Conclusion
The best news for AMD is that the newly launched 8224SE and 8222 will outperform the current Xeon MP by a significant margin. However, AMD will have very little time to enjoy that victory as the new Xeon MP based on the Core architecture is going to launch very soon. That leads us to the dual socket space. Here's a recap of the various benchmarks that we have run.
Intel has a clear lead in the rendering market. If you are rendering complex high resolutions images, the quad core Xeon is clearly the best choice. If you are rendering normal resolution pictures, quad core might not really pay off, but the dual core Xeon will still be a bit faster than the Opteron. Both Cinebench and 3ds max have been "mildly" optimized for SSE2, but if you use a carefully SSE2 optimized application the Opteron's lack of SSE power is painfully obvious: the Intel CPUs are up to 70% faster in SSE-heavy code. That is one specific area that Barcelona should remedy in the coming months. If you are in for a new server for your FP intensive applications, it might be interesting to wait a bit and see how Harpertown compares to Barcelona; if you can't wait, right now Intel is the first choice in this market.
When it comes to the purely business processing, such as database processing and java applications, we feel that the answer cannot be given so quickly. If your application is usually under high load, the Intel CPUs are clearly better. They use slightly less power than the Opteron SE and run faster. Especially if your application is based on databases such as DB2, Oracle, and MS SQL server, it is clear that the quad core Xeon still rules. The quad core Xeon may not be a "native quad core" design, but it was surely a brilliant move by Intel. Until AMD's own quad core comes out, this market will be out of reach of AMD.
However, some servers are only stressed during a short period of time or are based on mediocre scaling software like MySQL. In that case, the Opteron 2222 makes a lot of sense. The cores will run at a low and cool 1GHz most of the time and consume very little power. Our Tyan Server saved no less than 184W during the "calm periods" and that is a lot of power. That amount of power has to be multiplied by +/- 1.5 (adding your air conditioning's energy consumption) to calculate the total energy consumption savings, making power savings even more significant. During periods of high load, the Opteron 2222 still offers decent performance at a slightly lower price than the dual core 3.0GHz Xeons.
The most interesting thing about AMD's latest launch is probably that AMD has now a 3GHz Opteron that consumes very little when running at low load while it keeps the power consumption reasonable at full load. The Opteron 2224 SE will only interest the people who have already invested in clusters of cheap socket F servers and who are looking to squeeze more performance out of them. If you haven't made that investment already, there's nothing really new or surprising with the latest launch, so you might be best off waiting a bit longer to see what the future holds.
The best news for AMD is that the newly launched 8224SE and 8222 will outperform the current Xeon MP by a significant margin. However, AMD will have very little time to enjoy that victory as the new Xeon MP based on the Core architecture is going to launch very soon. That leads us to the dual socket space. Here's a recap of the various benchmarks that we have run.
| Performance Comparison | |||
| General applications | Opteron 3.2GHz vs. DC Xeon 3GHz | Opteron 3GHz vs. DC Xeon 3GHz | Opteron 3GHz vs. QC Xeon 2.33GHz |
| General applications | |||
| WinRAR 3.62 | 8% | 5% | -17% |
| 3D Applications | |||
| 3DS Max 9 | -11% | -16% | -34% |
| Cinebench 9 | 0% | -7% | -14% |
| zVisuel 3D Kribi Engine | -31% | -32% | -40% |
| Server applications | |||
| SPECjbb | 0% | -4% | -30% |
| MySQL | -12% | N/A | N/A |
Intel has a clear lead in the rendering market. If you are rendering complex high resolutions images, the quad core Xeon is clearly the best choice. If you are rendering normal resolution pictures, quad core might not really pay off, but the dual core Xeon will still be a bit faster than the Opteron. Both Cinebench and 3ds max have been "mildly" optimized for SSE2, but if you use a carefully SSE2 optimized application the Opteron's lack of SSE power is painfully obvious: the Intel CPUs are up to 70% faster in SSE-heavy code. That is one specific area that Barcelona should remedy in the coming months. If you are in for a new server for your FP intensive applications, it might be interesting to wait a bit and see how Harpertown compares to Barcelona; if you can't wait, right now Intel is the first choice in this market.
