The new Opteron 6300: Finally Tested!
by Johan De Gelas on February 20, 2013 12:03 AM ESTMeasuring Real-World Power Consumption
The Equal Workload (EWL) version of vApus FOS is very similar to our previous vApus Mark II "Real-world Power" test. To create a real-world “equal workload” scenario, we throttle the number of users in each VM to a point where you typically get somewhere between 20% and 80% CPU load on a modern dual CPU server. The amount of requests is the same for each system, hence "equal workload".
The CPU load is typically around 30-50%, with peaks up to 65% (for more info see here). At the end of the test, we get to a low 10%, which is ideal for the machine to boost to higher CPU clocks (Turbo) and race to idle. We use the "Balanced" power policy and enable C-states as the current ESXi settings make poor use of the C6 capabilities of the latest Opterons and Xeons.
We cannot say "mission accomplished", but AMD has made significant progress. 12% to 20% better performance while decreasing the power consumption by 6% to 8% is pretty good. The 95W TDP Xeons are still the performance per Watt champs though. Still, it looks like the Opteron is a decent alternative for some. Power consumption is about 12-13% higher (6376 vs E5-2660), but the performance per dollar is slightly better.
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JohanAnandtech - Wednesday, February 20, 2013 - link
Per Core. So with the -np 32 setting. I have tried less before, but the LS-DYNA really likes the extra load and store units of the second unit. so 32 MPI processes give a 30% boost.alpha754293 - Wednesday, February 20, 2013 - link
That's a healthy boost! It's amazing how these technologies are maturing to the point where conventional wisdom that they might be starved for FPU resources isn't enough to slow them down.It'd be interesting to see whether it makes a difference if you were to let the OS handle the job/process scheduling or whether manual intervention can help reduce some of the thread/process migration overhead, especially across 16 FPUs.
dmytty - Friday, February 22, 2013 - link
Before the benchmarks came in, I looked at an HPC build for the new 6300 series. I saw the real sweet spot for AMD being the 6344 which is a CPU of type 2.6 Ghz @ 12 or 6 core (depending how you define a 'core'). Anandtech never mentioned this CPU in the review. (?)In simple $ terms for the CPU, it's the E5 2640 @ $815 vs the Opteron 6344 @ $415. So how does AMD not have a decisive price advantage?
In 4S land the price advantage widens.
AMD 4S...I priced a build (not including a case) at ~$3860 for 4 x 6344, 128 GB RAM, mobo and PSU. Note that this mobo could also go out to 256 GB. CPU cost is 4 x 6344 = $1660. Again, total system cost was $3860.
Intel 4S...I picked the 4607 as being the best 'bang for the buck processor'. It's 6 cores @ 2.2 Ghz. However, at $885 per 4607 processor the CPU cost is more than double than AMD (ie 4x Intel 4607 = $3540). The same build cost using the Intel 4607 would then be $5740.
AMD @ $3860 vs Intel @ $5740. Why did Anandtech not talk about 4S? Why no mention of the 6344?
dmytty - Friday, February 22, 2013 - link
I forgot to mention that the Intel board I specified for 4S build was $1200 whereas the AMD board was $800.A marketing person would call the system cost comparison ~$3k vs $~6k.
Again, am I missing something?
The AMD 6344 based 4S system has a ~19% clockspeed advantage and comes in at 62% of the cost.
Worried about electrical cost? You can buy 700 watts of PV solar panels with the cost savings between AMD and Intel. 700 watts peak = ~3.5 kwh daily output. That would nicely mitigate (and then some) the 20 watts/cpu difference (80 watts total with 4x cpu) between AMD 6344 and Intel 4607. You would net about 1.5 kwh/day electricity going with the AMD + PV over the slightly more efficient Intel.
geok1ng - Monday, May 19, 2014 - link
this is all and good, but looking at spec int 2006 results, Abu Dhabi still does not match performance/watt of Magni Cours opterons. And the best competition AMd can offer against 2 gen old Xeons is still the Opteron 6180.