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

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.

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.