From owner-freebsd-performance@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Sep 10 18:58:49 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-performance@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 38A1716A46C for ; Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:58:49 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cracauer@koef.zs64.net) Received: from koef.zs64.net (koef.zs64.net [212.12.50.230]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AA15813C494 for ; Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:58:48 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cracauer@koef.zs64.net) Received: from koef.zs64.net (koef.zs64.net [212.12.50.230]) by koef.zs64.net (8.14.1/8.14.1) with ESMTP id l8AIkMDS078081; Mon, 10 Sep 2007 20:46:22 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from cracauer@koef.zs64.net) Received: (from cracauer@localhost) by koef.zs64.net (8.14.1/8.14.1/Submit) id l8AIkLKf078080; Mon, 10 Sep 2007 14:46:21 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from cracauer) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 14:46:21 -0400 From: Martin Cracauer To: Paul Pathiakis Message-ID: <20070910184621.GA77744@cons.org> References: <46E51D32.5070803@pacific.net.sg> <74611C396F3A6D027B0E8ABA@rambutan.pingpong.net> <46E52260.60000@pacific.net.sg> <46E55204.20905@eagleaccess.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <46E55204.20905@eagleaccess.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.3i Cc: freebsd-performance@freebsd.org, Erich Dollansky , Palle Girgensohn Subject: Re: AMD or Intel? X-BeenThere: freebsd-performance@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Performance/tuning List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:58:49 -0000 For integer workloads Intel's Core2-base Xeons outperforms K8 (the old-school AMD64) by about 25-30% per clock per core. K10 seems to be 5-15% faster than K8 for integer workloads (I hope to run my benchmark suite on one thi week or weekend). However, tasks that use multiple cores and have threads on cores communicate a lot see both AMD architectures close the gap. Paul Pathiakis wrote on Mon, Sep 10, 2007 at 10:17:40AM -0400: > Be very, very careful in purchasing Core 2 Duo. There are major > problems with the chip that have been documented across the board. These have been blown out of proportion by Theo. Can you point to a demonstratable case with current Linux or BSD kernels? I also highly doubt that the AMD design is much more bug-free. Although it might. Core2 has very complicated caches, K10 is still simpler. On the other hand, if you want K8 or K10 in a modern SMP mainboard you have to live with NVidia for chipsets, and the socket F boards all have the MPC55 SATA controller, which iirc is unsupported by both BSD and Linux. MPC65 moved to AHCI so all is well - but there are no socket F boards with that SATA controller. One real advantage of Socket F over Socket 771 is that you can use normal registered DDR2, which goes dirt cheap both on ebay and new. Socket F sees mandatory FB-DIMMs, which are expensive and hot, and boards with more than 8 DIMM slots are rare. For socket F 2x8 DIMM slot boards and plenty and cheaper. Martin -- %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Martin Cracauer http://www.cons.org/cracauer/ FreeBSD - where you want to go, today. http://www.freebsd.org/