AMD's 12-core "Magny-Cours" Opteron 6174 vs. Intel's 6-core Xeon
by Johan De Gelas on March 29, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
SAP S&D 2-Tier
| SAP S&D 2-Tier | |
| Operating System | Windows 2008 Enterprise Edition |
| Software | SAP ERP 6.0 Enhancement package 4 |
| Benchmark software | Industry Standard benchmark version 2009 |
| Typical error margin | Very low |
The SAP SD (sales and distribution, 2-tier internet configuration) benchmark is an interesting benchmark as it is a real world client-server application. We decided to take a look at SAP's benchmark database. The results below all run on Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition and MS SQL Server 2005 database (both 64-bit). Every 2-tier Sales & Distribution benchmark was performed with SAP's latest ERP 6 enhancement package 4. These results are NOT comparable with any benchmark performed before 2009. The new 2009 version of the benchmark produces scores that are 25% lower. We analyzed the SAP Benchmark in-depth in one of our earlier articles. The profile of the benchmark has remained the same:
- Very parallel resulting in excellent scaling
- Low to medium IPC, mostly due to "branchy" code
- Somewhat limited by memory bandwidth
- Likes large caches (memory latency!)
- Very sensitive to sync ("cache coherency") latency
(*) Estimate
The last time we discussed the SAP S&D 2-tier benchmark, we had to estimate the Xeon X5670 results. Since then HP has benchmarked its latest G6 servers, giving us results for the X5670. The performance is nothing short of astonishing. The dual Xeon X5670 outperforms a quad Opteron 8345 at 2.6 GHz. The Magny-Cours Opteron can only compete based on its somewhat lower price. We doubt that the SAP buyers care about a few hundred dollars though. A quad Opteron 6174 might have a chance against the Nehalem EX performance wise, but the SAP market will probably prefer the extensive RAS list of the Xeon Nehalem EX. The ERP market is most likely going to be dominated by Intel based servers.
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kokotko - Saturday, April 24, 2010 - link
why you are NOT SHARIG same "shareable" components - like PSU ??????NO WONDER THE NUMBERS ARE WORSE ! ! !
blurian589 - Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - link
3ds max crashes because of the mental ray renderer. remove the plugin from loading and max will start up. its due to mental ray cannot see more than 16 threads (physical or virtual via hyper-threading). please do test the max rendering performance. thanksDesired_Username - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link
In the final words it states "We estimate that the new Opteron 6174 is about 20% slower than the Xeon 5670 in virtualized servers with very high VM counts. " But in the virtualization section I can't seem to figure out what brought you to that conclusion. The VMmark scores for the Cisco X5680 system was 35.83@26 tiles. You have the VMmark for the 6176SE at 31 which is dead on to the HP DL385 G7 which got 30.96@22 tiles. I see the X5680 15% better at best. And the Cisco x5680 system had 192GB of memory to the HP 6176SE system had 128GB. What am I missing here?jeffjeff - Wednesday, September 22, 2010 - link
I appreciate AMD's lower CPU cost but on the other hand, Oracle will license me their RDBMS per core and whether it's an Intel 56xx or AMD 61xx, I am still paying a relation of .5 license per core.So in the end, I would pay 6 cores for AMD and 3 cores for Intel. The price per core is much higher than the hardware price difference.
Any thought or solutions on this issue would be appreciated...
Joffrey
stealthy - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 - link
Would it be possible to get the xml parameter files you have used in this test ?We are currently in a trial phase at my company to see how the current crop of intel boxes (dual Xeon X5460 procs) hold up against a new z10 system.
Did you run the swingbench on the server itself or did you use a dedicated client to test ?
Big_Mr_Mac - Thursday, December 16, 2010 - link
In 1991 I had an AMD 386-40 that kicked the snot out of Intel pride and joy 486DX2-66. Benchmarks were 25%+ across the board over Intel. Then Intel lied to the market and started passing off cull processors as viable options calling the 25Mhz and 50Mhz processors, when they were actually processors that failed the benchmarks for 33Mhz and 66Mhz respectively.In 1998 When Win98 Beta was released I was building Servers and workstations at a Tech-company and Again the AMD was kicking the snot out of Intel. Load times on new system builds, boot time and performance. The Intel chips could not hack it. Then when MS release their actual market version of Win98...all of a sudden you could not even use an AMD processor to run it. You had to wait 2 weeks for MS come up with a "AMD Patch" to run on an AMD system.
One think I have seen over 20 years in the industry is that Intel will, Lie, Cheat, Steal and Bribe to try and get the upper hand on AMD. Always have....Always Will!!
rautamiekka - Saturday, December 25, 2010 - link
Why the fuck are you testing with WinServer and M$ SQL ? Just reading this makes my blood boil 9 times in a second.polbel - Saturday, May 21, 2011 - link
i've been an amd fan for as long as i can remember. started fixing computers in 1979. used to fix mai basic four minis in the mid-80s that were built on amd bit-slice bipolar cpus on boards that cost 15,000$.just got 2 opteron 6172 cpus from ebay for what i thought was peanuts (450 $ each) only to discover upon delivery that both had hairline cracks at a 45 degree angle on one corner of the contact pad surface. looking at their web site i could figure i was out on limb and they would laugh in my face if asked for warranty support on these not-boxed cpus. i know some dumb ass managed to break those cpu corners, and tried to shove the crap to an ebay sucker, but the problem lies deeper, mostly in the g34 socket physical design itself of these otherwise beautiful electronic products. the edge of the metal cover doesn't reach the edge of the fiber board, leaving some unsupported area to be broken by dumb asses mimicking the old days when they could put a 40-pin dip cpu upside-down in its socket. so i'm freshly reviewing my belief system about amd while i figure a solution for this crap-hits-the-fan situation. wish i could have told amd engineers to cover theses last millimeters at the bleeding edge. they might say this and that about warranty, i still hold them responsible for this preventable disaster.
paul :-)