Intel Releases Xeon, Look At Those Kernels Compile

Nelly Furtado writes "AnandTech has the scoop on Intel's new Xeon processor that was just released today in dual processor form. The review includes Linux kernel compilation tests as well as database server performance measurements. The article also hints at Jackson Technology (SMT) and AMD's 760MP chipset."

Comments

make -j3 'MAKE=make -j3' bzImage

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the proper way to make a Linux kernel on a dual processor box.

Quoting Linus: "A single "-j3" won't do much. It will only build three directories at a time, and you'll never see much load. But doing it recursively means that you'll build three at a time all the way out to the leaf directories."

The testers used make -j2 bzImage, which didn't make full use of the machine's capabilities.

Re:Time for more benchmarks?

[SpinyNorman]

Apache benchmarks don't really make much sense - a fairly low end processor can easily saturate a high bandwidth pipe. The Microsoft vs Linux web server benchmark wars are just a marketeering pissing context - they have essentially zero real-world relevance.

throughput throughput throughput

[selectspec]

I remember working at a place where this guy was complaining that some timing tests he ran on these E250's running 350Mhz Sparc II's vs. 450Mhz PIIIs clearly favored the PIII. I told him that his test was meaningless because he was not running the systems under full load. When I demonstrated by essentially DOSing the two systems with SSL requests, he saw how the throughput tends to smoke clockspeed in the end. High end chips come down to saturation performance. Of course compare a Xeon to pure RISC chip like the Sparc under these high load conditions and you'll see similar results. Clock speed loses to throughput under load.

Re:What is Jackson Technology?

[mclearn]

Crap. I meant to point to this article over at The Register.

Re:There's no such thing as being too rich

[Enigma2175]

June 15


Enigma

Relevant to compare with Athlon?

[Zo0ok]

It is of course impressive that Intel made it run at 1.7GHz, but given this, the benchmarks are quite what could be expected. The Xeon is intended for High-End workstations and servers. I dont think many people will actually choose a system, just becaues it is Xeon-based (the OEM has made the choice).

When buying servers the CPUs are not really the most important thing (at least now where I work - we focus on disk/RAID/memory and takes whatever CPU comes with it, and maybe double it). If CPU is really important (massive database, scientific applications etc) 64-bit CPUs or vector machines might be more adequate even though the operate at lower clock freq.

Most Xeons will be in Windows (and of course, Linux/BSD) servers. On these servers PIII/Thunderbird is not really an option anyway.

So, what I have wanted to say all the time is that I'd rather see a benchmark/comparision between UltraSparcs, Alphas and Xeons.

Athlon

[OblongPlatypus]

For those of you who can't be bothered to read the entire article, the most interesting part by far is the real-world database benchmark towards the end. The 1.2GHz Athlon places right smack in the middle between the single Xeon and the dual Xeon (both 1.7GHz).

That makes it highly likely that a dual Athlon will significantly outperform the dual Xeon, does it not?

Even though dual Athlon systems aren't available yet, I'm willing to bet that when they are, the price tag of one such system will quickly drop far below the price tag of one of those dual Xeon beasties.