Speed up compiling with new computer, many cores or higer frequency

[Altera_Forum]

Hi, 

I'm about to buy a new computer and would like to know if Quartus II compiler favors core's or frequency of cores?  In my price range are: Xeon E5 1650v3 6-Cores 3.5Ghz Xeon E5 2630v3 8-Cores 2.4GHz Or 2 pcs. Intel Xeon E5-2609v3 6-core 1.9GHz for a total of 12 cores  What's yours opinion?  Best regards Ørjan Wean Norway

[Altera_Forum]

Ram is usually the largest limiting factor. Make sure you have more than the minimum requirement specified for your device (for example, stratix V devices need a min of 12 GB ). Using virtual ram will slow the process to a crawl. 

Then after that, you'll be better off with higher clock speed. While quartus is multi threaded and will use all your cores at some point, for the large amount of processing time, it will only use a single thread.

[Altera_Forum]

Thanks,  

 My plan was 32GB DDR4 ECC RAM and a Xeon E5 1650v3 6-Cores 3.5Ghz.  How is the performance compiling on Linux vs windows?    -Ørjan

[Altera_Forum]

Ive never really noticed much difference. 

But the Linux machines have usually been servers that can run many jobs simultaneously, with windows machines being stand alone machines.  I have found that the gui appears to run better on windows (but that may have been because Im using a remote X session for linux guis).

[Altera_Forum]

Also, use an SSD for the project folder. For the larger devices, hundreds of MB if not >1GB of data is written out as timing netlists and whatnot. For example a large Stratix V design I've made compiles in 45minutes on a computer with an SSD, vs. 2.5hrs+ when the project is on a network drive.

[Altera_Forum]

Hi oewean, 

 Check this KDB solution on the minimum PC requirement:  https://www.altera.com/support/support-resources/knowledge-base/solutions/rd05082012_510.html

[Altera_Forum]

As TCWORLD said. Use an SSD. I cut my 40min compile time down by 10 minutes by using one. It doesn't have to be big