AMD's dual core Opteron & Athlon 64 X2 - Server/Desktop Performance Preview
by Anand Lal Shimpi, Jason Clark & Ross Whitehead on April 21, 2005 9:25 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Data Warehouse Test
We are always looking to improve the quality of our reviews and as a result, we have added a new Stress Test to our suite.This "Data Warehouse" test is focused on large record sets with plenty of aggregation. This test is based on a system that we developed to track and manage Request statistics for www.AnandTech.com and Forums.AnandTech.com. It tracks statistics like Requests/Hour, Requests/Hour/IP Address, Unique IP Addresses/Hour, Unique Users/Hour, Daily Browser stats, etc. These stats are further summarized by site, i.e. www or Forums.
As with the other Stress Tests, each test was repeated three times and the average between the three tests was used. For this Data Warehouse Stress Test, we defined a quantity of work to complete and measured how long each platform required to process the workload.
So, to ensure that IO was not the bottleneck, each test was started with a database, including tempdb, which had already been expanded so that autogrow activity did not occur during the test. During the execution of the tests, there were no applications running on the server or monitoring software. Task Manager, Profiler, and Performance Monitor were used when establishing the baseline for the test, but never during execution of the tests.
At the beginning of each platform, the server was rebooted to ensure a clean and consistent environment. The database was always copied to the 8 disk RAID 0 array with no other files present to ensure that file placement and fragmentation were consistent between runs. In between each of the three tests, the database was deleted, the original database was copied again to the array, and SQL Server was restarted.
There is no "client" required for this test. The workload is initiated by a stored procedure call from Query Analyzer.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
144 Comments
View All Comments
morcegovermelho - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
page 3 "For example, the Opteron 252 and Opteron 852 both run at 2.6GHz, but the 252 is for use in up to 2-way configurations, while the 852 is certified for use in 4- and 8-way configurations. The two chips are identical; it's just that one has been run through additional validation and costs a lot more. "I thought that they had different number of HyperTransport (HT) links:
152 - 1 HT
252 - 2 HT
852 - 3 HT
I thought that was the reason why it was impossible to use two 152s in a two-way motherboard.
Maybe i'm wrong.
faboloso112 - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
great articlefungmak - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
#50Dual 875s have 4 cores
stmok - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
I have waited SOOOOO long! Finally, a reason to dump my dual PIII setups. Next stop, Athlon64 X2!jediknight - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
Can someone explain the huge performance difference between the dual Operaon 252s (2.6GHz) and the dual Opteron 875 (2.2GHz)?Since:
"The two chips are identical; it's just that one has been run through additional validation and costs a lot more"
I would expect the 252s, running at 400MHz more, would outperform the 875s. Can someone explain this (large) discrepency?
snedzad - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
Yes. That's gonna be a four proc-machine. Terrific.I am really astonished about whole AMD K8 architecture. And K9 should be 4-core processor architecture.
Can't wait.
But, I still won't get a rid of my AX2600 machine.
Griswold - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
Ah the brilliant KillerBob.Anand used plenty of real world apps for the multitask benchmarks.
How much more real world testing would you want to go with your (pointless) whining?
GoatHerderEd - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
Why is their stock price at a 6 month low? I hope this pulls it up a bit. It would be a shame if they don’t start making a profit.suryad - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
I just am astounded at the performance these first versions of dual core processing that is being presented to us...WOW...couple that with a well written 64 bit OS and it will be even more smoking!! I think AMD did a job extremely well done and I am glad that they are being aggressive in keeping their pockets full with the prices of their chips. I personally dont think that would stop me from buying their processors. I would wait for the FX to become dual core though. A 3 ghz dual core FX would rock so bad!!!Also one more thing...so the Tyan mobo holds 2 procs correct? So if we stuck a dual core in 1 socket and another in the other sock...that makes it a 4 proc machine then right?!!
bldckstark - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
Thanks for the double post KillerBob. Your statements are as intelligent as your ability to use a keyboard.