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.

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.

Thanks and Server Configurations SPECjbb2005
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