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
Benchmark Methods and Systems
First of all, I like to offer my thanks to my colleague Tijl Deneut who helped me out with the complex virtualization benchmarks.
None of our benchmarks required more than 20 GB of RAM. Database files were placed on a two drive RAID-0 Intel X25-E SLC 32GB SSD, with log files on one Intel X25-E SLC 32GB. Adding more drives improved performance by only 1%, so we are confident that storage is not our bottleneck.
Xeon Server 1: ASUS RS700-E6/RS4 barebone
Dual Intel Xeon "Gainestown" X5570 2.93GHz, Dual Intel Xeon “Westmere” X5670 2.93 GHz
ASUS Z8PS-D12-1U
6x4GB (24GB) ECC Registered DDR3-1333
NIC: Intel 82574L PCI-EGBit LAN
PSU: Delta Electronics DPS-770 AB 770W
Opteron Server 1 (Dual CPU): AMD Magny-Cours Reference system (desktop case)
Dual AMD Opteron 6174 2.2 GHz
AMD Dinar motherboard with AMD SR5690 Chipset & SB750 Southbridge
8x 4 GB (32 GB) ECC Registered DDR3-1333
NIC: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme II BCM5709 Gigabit
PSU: 1200W PSU
Opteron Server 2 (Dual CPU): Supermicro A+ Server 1021M-UR+V
Dual Opteron 2435 "Istanbul" 2.6GHz
Dual Opteron 2389 2.9GHz
Supermicro H8DMU+
32GB (8x4GB) DDR2-800
PSU: 650W Cold Watt HE Power Solutions CWA2-0650-10-SM01-1
vApus/Oracle Calling Circle Client Configuration
First client (Tile one)
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83 GHz
Foxconn P35AX-S
GB (2x2GB) Kingston DDR2-667
NIC: Intel PRO/1000
Second client (Tile two)
Single Xeon X3470 2.93GHz
S3420GPLC
Intel 3420 chipset
8GB (4 x 2GB) 1066MHz DDR3
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Cogman - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
It should be noted that newer nehelam based processors have specific AES encryption instructions. The benchmark where the xeon blows everything out of the water is likely utilizing that instruction set (though, AFAIK not many real-world applications do)Hector1 - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
I read that Intel is expected to launch the 8-core Nehalem EX today. It'll be interesting to compare it against the 12-core Magny Cours. Both are on a 45nm process.spoman - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
You stated "... that kind of bandwidth is not attainable, not even in theory because the next link in the chain, the Northbridge ...".How does the Northbridge affect memory BW if the memory is connected directly to the processor?
JohanAnandtech - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Depending on your definition, the nortbridge is in the CPU. AMD uses "northbride" in its own slides to refer to the part where the memory controller etc. resides.Pari_Rajaram - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
Why don't you add STREAM and LINPACK to your benchmark suites? These are very important benchmarks for HPC.JohanAnandtech - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Stream... in the review.piooreq - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Hi Johan,For last few days I did several tests with Swingbench CC with similar database configuration but I achieved a bit different results, I’m just wondering what exactly settings you put for CC test itself. I mean about when you generate schema and data for that test? Thanks for answer.
JohanAnandtech - Thursday, April 1, 2010 - link
Your question is not completely clear to me. What is the info you would like? You can e-mail if you like at johanATthiswebsitePointcomzarjad - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Can't figure out if hyperthreading were enabled on Intels. Particularly interested in virtualization benchmark with hyperthreading both enabled and disabled. Also of interest would be an Office benchmark with a bunch of small VMs (1.5 to 2GB) to simulate VDI configuration.JohanAnandtech - Thursday, April 1, 2010 - link
Hyperthreading is always on. But we will follow up on that. A VDI based hypervisor tests is however not immediately on the horizon. The people of the VRC project might do that though. Google on the VRC project.