Linux and EM64T; Intel's 64-bit Suggestion
by Kristopher Kubicki on August 9, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Linux
Conclusions
Although the Athlon 64 3500+ and the Xeon 3.6GHz EM64T processors were not necessarily designed to compete against each other, we found that comparing the two CPUs was more appropriate than anticipated, particularly in the light of Intel's newest move to bring EM64T to the Pentium 4 line. Once we obtain a sample of the Pentium 4 3.6F, we expect our benchmarks to produce very similar results to the 3.6 Xeon tested for this review.Without a doubt, the 3.6GHz Xeon trounces over the Athlon 64 3500+ in math-intensive synthetic benchmarks. Again, not that it is really a comparison between the two chips yet anyway, but perhaps something of a marker of things to come. However, real world benchmarks, with the exception of John the Ripper is where AMD came ahead instead. Even though John uses several different optimizations to generate hashes, in every case, the Athlon chip found itself at least 40% behind. Much of this is likely attributed to the additional math tweaking in the Prescott family core, and the lack of optimizations at compile time.
That's not to say that the Xeon CPU necessarily deserves excessive praise just yet. At time of publication, our Xeon processor retails for $850 and the Athlon 3500+ retails for about $500 less. The 3.6F processor the Xeon represents does not even exist in retail channels yet. Also, keep in mind that the AMD processor is clocked 1400MHz slower than the 3.6GHz Xeon. With only a few exceptions, synthetically the 3.6GHz Xeon outperformed our Athlon 64 3500+, whether or not the cost and thermal issues between these two processors are justifiable.
We will benchmark some SMP 3.6GHz Xeons against a pair of Opterons in the near future, so check back regularly for new benchmarks!
Update: We have addressed the issue with the -02 compile options in TSCP, the miscopy from previous benchmarks of the MySQL benchmark, and various other issues here and there in the testing of this processor. Expect a follow up article as soon as possible with an Opteron.
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Anemone - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link
I just can't help but wonder, if you already knew, by numerous tests, that the math ability of the A64 is leaps and bounds ahead of the P4 or Xeon, didn't you want to question your results?I know the P4EE and the A64's are often neck and neck in some tests (obviously not Doom3 haha) so I'm not going to be shocked if Xeons do well in some apps. But there are literally thousands of posts of pi tests (of the many flavors) in which the P4 is soundly trounced in every single one of them, and by a large margin. The Xeon even the EM64T version is just a Prescott core, and quite honestly its math ability should not be, even in 64bit mode, night and day different from its current results.
Anyway, have to at least say you stood by your convictions and stated things as they were presented to you. And hopefully more information will help us all to understand if maybe the Xeon at least does relatively well in 64 bit, which would be a nice bit of news I think.
$02
SDA - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link
Funny, it looks like you're testing the 3500+ in 32-bit mode, in MySQL Test-Select at least...http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/amd%20and%20lin...
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/linux%20and%20e...
Decoder - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link
Hello Kristopher,Some people don't know how to articulate their thoughts properly, as we see in this thread.
Anyways, for your followup review please test the 64 bit implementations by AMD and Intel using more than 4 GB of rams. 6 or 8 GB will do nicely. I heard Intel implementation relies on software where as AMD's is 100% hardware and this is where AMD Opteron's shine and Intel's EM64T has performance issues.
Again, testing 64 bit mode with 1 gig's is probably not worth it.
Regards,
Decoder.
tfranzese - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link
Some of you, the very few of you, that cannot see the problem with the quality, consistency, and lack of comparisons in this article compared to not only other sites, but this one's as well seriously need your heads checked. It's that simple.tfranzese - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link
I don't visit Anandtech (or any site for that matter) if I weren't expecting well thought out and quality articles. I don't think many here visit to see rushed out numbers and editorials. I don't thank a publication that thrives on users reading their material for sub-par work. Publications survive thanks to the readers and not the other way around.mino - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link
manno: U're Idiot or Intel PR (You can choose your favourite).Kris: The best thing to do is to either: COMPLETELY rewrite or call in this BS U produced.
No Offence. I'm disgusted.
danidentity - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link
You all sound like a bunch of whiny little babies. It's amazing how many people come out of the woodwork when something puts AMD in a bad light. I'm actually laughing outloud reading these commments.As KK pointed out, the upcoming P4 3.6F will produce extremely similar numbers to the Xeon benched in this article.
The P4 3.6 is a comparable processor to the 3500+.
fritz64 - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link
Hello Kristopher,I have been a silent member on this forum since I registered but this article made me search for my password in order to make a comment. You guys at Anandtech have been doing a good job of keeping us informed about capabilities of current day computer hardware. However this current review need serious attention and should be immediately considered based on the various opinion expressed in the forum.
I love to see more of number crunching on real applications using 32/64 bit set up. I mean 32-bit OS/32-bit compiler and 32-bit/64-bit AMD vs Intel.
As for the current review. I think the idea of using the installed Suse Linux OS 9.1 is not a real test of a hardware capability. The OS should be compiled for the best performance optimization on both Intel and AMD platform. Further, the use of 32-bit compiler for AMD Athlon 3500+ does not make use of its 16 registers and thus cripple it's performance a little bit. For best performance, Since Intel writes optimize compiler for their CPUs, I will suggest that you get the best compiler for the Intel system and bench it against the best compiler for AThlon 64 which is undoubtedly the PATHSCALE COMPILER SUITE ( YOU CAN GET A 30-DAY FREE DOWNLOAD VERSION AT www.pathscale.com). Whether the 30-day trial version consist of all the necessary optimization is what I don't know. However the PATHSCALE compiler gives the best SpecInt score that blows the Itanium2 away.
TauCeti - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link
to #74"Look they stuck their head out and released some early numbers, and rather than thank them for doing it, people are throwing tomatoes at them."
I wish i could agree with you, but:
Well, if the numbers are that early that you do not detect obviously wrong results, you should at least inform your readers that you have no idea at all what your benchmark results mean.
I mean: The TSCP Bench on the 3500+ produced a score BELOW 1.0. IF you use that arcane bench you should at least wonder why your 3500+ performs worse then a 2000+.
I cannot understand how one could publish a TSCP score below 1.0 without any comment on that.
FYI: TSCP defines score 1.0 (about 243k nodes/sec):
/* Score: 1.000 = my Athlon XP 2000+ */
Tau
fritz64 - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link
Hello,Testing. Please ignore