AMD's dual core Opteron & Athlon 64 X2 - Server/Desktop Performance Preview
by Anand Lal Shimpi, Jason Clark & Ross Whitehead on April 21, 2005 9:25 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
"Order Entry" Stress Test: Measuring Enterprise Class Performance
One complaint that we've historically received regarding our Forums database test was that it isn't strenuous enough for some of the Enterprise customers to make a good decision based on the results.In our infinite desire to please everyone, we worked very closely with a company that could provide us with a truly Enterprise Class SQL stress application. We cannot reveal the identity of the Corporation that provided us with the application because of non-disclosure agreements in place. As a result, we will not go into specifics of the application, but rather provide an overview of its database interaction so that you can grasp the profile of this application, and understand the results of the tests better (and how they relate to your database environment).
We will use an Order Entry system as an analogy for how this test interacts with the database. All interaction with the database is via stored procedures. The main stored procedures used during the test are:
sp_AddOrder - inserts an Order
sp_AddLineItem - inserts a Line Item for an Order
sp_UpdateOrderShippingStatus - updates a status to "Shipped"
sp_AssignOrderToLoadingDock - inserts a record to indicate from which Loading Dock the Order should be shipped
sp_AddLoadingDock - inserts a new record to define an available Loading Dock
sp_GetOrderAndLineItems - selects all information related to an Order and its Line Items
The above is only intended as an overview of the stored procedure functionality; obviously, the stored procedures perform other validation, and audit operations.
Each Order had a random number of Line Items, ranging from one to three. Also randomized was the Line Items chosen for an order, from a pool of approximately 1500 line items.
Each test was run for 10 minutes and was repeated three times. The average between the three tests was used. The number of Reads to Writes was maintained at 10 reads for every write. We debated for a long while about which ratio of reads to writes would best serve the benchmark, and we decided that there was no correct answer. So, we went with 10.
The application was developed using C#, and all database connectivity was accomplished using ADO.NET and 20 threads - 10 for reading and 10 for inserting.
So, to ensure that IO was not the bottleneck, each test was started with an empty database and expanded to ensure that auto-grow activity did not occur during the test. Additionally, a gigabit switch was used between the client and the server. During the execution of the tests, there were no applications running on the server or monitoring software. Task Manager, Profiler, and Performance Monitor were used when establishing the baseline for the test, but never during execution of the tests.
At the beginning of each platform, both the server and client workstation were rebooted to ensure a clean and consistent environment. The database was always copied to the 8-disk RAID 0 array with no other files present to ensure that file placement and fragmentation was consistent between runs. In between each of the three tests, the database was deleted, and the empty one was copied again to the clean array. SQL Server was not restarted.
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Jep4444 - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
I don't like how you use the Opteron to give a rough estimation on the A64 X2 as their are other architectural changes between Opteron and A64That aside maybe AMD could bring out X2s using 256KB of cache per core to get slightly lower price points and atleast compete with the 830(3ghz)
I doubt it'll be too bandwidth limited given AMD is selling Semprons with only 128KB of L2 cache
KillerBob - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
It is usual to see that Anandtech favors the AMD, looks at the artificial tests, and not the real-world tests, where Intel wins out (as usual).In other tests itis pointed out the the PEE can be overclocked past 4GHz, in which case it'll kick everything's ass.
KillerBob - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
dannybin1742 - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
drool, i want oneDoormat - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
Typo P13: Intel's "975x" at bottom of page.The high price of the dual core opterons kinda puts me off. I was hoping for 2x the price of the single core, instead of 3.5x (I'm looking at 246 vs 270s). It looks like I'll be going single core (or just holding off) instead of dual core (at least until the end of the year and AMD gets price competition from Intel on the server DC front).
The 3.5x doesn't even make sense from the yield standpoint. If AMD's yeilds are 70% (wild talking-out-of-my-ass guess, no real factual grounding in picking that number), then their dual core yields will only be 49% (70% for the first core, 70% for the second core). So out of a batch of 1000 chips, instead of 700 you only get 490. Thats 210 chips you need to make up for. If opterons have a Avg selling price of $500, then the "adjusted" selling price would be around $715, an increase of 43%, not 250%. Granted, if AMD's yields are higher, the numbers look better (from our perspective - lower prices), but if their yields are less, it looks really bad (if their yield was only 50%, they'd only get 25% yield on dual core, and would have to double price).
I guess AMD is just trying to squeeze every dime they can out of this... hopefully that extra money goes to pay for Fab36 and more capacity.
cbuchach - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
Wow....Very impressive offering from AMD. I think the quote that sums it up best for me is: "you no longer have to make a performance decision between great overall performance or great media encoding performance, AMD delivers both with the Athlon 64 X2."I was very impressed with Intel dual core chips, but now I know that my next system will go back to be AMD-based. Overall the dual core Athlon64 should be killer.
As for cost, yes it is expensive, but the performance is really phenomenal. I am sure that it too will come down.
Griswold - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
All hail teh X2!bob661 - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
All I can say is.....WHOODOGGIE!!!!Brian23 - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
ME WANTY!!!jamawass - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
quote: Despite AMD's lead in getting dual core server/workstation CPUs out to market, Intel has very little reason to worry from a market penetration standpoint. We've seen that even with a multi-year performance advantage, it is very tough for AMD to steal any significant business away from Intel, and we expect that the same will continue to be the case with the dual core Opteron. It's unfortunate for AMD that all of their hard work will amount to very little compared to what Intel is able to ship, but that has always been reality when it comes to the AMD/Intel competition."This statement should be qualified. The Rendering market is much more adventurous than the standard server market(didn't they use winxp-64 beta running on opterons to render SWIII?) and will continue to rapidly adopt opterons.There're tangible benefits (faster rendering, lower energy costs=$$$) in moving to opteron for rendering farms. Also more oems like supermicro and broadcom have embraced AMD which should result in much more rapid market penetration than 2 yrs ago.