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
Dual Core Desktop Performance: AMD's Athlon 64 X2 4400+
AMD didn't send out any Athlon 64 X2 processors for this review. They promised us chips for the real launch in June, but we don't like waiting and neither do most of you, so we improvised.The Opteron x75 CPUs that AMD sent us run at 2.2GHz and have a 1MB L2 cache per core, which makes the specs basically identical to the Athlon 64 X2 4400+. Although the use of ECC memory and a workstation motherboard would inevitably mean that performance will be slower than what will be when the real Athlon 64 X2s launch, its close enough to get a good idea of the competitiveness of the Athlon 64 X2.
For these tests, we used the same workstation board that we used in the server performance tests, but in doing so, we encountered a lot of other random problems.
With only a single CPU installed in the Tyan S2985, the system would always hang upon restarting Windows. We could shut down Windows fine and we could manually restart the machine, but if we hit Start > Shut Down > Restart, our test bed would always hang at the "Windows is Shutting Down" screen. Populating the second CPU socket fixed that problem, but obviously for our desktop comparison, we only used a single CPU to simulate a single Athlon 64 X2 4400+. The problem is undoubtedly due to the dual core BIOS, but it was frustrating to say the least (note that our normal desktop benchmark suite requires over 200 reboots - and we did every last one by hitting the reset switch on that motherboard).
The next issue we had with the motherboard is that none of the four on-board SATA ports would detect a hard drive. Apparently, this is a common problem with this board and since we were using the absolute latest BIOS revision from Tyan (we had to in order to support dual core), there was no fix for the problem at the time of our testing. Because of this problem, we were forced to use a PATA hard drive, which unfortunately meant that we couldn't test with an NCQ enabled drive.
The final problem we had was that there were significant issues with regards to memory compatibility and performance on this Tyan board with the dual core BIOS. We were forced to run at much slower memory settings than we would normally run on a desktop Athlon 64 motherboard - we had to run with the bus turnaround option set to 2T in order to even get Windows to install. A side effect of some of these issues was that not all of our tests would run properly; most did, but a few didn't make it. Obviously, we'll fill in the blanks when we perform our actual tests for the Athlon 64 X2 review, but this will serve as a preview.
All in all, we were extremely disappointed with the only board that AMD would recommend us to use with their first dual core processors. The BIOS is far from ready and the board seems to have issues that extend beyond what can be attributed to the dual core BIOS. When Intel sent us a dual core setup earlier this month, we were surprised at how stable the system was. Our experience with AMD's platform was the exact opposite. While we're very confident that dual core Opteron systems from tier one OEMs won't have these sorts of issues, the fact that we were having these problems just weeks before the launch of a major CPU is worth mentioning. We've also held off on doing any sort of power consumption analysis between the Athlon 64 X2 and the Pentium 4 until we get desktop platforms in hand. That being said, AMD rates the Athlon 64 X2 as having the same thermal envelope as the current Socket-939 Athlon 64 processors. Thanks to a cool running 90nm process and slightly lower clock speeds, AMD is able to achieve just that.
With the problems out of the way, we were ready to get down to benchmarking. So, we put together a list of CPUs that made sense to compare for the desktop portion of this preview.
AMD's own marketing suggests that based on the price differences between their dual core CPUs and Intel's, the Athlon 64 X2 is in a class above the Pentium D. Instead, AMD suggests that the real competitors to the Pentium D 820, 830 and 840 are the Athlon 64 3400+, 3500+ and 3800+, respectively. To test that theory, we included an Athlon 64 3800+ as well as the fastest single core AMD processor, the Athlon 64 FX-55, in our comparisons.
The comparison that AMD makes is depicted below. Note that this is AMD's marketing comparison, not our own.
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liebremx - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
Anand, great reading as always.
I have an observation:
On the 'Development Performance - Compiling Firefox' section you write
"This particular test is only single threaded, ..."
Why not launch a multithreaded build?
