Intel EMT64 Xeon vs AMD Opteron

[Astrodog]

On Fri, 4 Feb 2005 19:38:43 -0800, Astrodog <astrodog at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Feb 2005 11:37:08 +0100 (CET), Claus Guttesen
> <cguttesen at yahoo.dk> wrote:
> > > Cost wise, AMD Opteron 246 is roughly the same cost
> > > as a 3.0Ghz Xeon ... But
> > > how do they compare performance wise; specifically
> > > related to FreeBSD?
> >
> > We have a dual xeon (nocona) @ 3.2 GHz and a dual
> > opteron @ 2 GHz, both with 4 GB RAM and running the
> > amd64-port. My impression is that the opteron performs
> > *slightly* better than it's Intel-cousin.
> >
> > regards
> > Claus
> >
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> >
>  From what I understand, EM64T is essentally an extention to x86, so
> it will understand the AMD64 instructions, much the same way an
> Athlon64 does. Opteron, once again, from what I've read on the topic
> is "Actual" 64-bit, not an emulated version. Generally, I find Opteron
> to be the best "Bang for your Buck", though what motherboard, and what
> features you need there may also play a role there. AMD, so far, has
> implied that the dual core opterons will be Socket 940, If that pans
> out, the 940-based solution will be significantly more expandable,
> since there's little to no chance of Intel continuing to use their
> current Xeon socket when their Dual Core offerings come out, and I
> suspect it would be technically impossible, given the Memory
> Controller issues that its bound to create. Since AMD put the memory
> controller on-die, they can resolve this issue in the core, and not
> involve the chipsets of the motherboard itself.
>  Remember, Hyperthreading isn't dual core, its kinda like adding
> another "Lane" to the processing pipeline of a single processor, so
> that when something stalls, other things can still happen.
>  Hypertransport, on the other hand is AMD's method of connecting SMP
> CPUs to eachother, memory, and devices on the motherboard.
> 
> Sorry about the Hypertransport/Hyperthreading thing, but there seems
> to be a great deal of confusion about what each are, and what's
> good/bad about them, and they relate to the AMD/Intel decsion you're
> making pretty explicitly.
> 
> Personally, I say go with the Opteron. Worst case, performance and
> reliability are the same, and you're supporting the underdog. Best
> case, it blows your socks off, and in a year, you can go dual core.
> Either way, you can't loose.
> 
> ---- Harrison Grundy
> 

D'oh. One other thing. In the benchmarks I've seen, Opterons "Play
Nicer" with SMP because of the Hypertransport setup in some
applications. (IE, they don't fight over memory the way Xeons do).
Look for a motherboard that uses a "4+4" or "4+2" memory configuration
to take full advantage of this. (Differnt memory for each processor,
kinda)