 8 to 16GB RAM machine ? Would ImageJ/Metamorph/Matlab really benefit from it (I would love to have an answer from the Metamorph/Matlab people) ?
- What about graphic cards and GPU ? What is the best choice ? I've heard about new strategies to speed up processing by making the GPU churn data as well as graphics, but I don't think it is really commercially available now or implemented in commercial software yet.

Thanks for your advices !

Christophe