We are buying a computer dedicated mostly to Freesurfer. Initially we thought an I7 3770k a bit overclocked (about 4.5ghz) should be a good choice. However, I noticed that Freesurfer seem better tuned to use CUDA. Many of the messages I read are from 2010 so I am not sure whether this is the case.

In sum is it better to focus on CUDA gpu or on Intel I7?

Second, does the CUDA speeds matter a lot?

Third, is it true that I will not be able to run multiple instances of Freesurfer with CUDA, which is possible with I7? Will it still be faster using CUDA rather than running a Freesurfer instance on each I7 core?

Fourth, is the OS important, for example can we just continue on Ubuntu or is it better Debian/CentOS etc.?

Thank you for your help and apologies if the questions are too basic.

Dorian

TJU