When it comes to the purely business processing, such as database processing and java applications, we feel that the answer cannot be given so quickly. If your application is usually under high load, the Intel CPUs are clearly better. They use slightly less power than the Opteron SE and run faster. Especially if your application is based on databases such as DB2, Oracle, and MS SQL server, it is clear that the quad core Xeon still rules. The quad core Xeon may not be a "native quad core" design, but it was surely a brilliant move by Intel. Until AMD's own quad core comes out, this market will be out of reach of AMD.
However, some servers are only stressed during a short period of time or are based on mediocre scaling software like MySQL. In that case, the Opteron 2222 makes a lot of sense. The cores will run at a low and cool 1GHz most of the time and consume very little power. Our Tyan Server saved no less than 184W during the "calm periods" and that is a lot of power. That amount of power has to be multiplied by +/- 1.5 (adding your air conditioning's energy consumption) to calculate the total energy consumption savings, making power savings even more significant. During periods of high load, the Opteron 2222 still offers decent performance at a slightly lower price than the dual core 3.0GHz Xeons.
The most interesting thing about AMD's latest launch is probably that AMD has now a 3GHz Opteron that consumes very little when running at low load while it keeps the power consumption reasonable at full load. The Opteron 2224 SE will only interest the people who have already invested in clusters of cheap socket F servers and who are looking to squeeze more performance out of them. If you haven't made that investment already, there's nothing really new or surprising with the latest launch, so you might be best off waiting a bit longer to see what the future holds.
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2ManyOptions - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
... for most of the benchmarks Intel chips performed better than the Opterons, don't know why Intel should get scared from these, they can safely wait for Barcelona. Didn't really understand why you have out it as AMD is still in game with these in the 4S space.baby5121926 - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
intel got scared because they dont want to see the real result from AMD + ATI.the longer intel lets AMD lives, the more dangerous intel will be.
that's why you guys can see Intel is attacking AMD really really hard at this meantime... just to kick AMD out of the game.
Justin Case - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
What are the units in the WinRAR results table?coldpower27 - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
Check Intel own pricing lists, and you will see that Intel has already pre-empted some of these cuts with their Xeon X5355 at $744 or Xeon E5345 at $455 and the "official" Xeon X5365 should be cout soon if not already...http://www.intel.com/intel/finance/pricelist/proce...">http://www.intel.com/intel/finance/pric...rice_lis...
TheOtherRizzo - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
I know nothing about 4S servers. But what's the essence of this article? Surely not that NetBurst is crap? We've known that for years. Is the real story here that Intel doesn't really give a s*** about 4S, otherwise they would have moved on to the core 2 architecture long ago? Just guessing.coldpower27 - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
Xeon 7300 Series based on the Tigerton core which is a 4 Socket Capable Kentsfield/Clovertown derivatives is arriving in Sepetember this year, so Intel does care in becoming more competitive in the 4S space, but it is just taking some time.They decided to concentrate on the high volume 2S sector is all first, since Intel has massive capacity, going for the high volume sector first makes sense.
mino - Monday, August 13, 2007 - link
Yes and no, actually to have two intel quads running on a single FSB was a serious technical problem.Therefore they had to wait for 4-FSB chipset to be able to get them out the door. Not to mention the qualification times which are a bit onger for 4S platforms that 2S.
AMD does not have these obstacles as 8xxx series are essentially 2xxx series from stability/reliability POW.
Calin - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
The 5160 processor is Core2 unit, not a NetBurst one. Also, the 5345 is a quad core based on Core2jay401 - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
People built 3.0GHz - 3.33GHz E4300 & E4400 systems six months ago that cost roughly $135 for the CPU. Others went for an E6300 or more recently an E6320, both again under $200.They were all relatively easy overclocks.
Why does anyone with any skill in building their own computer care about an $800+ CPU again?
Calin - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
Why don't Ford Mustangs use a small engine, overclocked to hell? Like an inline 4 2.0l with turbo, and a high rpm instead of their huge 4+ liter engines?Why do trucks use those big engines, when they could get the same power from a smaller, gasoline, turbocharged engine?
People pay $800+ for processors that work in multiprocessor systems (your run of the mill Athlon64 or E4300 won't run). Also, they use error checking (and usually error correcting) memory in their systems - again, Athlon64 doesn't do this. They also use registered DDR in order to access more memory banks - your Athlon64 again falls short. On the E4300 side, the chipset is responsible with those things, so you could use such a processor in a server chassis - if the socket fits.