Intel "Harpertown" Xeon vs. AMD "Barcelona" Opteron
by Jason Clark & Ross Whitehead on September 18, 2007 5:00 PM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
Quest Software Benchmark Factory
We mentioned that the benchmarks we previously used are no longer useful, as we did not have the I/O capacity required to support them. We went looking for alternative benchmarks, and stumbled upon Benchmark Factory from Quest Software. Below is a description of the product and the benchmarks we used in this article.
Benchmark Factory for Databases is a performance and code scalability testing tool that simulates users and transactions on the database and replays a production or synthetic workload in non-production environments. This enables organizations to validate database scalability as user loads increase, application changes are made, and platform changes are implemented. Benchmark Factory is available for Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, Sybase, MySQL and other databases via ODBC and Native connectivity.
Benchmark Factory provides many tests you can run, and has a very nice and customizable metric reporting engine. We decided to run the AS3AP test, and the Scalable Hardware CPU, Reads, and Mixed tests. Here is what Quest's help file says about these tests:
AS3AP
The AS3AP benchmark is an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Structured Query Language (SQL) relational database benchmark. The AS3AP benchmark provides the following features:
Scalable Hardware
The Scalable Hardware benchmark measures relational database systems. This benchmark is a subset of the AS3AP benchmark and tests the following:
We run three iterations of each load point, and then average the results. We also monitor deviations to ensure they are within an acceptable range. We like to see a max deviation of +/- 3%.
Choosing the contenders
In previous articles, we've been asked to explain why we chose the parts we did for an article. For this article Intel sent us their 3.0 GHz Harpertown CPUs. We requested the 3.0 GHz Clovertown CPUs, which are 120 Watt TDP parts, to allow us to do a clock to clock comparison of Harpertown to Clovertown. We also tried to get Harpertown 2.66 GHz or 2.5 GHz CPUs but none were available. These would have provided us with the closest cost comparison to the Opteron 2350's, but it was not possible. We resourcefully acquired two of AMDs newest Opteron 2350's and we requested the Opteron 2222 3.0 GHz Opteron CPUs, which are the highest clock in the 95 Watt TDP envelope. We did review the results of the Opteron 2224SE 3.2 GHz 119W TDP CPUs but their performance was only marginally better than the 2222's and their performance/watt was consistently lower and thus we concluded of less of interest for this article.
We mentioned that the benchmarks we previously used are no longer useful, as we did not have the I/O capacity required to support them. We went looking for alternative benchmarks, and stumbled upon Benchmark Factory from Quest Software. Below is a description of the product and the benchmarks we used in this article.
Benchmark Factory for Databases is a performance and code scalability testing tool that simulates users and transactions on the database and replays a production or synthetic workload in non-production environments. This enables organizations to validate database scalability as user loads increase, application changes are made, and platform changes are implemented. Benchmark Factory is available for Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, Sybase, MySQL and other databases via ODBC and Native connectivity.
Benchmark Factory provides many tests you can run, and has a very nice and customizable metric reporting engine. We decided to run the AS3AP test, and the Scalable Hardware CPU, Reads, and Mixed tests. Here is what Quest's help file says about these tests:
AS3AP
The AS3AP benchmark is an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Structured Query Language (SQL) relational database benchmark. The AS3AP benchmark provides the following features:
- Tests database processing power
- Built-in scalability and portability that tests a broad range of database systems
- Minimizes effort in implementing and running benchmark tests
- Provides a uniform metric and straightforward interpretation of benchmark results
Scalable Hardware
The Scalable Hardware benchmark measures relational database systems. This benchmark is a subset of the AS3AP benchmark and tests the following:
- CPU
- Disk
- Network
We run three iterations of each load point, and then average the results. We also monitor deviations to ensure they are within an acceptable range. We like to see a max deviation of +/- 3%.
Choosing the contenders
In previous articles, we've been asked to explain why we chose the parts we did for an article. For this article Intel sent us their 3.0 GHz Harpertown CPUs. We requested the 3.0 GHz Clovertown CPUs, which are 120 Watt TDP parts, to allow us to do a clock to clock comparison of Harpertown to Clovertown. We also tried to get Harpertown 2.66 GHz or 2.5 GHz CPUs but none were available. These would have provided us with the closest cost comparison to the Opteron 2350's, but it was not possible. We resourcefully acquired two of AMDs newest Opteron 2350's and we requested the Opteron 2222 3.0 GHz Opteron CPUs, which are the highest clock in the 95 Watt TDP envelope. We did review the results of the Opteron 2224SE 3.2 GHz 119W TDP CPUs but their performance was only marginally better than the 2222's and their performance/watt was consistently lower and thus we concluded of less of interest for this article.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
77 Comments
View All Comments
Justin Case - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
Anyone else feel that the first image...http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/it/2007/barcel...">http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/it/2007/barcel...
