Intel's newest Quad Xeon MP versus HP's DL585 Quad Opteron
by Johan De Gelas on November 10, 2006 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
The Official SPEC Numbers
We checked the SPEC FP and Int 2000 rates to get a first idea of what to expect. The Spec Rates are nothing more than measuring the performance of running multiple copies of the Spec CPU benchmarks simultaneously. Typically, the number of copies is the same as the number of cores. Again, it is important to note that these benchmark numbers are highly dependent on the compiler. SPEC fp and Integer show the best case performance as the CPU runs on aggressively compiled and highly optimized code. In reality, real world code is typically compiled in a more conservative and less optimized fashion.
Digging into the SPEC database, some very interesting results surface. The Fujitsu Siemens PRIMERGY RX600 S3 with Intel Xeon processor 7130M, 3.20 GHz is speced very similar to the Intel server in this test, and the HP DL585 machine is identical to ours and about 5% slower than the Xeon 7130 machine. The massive L3 cache is definitely helping the Xeon here.
Note the foolish figure that the previous Xeon MP 7041 cuts: almost 30% slower, 3 times more expensive and consuming twice as much compared to the Opteron 880 in the HP DL585. On top of that, Intel's newest Xeon 5160 makes the Quad Xeon MP 7041 look completely ridiculous as it performs 14% better with only two CPUs.
Floating point tests paint a different figure. The Xeon MP is no longer competitive. The best FP monsters are clearly the IBM Power 5+, Intel's Itanium, and AMD's Opteron. The AMD Opteron 880 is 43% faster than the Xeon MP 7130M.
We checked the SPEC FP and Int 2000 rates to get a first idea of what to expect. The Spec Rates are nothing more than measuring the performance of running multiple copies of the Spec CPU benchmarks simultaneously. Typically, the number of copies is the same as the number of cores. Again, it is important to note that these benchmark numbers are highly dependent on the compiler. SPEC fp and Integer show the best case performance as the CPU runs on aggressively compiled and highly optimized code. In reality, real world code is typically compiled in a more conservative and less optimized fashion.
| SPEC Int 2000 Performance | ||
| (CPU/cores) Server / CPU | Clock Speed (MHz) | SPEC Int 2000 |
| (4/8) IBM POWER5+ 36MB L3 | 2200 | 196 |
| (4/8) HP Opteron AM2 | 2800 | 160 |
| (4/8) HP Xeon MP 7140M 16MB L3 | 3400 | 159 |
| (4/8) FSC Xeon MP 7130M 8MB L3 | 3200 | 143 |
| (8/8) Hitachi Itanium 2 | 1666 | 138 |
| (4/8) HP Proliant DL585 Opteron | 2400 | 136 |
| (2/4) Dell Xeon 5160 | 3000 | 123 |
| (4/8) IBM Xeon MP 7041 | 3000 | 108 |
Digging into the SPEC database, some very interesting results surface. The Fujitsu Siemens PRIMERGY RX600 S3 with Intel Xeon processor 7130M, 3.20 GHz is speced very similar to the Intel server in this test, and the HP DL585 machine is identical to ours and about 5% slower than the Xeon 7130 machine. The massive L3 cache is definitely helping the Xeon here.
Note the foolish figure that the previous Xeon MP 7041 cuts: almost 30% slower, 3 times more expensive and consuming twice as much compared to the Opteron 880 in the HP DL585. On top of that, Intel's newest Xeon 5160 makes the Quad Xeon MP 7041 look completely ridiculous as it performs 14% better with only two CPUs.
| SPEC FP 2000 Performance | ||
| (CPU/cores) Server / CPU | Clock Speed (MHz) | SPEC FP 2000 |
| (4/8) IBM POWER5+ 36MB L3 | 2200 | 355 |
| (4/8) SGI Itanium Montecito 12 MB L3 | 1600 | 244 |
| (4/8) AMD Opteron 8220 SE | 2800 | 163 |
| (4/8) Sun Opteron 880 | 2400 | 140 |
| (4/8) HP Xeon MP 7140M 16 MB L3 | 3400 | 105 |
| (4/8) FS Xeon MP 7130M 8 MB L3 | 3200 | 97 |
| (2/4) Dell Xeon 5160 | 3000 | 81 |
| (4/8) IBM Xeon MP 7041 | 3000 | 64 |
Floating point tests paint a different figure. The Xeon MP is no longer competitive. The best FP monsters are clearly the IBM Power 5+, Intel's Itanium, and AMD's Opteron. The AMD Opteron 880 is 43% faster than the Xeon MP 7130M.
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Niv KA - Saturday, November 11, 2006 - link
I belive Clovertown is going to be announced somethime in the next week or two. On thursday I went to the "Microsoft: Ready for a New Day" here in Belgium (where Bill gates made an appearance of about half an hour, although not related!) and at the Intel booth they were showing off 4 servers which where running an "unannounced platform"! One of the technical guys at the booth let me in on a little "secret"! The Supermicro Systems were running "two sockets each box, each socket 4 cores! Eight cores each box! And the best part is its woodcrest arch!". I asked him if it was clovertown and he sayed that he "is just a technical assistant, not alowed to say anything" but he made the answer clear on his face! Clovertown is ready to go, and its FAST! They were running benchmarks all the time! I will post pictures on the fourms if I have enough time, but I have a HUGE project I need to hand in by tuesday so I might forget!
---Niv K Aharonovich
PS: About the "outdated" system comments above, I am fully on Anandtechs side, it is impossible for an online newspaper company to make enough money to BUY everything, esp. in the $15,000 area! The only way is to ask for it from the vendors, and the vendors decide what to provide! Good job anandtech and continue the good work!!!!!!!
Dennis Travis - Saturday, November 11, 2006 - link
Great job as usuall. Keep up the excellent work.AnandThenMan - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link
Another bullshit "comparison" nice job guys. You are comparing an AMD system that has been out for over 2 years. Useless review as usual. Why are you not comparing new with new? Why don't you use a Xeon box that was out 2 years ago?Anandtech's reviews have become more and more worthless.
JohanAnandtech - Saturday, November 11, 2006 - link
1. AMD has confirmed that they feel the HP DL585 with 4x 880 is a worthy competitor for our Tulsa machine.2. This server is 5 months old, not 2 years. As I made clear in the article, this is the 2006 revision.
As we invest a lot of time of effort to convince OEMs and others to send us extremely expensive hardware for review, spend weeks tweaking benchmarks and OS to give you benchmarks, we hope we may expect some useful feedback from our readers.
Just writing "useless" with little or no explanation why you feel it is worthless is not helping anyone.
AnandThenMan - Sunday, November 12, 2006 - link
I was going to post an explanation as to why the "review" is very poorly done. But Scientia over at AMDz did a far better explanation then I could come up with.http://www.amdzone.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&...">http://www.amdzone.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&...
Either the review is intentionally authored to show Intel in as best light as possible, or the author is incompetent and should not be doing reviews at all. I stand by what I originally posted, the review is bullshit.
primer - Saturday, November 11, 2006 - link
Agreed.goldfish2 - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link
Can I just quickly mention how nice it is to read an article where the author has managed to present all the relevant informatiom in as concise a manner as is possible, good job.JohanAnandtech - Saturday, November 11, 2006 - link
Thanks!Server reviews are extremely time consuming so most publications are not interested in it, so I am glad AT allows me to do this kind of reviews.
AllYourBaseAreBelong2Us - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link
Can you guys get a new DL585 G2 and do benchmarks with this new model instead?Viditor - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link
I thought this too...the G2 has 7 PCIe slots (3 x8, 4 x4), is $800 less expensive, and offers newer SCSI controllers.