[Eeglablist] Hardware recommendations

[Makoto Miyakoshi]

Dear Malte,

If you run Matlab's wavelet toolbox (or spectrogram() from signal
processing toolbox) you'll be surprised how fast it goes...
So the main issue of EEGLAB's slow speed is not so much on the hard ware
but on code. I doubt if the current EEGLAB solution is capable of parallel
computing using multiple CPUs.

There are few methods to multiplies the processing speed without buying a
new hardware.
If you have subj001-subj100, you create let's say 4 EEGLAB STUDYs using
001-025, 026-050, 051-075, 076-100. Process them with the same precompute
parameters. The output files on HDD is valid when you create a single STUDY
using 001-100--I mean you can skip precompute, but immediately step to
precluster. This is an example to gain 4X speed. If your CPU has 4 physical
cores (not counting hyperthreding processes), you can speed up the process
by launching the same number (4) of MATLAB.

In doing this, make sure you use the same precompute parameters. Otherwise
you can't build the final single STUDY.

Makoto

On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 11:20 PM Malte Anders <malteanders at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi everybody,
>
> I have collected huge amounts of EEG data with 512 Hz sampling frequency
> and 34 electrodes.
>
> For one subject (~2-3 hours of data), a simple Time/Frequency decomposition
> between 1 and 40 Hz with standard settings calling the newtimef function
> takes approx. 8 hours for 1 hour of recorded data on my Computer (4790k, 32
> Gb of DDR3 Ram, Intel HD GPU), so 16-24 hours for one dataset in total.
> This is simply too long as I am currently working alone on this. CPU
> utilization is ~40% during the process, RAM utilization is 100% (so 100% of
> the 32 Gb are used).
>
> I would like to invest in new hardware (I am also considering used
> hardware) with a price point around 1500-3000€. Which would make more
> sense:
> -A new Ryzen 3950x, 16 cores with 128 Gb of DDR4 RAM (2666 Mhz) ~ 1500€
> -A used workstation, e.g. with Dual CPU: 2 x 12 core Xeon E52670v3 and 256
> Gb RAM ~ used approx. 2200€
>
> The Xeon has more cores, but way lower clock speed. It does have double the
> amount of RAM though.
>
> Would you recommend a dedicated GPU (Nvidia?) for this?
>
> Any recommendations are greatly appreciated. Thanks!
> Malte
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