Linux Shootout: Opteron 150 vs. Xeon 3.6 Nocona
by Kristopher Kubicki on August 12, 2004 2:35 PM EST- Posted in
- Linux
Although this latest attempt to produce an accurate, unbiased, real world comparison of these two processors is likely more thorough than the review earlier this week, there are still critical issues we will address to get out of the way.
First of all, AMD's Opteron 150 is the highest performing AMD workstation CPU money can buy. Thus, it is priced around $600 at time of publication. (The nearly identical FX-53 is priced slightly higher). Intel's Xeon 3.6GHz / Pentium 4 3.6F processor is the highest performing Intel workstation CPU money can't buy; although it has shown up in various OEM channels, it really has not hit the market in full force yet. When it does, we are expected to see it retail for $850. This automatically raises the question as to whether or not these two are directly competing processors. Since prices in the market fluctuate daily depending on vendor stock with such high end CPUs, we leave that decision up to the reader.
Secondly, GCC 3.3.3 optimizations became a larger than expected variable in these tests. As shown in the TSCP benchmark, changing the optimization flags wildly changed performance of the Opteron CPU, while the Nocona only received mild benefits. We also hear that GCC 3.4 tends to increase performance on the Opteron CPUs even further, although we ran out of time to complete that test.
After all is said and done it became difficult (nearly impossible?) to justify the Xeon processor in a UP configuration over the Opteron 150, but perhaps we will see significant changes in dual and four way configurations. We have Linux benchmark shootout between the two processors coming up, as well as a Windows analysis too.
Once again special thanks to Super Micro for providing us with the hardware on such short notice for this review.
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bhtooefr - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
Kristopher, the 150 ISN'T supposed to compete with the 3.6 Nocona. That's the 250 that does that. However, the 150 and 250 are identical, except the 250 has DP support enabled, and costs $851 - just like the 3.6 Nocona. Therefore, a 150 vs. Nocona comparison IF the Nocona is only used in a UP config is fair, even though the 150 is cheaper.Macro2 - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
KK, it's amazing what a little parental supervision can do.DerekWilson - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
#67 and all others with this on their minds:"Basically, all I'm saying is that it is faulty reasoning to assume that a 3.6GHz Intel cpu will be marketed against a 3500+ Amd A64 cpu."
See, there's the problem with marketing. People do see a price tag. People also two other things: a speed number and a brand.
Most people that read this site "get" that performance is more than a number, a brand, and a price tag. But the majority of the population thinks very differently.
Despite AMD's rise to the top of the CPU performance heap in many catagories, Intel is still a bigger name to the public at large.
When a random person looking for a computer sees two boxes, one with (lets say) a 3400+ and the other with a 3.4GHz pentium 4, the will absolutely feel that these products are marketed at the same target performance level. And since AMD makes up its own performance rating scheme, we would tend to agree with this assessment.
A random person sees all of this together: AMD + 3400 + low price and Intel + 3.4GHz + high price ... Based on the current state of the universe, people will generally think one of two things: the AMD system is a lower price because it is some how "cheaper" in terms of quality than the Intel system, or they'll be saving enough money that going with the AMD system is worth it. It's just psychology of people who don't know enough about what they're buying.
It is an unavoidable fact that AMD and Intel parts will be _marketed_ via their performance rating or their clock speed.
Of course, if advertising and marketing did everything in the best interest of the customer all the time, then our site wouldn't be useful. AMD could say "Buy intel if you want to do encoding" and Intel would say "buy AMD if you want to build a gaming rig" and we'd all be happy.
Honestly, general CPU marketing does not target us. We will all get together and one way or another discover the part that has the highest value. We want to know, how much performance am I getting for my dollar. We want to know how little we can spend to get the best machine we can, since it will all be obsolete in a year anyway. For this reason, we are trying to expand our CPU reviews to include more information on price/performance and value.
But since we don't assume we know performance before hand, and price is a market dicated entity, we start from marketing and go from there.
The original comparison of Nocona to the 3500+ is not an invalid comparison. At the same time, there were other issues, and it has been a learning experience for us in terms of performance testing on Linux. Granted, including a 3700+ as well would have been helpful in seeing how AMDs performance rating scales wrt Nocona preformance. The only real difference between the Nocona system and a desktop P4f 3.6 is the fact that we had to use a Tumwater board, which may or may not have had a significant impact on the performance playing feild. We'll certainly revist that question when we get our hands on a p4f (buying that Dell may be a good idea).
But, as everyone can see from the job Kris did on this latest review, we write for the readers. Price point comparisons are very doable for us, but it gets difficult before product enters the market -- which is why we don't really get hardcore about pricing out of the gates. The market does influence what happens to the price after its launch, and we like to take that into consideration.
And that's the last we'll say about that ;-)
Please continue to let us know what you guys want to see, and we will continue to deliver. Thanks for all the support and outpouring of general goodness on these comments -- Kris deserves it for putting in such hard work over his vacation.
Thanks,
Derek Wilson
Senior CPU & Graphics Editor
allnighter - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
Thank you Kris. Much better this time around. My trust is restored. Thanks again.KristopherKubicki - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
#72: the Nocona 3.6 and the 3.6F are going to be identical (different pin out though). I am thinking about buying a Dell just to prove it :) (You cant buy the CPU in retail yet).I sent an email out to Oracle, lets see what they say.
Kristopher
val - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
Linux is different than windows, Windows have more overhead and more depending on frequency. Lets wait for results on Windows 64bit to judge...matman326 - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
*Stading up and clapping*great job Kris, much better this time around(I had faith in you). But one thing trubles me about you benchmarks. I don't recall seeing any benchs on how fast you can run F@H on the puppies :)
Viditor - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
I agree with Decoder Kris...next review, could you use the 4+ gig of ram? I'd like to see the same benches with large amounts of ram to compare...Cheers,
Charles
muddocktor - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
I think that you did a much better article this time, Kris and not because the Opteron kicked the Xeon around pretty badly in a lot of your benchmarks. This time you compared processors that can be considered direct competitors and the comparisons do actually mean something. Kudos to you on taking the time to do the comparison right and this kind of article is what I expect to read when I come here to Anandtech. :-)CyTG - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
MySQL and Postgres is cool ... but what about some commercial products like Oracle as well ?I'd really really like to see some numbers pished for 10g on those beasts..