...looks somewhat... er... phallic?
TA152H - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
Oh my, you're absolutely right.That's really foul. Even the area between the Tick and Tock looks like the urethra. It's so wrong. Is that really the only way they could have presented the information? I mean, if they wanted to get pornographic, couldn't they have used a woman's breasts? Right one for Tick, left one for Tock? It's much more attractive than this.
Regs - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
Marketing geniuses. Intel at its best. A better product, with a bigger...In all do seriousness, It's no surprise AMD can't compete with an architecture that's been out for over a year. AMD needs more tweaks and needs more clock speed. I just hope they don't disappoint again like they did with the K8. 4-5 years of stagnation.
TA152H - Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - link
I think it comes down to Intel being wiser than AMD. They were always smarter, as evidenced by their much more advanced processors like the P7 and Itanium. But AMD was wiser, and chose an easier path that also performed better. Intel had all the great technology, super-advanced trail blazing stuff that just didn't work that well. AMD made the same mistake by going native quad-core before they were ready. Consequently, they have a poor performing part compared to what Intel has, today, and promises for tomorrow. Obviously, the extent of their failure isn't as deep-rooted as the Pentium 4 was and at least the Barcelona can be improved (mainly by clock speed) more quickly, but the big problem is that the Barcelona is getting raped by Intel processors using FB-DIMMS. You add clock speed to the Barcelona, and the power goes up (everything else being equal). You change FB-DIMMS out, and you get better performance and lower power. So, the future doesn't look that bright for AMD, despite the fact they should gain clock speed pretty quickly. It's unlikely to help their power/performance much. Intel using more appropriate memory will to a great extent. Also, if AMD does manage to get close to Intel in performance, Intel will just release a higher performing part. They can hit much higher than 3.2 with their G0 stepping, so it's really a matter of whether it makes marketing sense.But, it sure sounds good to have native quad-core, and they sure were smart to do it. Right? Just like Intel was to come out with trace-cache, double-pumped ALUs, and super-pipelining and unheard of clock speeds.
But all that aside, if they can get the clock speeds up to a reasonable amount, and increase the size of the pathetic caches (yes, I know they are limited by the IMC and it limits it, but still 512K????) and in a release or two get full memory disambiguation, they will have a really good product. It will at least be competitive.
Justin Case - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
Any reason why the AMD system had 16 GB of RAM (8x2GB) while the Intel system had only 8GB (4x2GB)?Also, any reason for the big differences in cooling (AMD system had 7 fans, Intel system had 3)? If the Barcelona system actually uses <i>less power</i>, as your numbers show, surely it can't dissipate <i>more</i> heat.
When you're measuring the power consumption of the whole system (and extrapolating that to the power efficiency of each CPU), you should try to make the configurations match as closely as possible, no? Not to mention that the amount of RAM can have an influence on the actual system performance.
I could understand different configurations if you were testing systems at a specific price point (and couldn't "afford" more RAM for the Intel system due to the more expensive CPUs, for example), but that wasn't the case here.
Xspringe - Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - link
I would really like to see updated benchmark scores as well! It only seems fair to add more ram to the xeon, for it might improve the benchmark scores and would also increase energy usage (which would be beneficial to the barcelona).Final Hamlet - Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - link
Yuk!I really would like to see an explanation from an editor on this critique...
Justin Case - Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - link
Add the unusual choice of benchmark and fact that Harpertown isn't actually due to be launched until November, and I think this is one (more) article we can file under the "iNandtel" section.Speaking of that, anyone know what happened to GamePC's "Labs" section? Along with the Tech Report they were probably one of the last sites with a steady output of meaningful, objective reviews of PC hardware.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - link
IMPORTANT UPDATE INFORMATION:There was a typo/error in the original config. We apologize for the confusion - I should have verified with Jason/Ross earlier. The Opteron setup was running 8x1GB, not 8x2GB. Sorry to pop all the conspiracy theories (again), but the systems are a lot more similar than you would apparently like to believe.
Note also the update at the end: 2.5GHz Barcelona is on its way and will be tested shortly. We'll see how that compares with the higher clocked Harpertown.
Proteusza - Thursday, September 20, 2007 - link
With the last Quad Core Comes to Play article, and now this, I've completely lost faith in Anandtech's benchmarks.These guys are too clever for them to make a mistake like that, and if they did I'm sure they would see the mistake and rebenchmark.
No, I think these benchmarks were just paid for by Intel, in anticipation of its November launch to steal AMD's thunder. I'm not accusing the entire site of constant bias towards Intel, but rather a bias towards advertising. AMD has probably done the same thing in the past, and I'm sure Anandtech has been happy to oblige.