AMD Opteron vs. Intel Xeon: Database Performance Shootout
by Anand Lal Shimpi, Jason Clark & Ross Whitehead on March 2, 2004 2:11 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
Order Entry Stress Test Results
The results are split up into two categories: 2-way and 4-way setups. Remember that the 3.2GHz Potomac based Xeon is only available in 2-way configurations and is thus absent from the 4-way graphs. The labels are as follows: CPU Name Clock Speed/FSB Speed/Cache Size (e.g. Xeon 3.0GHz/400/4MB = Xeon 3.0GHz, 400MHz FSB, 4MB L3 cache). Keep in mind that all Xeons have a 512KB on-die L2 cache, and all Opterons have a 1MB on-die L2 cache (but no L3 cache).
With a heavier workload the performance between the top three performers (Xeon MP, Xeon and Opteron) are virtually identical. Note that the number of reads being reported here is in thousands, we are actually talking about 239 million reads from this database in the test here for the Xeon MP.
What once was a close race is now an Opteron victory, with the Opteron 848 taking up an 8.5% performance lead over the latest and greatest Gallatin 4MB. Once again we see that the Gallatin's Achilles' heel is its 400MHz FSB, double it and then AMD may be in trouble.
We get a similar set of standings when looking at write performance; in 2-way configurations the Opteron and Xeon MP are basically tied.
And once again, moving to 4-way configurations shows that the Opteron is a much better scaler, and much better suited for 4-way servers than the Xeon MP.
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Blackbrrd - Wednesday, March 3, 2004 - link
Hmm... the site below has some info about Numa (non unified memory architecture), and it looks like the os you're using isn't Numa enabled... Is this correct? Is there any real world benefit from Numa with Opteron?http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=opt...
zarjad - Wednesday, March 3, 2004 - link
Could you speculate which way the advantage should be going in a BI benchmark (say TPC-H type of a test)? These are long running queries with gigabytes size tables.Jason Clark - Wednesday, March 3, 2004 - link
We started playing around with a couple of mysql benchmarks a few weeks ago namely OSDB and some new multithreaded benchmarks from MySQL themselves. We're hoping to get some valid tests that produce real results in the future.Cheers.
Jason Clark - Wednesday, March 3, 2004 - link
In fact we did some recent testing to start out 64bit linux testing and mysql 4.0.17 on suse 64 had a segmentation fault starting <WINK> known issue for mysql as well... <WINK> <WINK>Jason Clark - Wednesday, March 3, 2004 - link
Steveoc, it hardly runs like a dog. Let's not turn this into a one sided os war :) The test make sense as they are, but a 64bit article is on the books for later. We've already been playing around with Suse 64bit and some others and whether you agree or not 64bit is still immature, period full stop. Support is there but it has some maturing to do.steveoc - Wednesday, March 3, 2004 - link
All these tests show is that Opteron, running Windows, runs like a Dog. As if we couldnt predict that result already ...The tests will only make sense once you are running 64bit linux. In fact, Id love to see a test of Dual Xeon + Win2003 + MSSQL vs Dual Opteron + 64bit Gentoo + 64bit MySQL .. that would be very interesting indeed.
For anyone out there claiming that '64bit software has a looong way to go', that is only true for Windows. Unix (and Linux) have been running 64bit for a long time now, and the AMD64 has very good support under Linux.
dweigert - Wednesday, March 3, 2004 - link
Seeing the difference whether NUMA us used or not would be *VERY* interesting. Also comparing against other NUMA aware OS's (Linux 2.63 or better kernel, or whatever) would be a good test too.hirschma - Wednesday, March 3, 2004 - link
#25 - Seems that it is not for sale to the general public, not that I could find. If anyone knows where/how to get one, please let me know.I have an application that is quite expensive and is licensed by the box, no matter how many CPUs it has ;) I'm guessing that building a low-end quad would give me more throughput per $$ than a second license/second box.
Jonathan
Jason Clark - Wednesday, March 3, 2004 - link
We're also looking at some 64bit .NET benchmarks as we're real close to having a real-world application that we can hammer.Jason Clark - Wednesday, March 3, 2004 - link
An interesting article would be the effect of NUMA on enterprise level applications. GamePC did a bit of a write up on it, but it was limited to desktop and synthetic benchmarks. Would any of you be interested in seeing the effects of NUMA on and off on the sql tests?