Intel Xeon 7460: Six Cores to Bulldoze Opteron

Limitations of this report

We are happy that we finally feel comfortable with most of our virtualization testing. We still have to do some in-depth profiling to be completely sure what is going on, but we decided to not wait any longer. This is only the beginning, though. We have tested several other virtualization scenarios (including Windows as Guest OS, Hyper-V as hypervisor, Oracle as database, and so on) but we are still checking the validity of those benchmarks. In other words, we are well aware that this report cannot give you a complete picture; it's only an initial rough draft.

Here are the limitations of our current virtualization testing:

• Out of all the databases, MySQL has shown the best performance on the AMD platform relative to the Intel platform. This is probably a result of the excellent Opteron and Athlon 64 optimizations in the gcc compiler.
  
• We use a 64-bit version of MySQL, and the Intel architectures pay a small penalty when you run a 64-bit database (no macro-op fusion for example). However, as the 64-bit MySQL performs quite a bit better than the 32-bit one, we feel we made the right decision.
  
• Our best Opteron is a 95W Opteron 8356, while we used a 130W Xeon X7460 and a 130W Xeon X7350. This is simply a result of what we have had available in the labs in the past months. This problem is easy to solve: the performance of the Opteron 8360SE (125W) will be between 1% and 8% higher, so for those looking at the Opteron 8360SE it is pretty easy to get an idea what this CPU could do.
  
• No HPC benchmarking, as we wanted to focus our efforts and time on our first virtualization results. Priorities…

Please keep these limitations in mind.

Conclusion

The third party benchmark numbers are unanimous: servers based on Intel's monster hex-core processor are the best choice when for high-end database/ERP applications. Compared to the previous Xeons, performance has increased by 40% or more while power consumption has dropped. The 6-core Xeon is the clear winner and offers a very nice upgrade path for owners of current Xeon 73xx servers. We even dare to predict that the newest Nehalem based Xeons will not really enter this market before the octal-core Beckton is launched in the second half of 2009.

When it comes to the virtualization market, which is a much larger market (in shipments), it is a very different picture. Where the 6-core CPU extends an existing lead elsewhere, for virtualization the new 45nm Xeon MP comes just in time. The quad-core Opteron has been giving the Xeon 73xx a serious beating, offering up to 24% better performance while using 20-25% less power (X7350 versus 8356). If you prefer to look at CPUs with approximates the same TDP, Opteron was offering about a third more performance while consuming a few Watts less. The hot and power hungry FB-DIMMs do not help in a market where performance/Watt and more memory (higher consolidation ratios) rule, and the Opteron clearly has better virtualization support.

The new 45nm Xeon X7460 brings the virtualized performance/Watt crown back to the Intel camp, and we expect the E7450 (2.4GHz) to offer an even better performance/Watt ratio. After all, the E7450 also has six cores but at a lower TDP. In the very near term, AMD will probably have no other choice than to lower the price of its fastest quad-cores. Nevertheless, the battle for the virtualization market is still not over, as both AMD and Intel have new quad-cores lined up.

Quite a few people gave us assistance with this project, and as always we would like to thank them. Our thanks goes to Sanjay Sharma, Trevor Lawless, Kristof Sehmke, Matty Bakkeren, Damon Muzny, Brent Kerby, Michael Kalodrich and Angela Rosario. A very special thanks to Kaushik Banerjee who pointed out errors in our virtualization benchmarking procedure and Tijl Deneut, who helped me solve the weirdest problems despite the numerous setbacks we encountered in this project.