R help - Jan 2011 - which operating system + computer specifications lead to the best performance for R?

Dear R Fans,

I have the opportunity to buy a new computer for my simulations in R. My 
goal is to get the execution of R code as fast as possible. I know that 
the number of cores and the working memory capacity are crucial for 
computer performance but maybe someone has experience/knowledge which 
comp specifications are especially crucial (especially in relation to 
R). Is there any knowledge on the performance of R for different 
operating systems (Linux, Win, Mac etc.) resp. is performance dependent 
on the operating system at all? Even small differences in performance 
(i.e., speed of calculations) matter for me (quite large datasets + 
repeated calculations etc.).

Thank you for any hint, it is appreciated!

Best,

Marc

On 11-01-22 14:56, Marc Jekel wrote:
> I have the opportunity to buy a new computer for my simulations in R. My
goal
> is to get the execution of R code as fast as possible. I know that the
number
> of cores and the working memory capacity are crucial for computer
performance
> but maybe someone has experience/knowledge which comp specifications are 
> especially crucial (especially in relation to R). Is there any knowledge on
> the performance of R for different operating systems (Linux, Win, Mac etc.)
> resp. is performance dependent on the operating system at all? Even small 
> differences in performance (i.e., speed of calculations) matter for me
(quite
> large datasets + repeated calculations etc.).
Not really a recommendation, just my considerations: That depends 
on your budget, Mac Pro (5k$ in the U.S.) would probably serve 
your needs for a long time ;-). I am running R 2.12.0 on a MacBook 
Pro, 2.4 Dual Core with (only) 2G ram, together with (paid) 
TextMate as editor, and Sweave. 2G ram is few! And I noted 
remarkable improvements whan I was lucky to use a MBP Intel Core 
i5 for a couple of days. Whatever processor and memory, I like the 
easy interplay between R and the Unix environment (things like 
passing shell commands from R to my system or other interpreters), 
easy graphics etc.

If that helps a bit ...

-- 
Sascha Vieweg, saschaview at gmail.com