"make -j3 -f client.mk build_all"
Jalf - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
Makes good sense for AMD to keep their (server) dualcore chips pricey. AMD has limited manufacturing capacity, and they have best singlecore solution. In other words, they might as well keep the dualcore prices high, to a) make more money in cases where people are willing to fork over lots of money, and b) keep people who are on a budget interested in their singlecore offerings, at least until their new fab goes online.GentleStream - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
I have some comments about the Firefox compile test. First, thanks alot for including it. Now I have some comments about it. First, you are using GNU make and it supports parallel compiles. So, you should be able to replace the line:make -f client.mk build_all
with the line:
make -j 2 -f client.mk build_all
to perform a parallel compile using 2 processors. The -j option specifies how many processors or threads you are using. You can do parallel compiles on a single processor machine as well as multi-processor or multi-core machines. It is often the case that using -j 2 or -j 3 on a single processor machine will give the best results because of it's allowing the overlaping of cpu computations and I/O.
You don't say whether you did a debug or optimized build. I would recommend doing both the debug and optimized builds and reporting the results of both. When doing parallel optimized compiles, you may want to make sure you are not swapping although for the server tests it looks like you have plenty of memory - 4 GBytes. I did not see immediately how much memory you were using for the X2 tests. Anyway, I would recommend doing both debug and optimized compiles with -j n where n is 1, 2, 3, and 4 or perhaps just 1, 2, and 4. Since compiles are essential to development work and also embarassingly parallel, this should provide a really good comparison of the multitasking capabilities of these systems.
Hope you can do this or at least some of it and thanks alot for adding a really good compile test to your test suite.
Dave
michaelpatrick33 - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
The server market is where AMD is going headed to get large margins in their chips. With Supermicro joining the AMD camp (they must have seen the performance of the Opteron dualcore, blinked their eyes and said, "we're in") Dell is left alone holding Intel only product lines. Intel will not have a response on the server front until Q1 2006. That is troubling for Intel because it give AMD six months of market buildup and Fab36 time to come online and increase volume tremendously. It should be interesting.Imagine a 4800+ on a 939 DFI board running at 2-2-2-8 1t timings versus the P4 Extreme dualcore. Drooling just thinking about having either processor, but especially the AMD
erwos - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
"AMD would probably have problems delievering a lower cost dual core in quantities ."This is exactly it. Why should AMD let demand outstrip supply? Just jack up the price until you've got just enough demand to consume your supply.
I mean, yes, I'd love an Athlon64 X2 5000+ with 1mb of cache for ~$250, but that's life. AMD stockholders should be pleased with this decision.
There's also the impending move to socket M2 to consider... the Athlon64 X2 makes sense for people with very low-end A64's, but M2 is going to be the better upgrade path for FX and/or 3800+ users. I would be surprised to see any 939 Athlon64's past 5200+.
eetnoyer - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
While our desires as desktop users are for high volumes of X2s at low prices, we have to balance that with what AMD as a company needs to survive...money. AMD is currently capacity constrained with regard to dual-core CPUs with only Fab30. They have entered into agreements with both IBM and Chartered for additional capacity (probably on the lower end chips), but that won't come online until late this year. Just before production starts to ramp at Fab36.In the meantime, AMD has stated that their order of priority goes Server -> Mobile -> Desktop with the profitability motive in mind. For most users that will be heavily into the multi-tasking benefits of dual-core CPUs, spending $5xx for the low-end X2 vs $1000 for the PEE 840 will be a no-brainer. Seeing how that is a small minority of users, AMD can reasonbly supply the demand for them while still maintaining the highlest level of availability of dual-core Opterons at much better ASPs. Remember that AMD wants to capture as much market share in the server market as possible while Intel has no response.
As a share-holder, I hope that the demand for dual-core Opteron is deafening based on the incredible price/performance ratio (thus limiting their ability to produce X2 in high quantity). As a middle-of-the-road desktop user, I'm quite content with my mildly OC'd A64 for the next year or two.
ksherman - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
w00t! Ill have to read it later tho...MrHaze - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
Certainly impressive.I think it is important to remember that the "Athlon64 X2" was actually an Opteron running ECC RAM at 2T on a less-than-stable motherboard. I think it is best think of this as a comparison of Intel's dual cores, AMD's single cores, and a hog-tied Athlon64 X2.
Makes you wonder how an actual X2 with fast memory on a fast motherboard will perfom.
Regardless, I'm really excited about the upgrade potential, and I hope that AMD sticks with socket 939 for a long while.
Mr.Haze
kirbalo - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
Great review Anand...Thanks for fixing your gaming bar charts...they were wacked before!Tapout1511 - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - link
Sure would have been nice if they had included a single core A64 at 2.2GHz w/ 1MB cache (3500+ right?) to illustrate instances where the extra core was useful and when it wasn't.Oh well.