How much math coprocessor is freed up on an i7 4790 when a video card is added to a system?

[SGilm]

Hi Intel - I am a system admin for UCI Extension - I also build systems using your i7 chip lately the 4790K - very nice chip !

I read an article a month ago that stated the Intel 4790 and other newer chips added the graphic processing to the onboard chip architecture. However in my student lab I need the i7 to focus on math coprocessing since the programs students learn are not graphic intense but rather program computation intense. Math coprocessing intense. I read that even though the i7 4790 (in an HP slim line desktop PC) is very fast if one added a video card to the system it would free up some of the math coprocessing since the memory space addressed would not be partially used by the graphic processing on the Intel chip. The math coprocessor would be freed up a bit since the NVidia memory and processing would not be using memory space the Intel math coprocessor uses as well. Could you please help me understand this better? I plan on adding a video card to the i7 system for these reasons,

Thanks !

[Silvia_L_Intel1]

Hello Horsefeathers, thanks for joining the Intel community.

We are currently investigating your inquiry. By the way I erased your personal information for security reasons.

Regards,

[SGilm]

Thanks Sylvia !

Hopefully you can contact an engineer who helped design the i7 chip for more info on this – I already am assuming the math coprocessor is assisted by an add on video card and am running comparison load tests on the CPU now to document the differences but having in depth info from one of the designers of the chip and not just someone winging an off the cuff answer like you get in some forums would be great !

Thanks for all your help !

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[Silvia_L_Intel1]

The 'math coprocessor' or Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) does not require much memory for actually performing calculations and does not benefit from having additional memory available. However, it is common that applications with intensive mathematical requirements are related to a database which store the data for the calculations and results. These applications may very well benefit from having additional memory available.

The switch from internal graphics to an add-in graphics card will make some additional memory available but the benefits of the additional memory can only be verified through testing with the systems and applications being used.

[SGilm]

Thanks Ken for your answer to this question - we spoke on the phone a short time ago. I'll be placing in our University computer Lab one PC with only the i7 4790 while the other will have the same chip plus an NVidia 730 2 GB graphics card. Thus far in local non lab testing the system with the graphics card seems to run our programs faster - this is just an eyeball test - for example parts open easier etc - the real test will be actual use in the lab by students running programs like Oracle and Visual Studio inside an Oracle Virtual Box virtual Windows 7 OS

Thanks for all your help !

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[SGilm · Accepted solution]

PS - I wanted to add for the benefit of those reading these posts about the newer Intel processors the finer details that the Intel support person passed on to me - I've also read more on the subject and have this ...

The 'math coprocessor' or Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) runs at a certain clock speed and itself is not benefitted by more memory technically speaking – it runs its cycles and computations no matter what size memory you have or additional video memory assisting the system memory – however what more system or available memory does for the ALU (Arithmatic Logic Unit) (what used to be called the Math Coprocessor) that will assist the overall speed of the particular application being run is that the memory space if larger allows retrieval by the ALU of already processed computations thus speeding up the program depending on the type of program.

I also read a blog post where an admin mentioned a larger memory space (in other words not completely filled with cached data) will also assist the ALU in that it can write to the memory space with more ease of action - this supposedly will help particular programs such as those using a database.

Thus each PC system needs to have each program being used tested to see if the added video card speeds things up a bit.

My money is on adding a nice video card to the system ...

Hope this helps !

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