Intel Xeon 7460: Six Cores to Bulldoze Opteron
by Johan De Gelas on September 23, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
Power
The Opteron may have a slight disadvantage here as it has a 1200W PSU instead of a 1000W unit. We had no choice as our 1U server with 1000W PSU that we used in our previous reviews is not supported by ESX. Our Supermicro SC828TQ-R1200LPB 2U works very well with ESX, but it may consume a few extra Watts. (Or perhaps not - without testing both PSUs we really don't know their efficiency curves.) All Xeons use the exact same chassis, motherboard and power supply. We decided to test with both 16GB and 32GB. In our benchmarking scenario we only needed 16GB, as our VMs were very processing intensive and didn't need more memory. In the real world, it is much more likely that most of your VMs need far less processing power and will require more memory (especially when you run more VMs). The extra data point allows you to understand how much power eight extra DIMMs require, allowing you to estimate how much power your setup will consume.
| System Power Comparison | |||
| Typical CPU load | Power with 6 VMs at full load (16GB) |
Power with 6 VMs at full load (32GB) |
|
| Xeon 7330 (2.4GHz) | 91-96% | 456 | 541 |
| Xeon 7350 (2.93GHz) | 90-95% | 605 | 692 |
| Xeon X7460 (2.66GHz) | 85-90% | 502 | 587 |
| Opteron 8356 (2.3GHz) | 95-99% | 485 | 534 |
It's amazing to see that the 6-core X7460 is capable of staying well below its older 65nm brother, the X7350 at 2.93GHz. Both CPUs have the same TDP, but the 6-core X7460 consumes 25W less per CPU than the X7350. Part of this can be explained by slightly lower CPU usage as the 24 cores do not have to work as hard to handle the six VMs. The X7460 is a huge chip, but that does not prevent the newest Xeon from performing 45% better while consuming 25W less per CPU.
| Transactions per Watt | |
| Xeon 7330 (2.4GHz) | 3.93 |
| Xeon 7350 (2.93GHz) | 3.26 |
| Xeon X7460 (2.66GHz) | 5.59 |
| Opteron 8356 (2.3GHz) | 5.26 |
This table also helps explain why it is so important for Intel not to wait for a Xeon Nehalem MP to regain the performance crown. The current Xeon 73xx MP line takes a serious beating from the Opteron when it comes to virtualized performance/Watt. However, this table also makes it clear that the current Opteron has no chance of beating the 45nm Xeon MP. If we use the 8360SE (2.5GHz) instead of the 8356, performance will rise 8% at the most, but power consumption will probably increase by 20-30%, resulting in an even worse performance/Watt result.
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JarredWalton - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
I'm sure Johan will rerun tests when Shanghai actually launches. He's been working on creating the virtualization testing scenarios for a while, and with something finally in place testing of future products will not be a problem. The launch of Dunnington just happened to coincide with the time for doing this virtualization article.helldrell666 - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
It seems that inquirer's Charlie demirjian was right after all,Anandtch is a pro INTEL anti AMD sight.It's obvious that their reviews are biased and unfair against AMD.Anandtech exists to troll for INTEL...That's it.
Loknar - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
Years ago the Inquirer accused Anandtech of being pro-AMD. Check out the old Athlon XP articles. I won't let you accuse Anandtech of being biased! This is one of the only smart website in the world, please look in your own backyard before accusing the only ones doing true reporting.Anyway.. what is this about AMD vs Intel? We are enthusiastically watching the competitors fighting each other in the most healthy way. Did you buy AMD stocks or - why do you seem to have personal interest in this matter?
Chill out and enjoy the nice products this competition brings is what I'm saying.
whatthehey - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
Anyone who ever - EVER - refers to someone form the Inquirer as being "right" is so obviously stupid that you don't even deserve to read articles like this. All you'll do is hurt your tiny little brain trying to fit truth into your world-view where AMD rules, Intel sucks, and Charlie isn't an idiot.FWIW, I read this article and didn't feel it was at all Intel biased. We all know that AMD can't compete worth a damn on the desktop, and AnandTech has been one of the few sites that has provided any serious server articles where they have frequently pointed out performance advantages AMD still maintains. Even this article is quite positive for AMD, showing that many IT admins with Opteron servers should be fine for a while yet. If you're buying a new server, Dunnington appears to (finally) take the performance crown for 4S/8S and virtualization servers. I also understand how complex coming up with anything resembling a repeatable virtualization benchmark, so it's nice to see some independent testing that doesn't end up praising blade farms. Not that there's anything wrong with blades... other than the proprietary nature and extremely high costs.
socrilles07 - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
I don't get it - instead of using the already released high end AMD processor they used the much lower price point processor for a quite unfair comparison. In the end they make assumptions about what the performance to watt will be in the higher end processor. I thought anandtech was suppose to be THE review site, can you not afford the faster processor? or has AMD stopped providing you samples because of you bias? Lets do Apples to Apples comparisonsJohanAnandtech - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
Add 8% to our 8356 benchmarks and you'll know where the AMD Opteron 8360SE ends up in the best case. It is not that hard.From price/performance/Watt point of view, the 8356 is the best offer AMD has right now, and I am sure AMD would sent us another CPU if they felt otherwise.
We can not buy CPUs at $2000 a piece for each review that we write. If you work with virtualization and other server software, you have an idea how many manhours go in this kind of article. Add $8000 of AMD CPUs, $8000 of Intel CPUs... I hope you understand I don't feel like spending the rest of my time on ebay desperately trying to recoup some of my massive losses of buying server CPUs.
socrilles07 - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
you can't buy processors that cost $2000 a piece but some how you manage to get samples of processors costing twice that before they are released......so obviously you are no longer getting samples from AMD for some reason if not you could've done a comparison with at least the high end processor if not the next gen AMD processor which wouldve been more like the anandtech of the past.JohanAnandtech - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
"so obviously you are no longer getting samples from AMD for some reason"We'll see. :-)
helldrell666 - Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - link
What a good INTEL supporting article.But, It is expected from anandetch.Their ATOM review that made ATOM look like the best offering in it's category and their phenom reviews that made the phenom look like a two dual cores on a chip with one disabled.....These days one must take every little thing with a lot of salt.Bulldoze.....!!!!
Anantech reviews of AMD's products are stuffed with false and biased perspectives and numbers.
npp - Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - link
Look, we're trying to get some discussion here. If you don't like anandtech and you're convinced that it is biased towards Intel, why do you keep reading it? And if you've expected that a six-core Intel CPU would be slower than an AMD quad-core, you were obvoiusly mistaken, so take a note and give some constructive criticism, if you can.