AMD Shanghai Launch - Database Testing
by Jason Clark & Ross Whitehead on November 13, 2008 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
What's new with Shanghai?
Besides the die shrink to 45nm using a new Immersion Lithography process, AMD has thrown some other enhancements at the Barcelona architecture to increase performance in a variety of workloads. Details on the various features are quite scarce, but here is what we know at this point.
L3 Cache Increase
One of the first enhancements, and perhaps the biggest change, is the increase of the L3 cache from 2MB to 6MB. On average, it's expected that this will increase performance by anywhere from 5-10%.
Memory Bandwidth
Memory bandwidth is up from 667MHz to 800MHz with the introduction of Shanghai.
Smart Fetch
This allows cores to enter a halt state during idle times to reduce CPU power consumption. According to AMD, this can reduce CPU power consumption by as much as 21% or 15W.
Virtualization
Enhanced Rapid Virtualization Indexing (RVI) / ~25% faster world switch and L3 Cache index disable (improved data integrity).
It's obvious that AMD is still focused on performance per Watt, which you'll see in the results.
Test Setup
AMD Shanghai System
2U Supermicro rack mount with H8DMU+ board
16GB DDR2 800MHz Memory
1 15.5K Cheetah SAS Drive for OS
Windows 2008 Enterprise
SQL 2008 Enterprise
Intel Harpertown System
2U Supermicro rack mount with X7DWN+ board
16GB DDR2 800MHz Memory
1 15.5K Cheetah SAS Drive for OS
Windows 2008 Enterprise
SQL 2008 Enterprise
Raid Setup
Promise J300s Enclosure
6 Seagate 1TB SAS Drives configured in a Raid 0 array for performance
LSI Logic 8480E MegaRaid Controller
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Jason Clark - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link
Hi folks, as with most all launches, there are a number of articles we do each on a specific area. Ross and I focussed on database performance under microsoft sql server. I know a VM piece is in the works, just hang on and you'll see something soon.Viditor - Tuesday, December 9, 2008 - link
"I know a VM piece is in the works, just hang on and you'll see something soon"Not to be picky, but it's been almost a month now. Any word on the VM piece??
johnsonx - Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - link
no, you have to have it all done at once, and you have to cover every aspect we could even imagine wanting tests for, or we're going to gripe.Viditor - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link
I am surprised that you didn't choose any VM specific benches, as that is an obvious design goal of Shanghai's...It would have been nice to see if they were successful.
duploxxx - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link
that's exactly what i asked, additional Vmware testing like anand did before.the overall vmware performance of shanghai 2,7 is already known in VMmark, it totally destroys any x86 intel platform known today even the 6 core dunnington @2,66ghz. but additional tests would be nice.
http://www.vmware.com/products/vmmark/results.html">http://www.vmware.com/products/vmmark/results.html
lplatypus - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link
Regarding the delayed introduction of HT3: could it be that these CPUs actually do support HT3, and we're only waiting for support in the chipset?duploxxx - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link
Common anand you can do better then that. Where are mysql loads/io/3d measurements and hypervisor testing....JohanAnandtech - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link
Please understand that:Anand is the CEO and founder of the complete Anandtech, inc. and writer of many desktop/mobile oriented articles.
Jason and Ross are part of it.anandtech.com and run the Windows/Database tests.
The hypervisor/ MySQL/Linux stuff is done by myself (Johan De Gelas) and I am still working on our Shanghai review. ESX does not like the new BIOS that makes Shanghai possible, so we won't be able to post ESX numbers before a new BIOS is ready.
duploxxx - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link
if you would just let us use the edit button :), my usage of anand, was just meant as a short word of anandtech actually, sry for that.didn't know you had bios issues, seems like some vendors (dell) had less issues. looking forward to those parts.
the info like latency is really added value.
Proteusza - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link
We see some numbers for Shanghai. Any news on when the desktop part will be released/tested?I'm pleased it does well in performance/watt, but slightly disappointed that it doesnt beat Barcelona significantly in performance/clock.
I wonder how well it will fair in games?