So sánh AMD Opteron với Intel Xeon cho server?

Nếu cho phục vụ trang web, php, jsp thì AMD Opteron hơn hẵn intel Xeon. Nhưng nếu về integer benchmark và Java application server thì Xeon hơn hẵn AMD Opteron.
Thông số:
New benchmarks for AMD's 2.5 GHz quadcore Opteron

Dell has published the first figures for the 110519 upcoming 2.5 GHz quadcore Opteron 2360 SE and Opteron 8360 SE on the benchmark website www.spec.org. The first benchmarks published in autumn of 2007 were nullified because the AMD processors were not available, so this recent publication represents the first official benchmarks for AMD's fastest server processors. Dell made the measurements with the new PowerEdge R805 – 2 CPU sockets – and R905 – 4 CPU sockets – servers.

Processors # Cores Clock rate SPEC CPU2006 (base) throughput
int_rate_2006 fp_rate_2006
2 Opteron 2360 SEs
(Dell PowerEdge R805) 2 × 4 2.5 GHz 92.4 82.1
2 Opteron 2358 SEs
(Dell PowerEdge R805) 2 × 4 2.4 GHz 90.3 80.7
2 Xeon X5482s
(Supermicro X7DWT) 2 × 4 3.2 GHz 121 80.4
2 POWER6s
(IBM BladeCenter JS22) 2 × 2+SMT 4.0 GHz 77.2
(77.8) 65.7
(67.8)
4 Opteron 8360 SEs
(Dell PowerEdge R905) 4 × 4 2.5 GHz 167 152
4 Xeon X7350s
(Bull NovaScale R480E1) 4 × 4 2.93 GHz 177 108
4 × POWER6
(IBM System p570) 4 × 2+SMT 4.7 GHz 210 185
1 UltraSPARC T2
(Sun Enterprise T5220) 1 × 8+SMT 1.4 GHz 73 57.9
2 UltraSPARC T2s
(Sun Enterprise T5240) 2 × 8+SMT 1.42 GHz 142 111
All values from www.spec.org, various operating systems and compilers

The measurement values confirmed that "native" AMD quad cores mainly score well in scaling – due to fast HyperTransport connections between processors and fast memory access by the memory controllers integrated in each processor. While Opterons are much slower than Xeons when it comes to the integer processing common in all-round servers, they are much faster in terms of floating-point rates (fp_rate). Intel's Xeons, and especially the (MP-)Xeons in the 7000 series for servers with 4 CPU sockets, have quite a bit of catching up to do. Four Opterons are roughly twice as fast in terms of floating-point rates.

In our table, we also included IBM's Power6 servers, which cost roughly the same – such as the JS22 Express blade server and, with some restrictions, the Power 570 – formerly System p570. Like IBM, Sun sells x64 servers with AMD and Intel processors in addition to devices with Sun's own "Niagara" processor, the UltraSPARC T2 and its version for servers with two CPU sockets, called Victoria Falls.

In addition to CPU2006 benchmarks, spec.org also provides SPECweb2005 results. Here, the HP ProLiant DL385 G5 with two Opteron 2356s – 2.3 GHz – scored 30,007 points ahead of the ProLiant DL380 G5 with two Xeon X5460s – 3.16 GHz –, which got 29,591 points. But neither of them can compete with Sun's octo-core UltraSPARC T2, which came in with 41,847 points.

There are also current values for SPECjbb2005 Java server benchmarks, but AMD's Opteron does not quite manage to pull away there.

Processors # Cores Clock rate SPECjbb2005 bops
2 Opteron 2356s
(HP ProLiant DL385 G5) 2 × 4 2.3 GHz 214,275
2 Xeon X5460s
(FSC Primergy RX300 S4) 2 × 4 3.16 GHz 305,657
4 Opteron 8356s
(HP ProLiant DL585 G5) 4 × 4 2.3 GHz 368,543
4 POWER6s
(IBM Power 570) 4 × 2+SMT 4.7 GHz 345,809
4 Xeon X7350s
(Sun Fire X4450) 4 × 4 2.93 GHz 464,355
1 UltraSPARC T2
(Sun Enterprise T5220) 1 × 8+SMT 1.4 GHz 192,055
2 UltraSPARC T2s
(Sun Enterprise T5240) 2 × 8+SMT 1.42 GHz 373,405
All values from www.spec.org, various operating systems and Java engines

AMD is, however, already optimizing Java on Opterons.

In the TPC-C database benchmarks, current MP-Xeons – X7350 – with a rate of 516,725 transactions per second – IBM System x3850 M2 – are much faster than HP's Opteron 2356 Quartett – 402,234, ProLiant DL585 G5 –, though HP's machine does post a record performance in terms of value for the money among x64 systems with four processors – and it only had half as much RAM – 128 GB – as the IBM Server.

The SAP SD (sales and distribution, 2-tier internet configuration) benchmark for four Opteron 8356s on an Blade-Server HP ProLiant BL685c G5 handled 3524 "users" – PDF file, also for all SAP SD results below –, which is roughly the same as four Xeon E7340s – 2.4 GHz – on a BL680c G5 – 3500 users – PDF file; faster Xeons leave these two in the dust, such as four Xeon X7350s on an HP ProLiant DL580 G5 – 3705 users – PDF file. With the ProLiant DL785, HP now also has a server with eight Opteron 8356 s that can handle an impressive 5230 users – PDF file, though it is hard to compare HP's machine with Xeons for a lack of benchmark values for a current system with eight Xeons. On an x3950 M2 system with 16 Xeon X7350s, IBM says it can serve 10,600 SAP SD users – PDF file. In the comparison SAP SD servers with two processors, the Xeons lead the way, with two Xeon E5450s – 3 GHz – handling 2275 users – PDF file – and two Opteron 2356s – 2.3 GHz – handling 2102 users – PDF file. It is doubtful that the higher clock rates of Opterons will be able to close this gap; after all, there are even faster Xeons, such as the X5460, which managed to handle 2436 users – PDF file – in these benchmarks.