VIA K8T800 Chipset Preview - Dual Opteron in Action

Mr.Tweak writes "It has been a long time coming but we are finally reaching the beginning stages of 64-bit mainstream computing. AMD has been the first to bring a 64-bit processor to the market with any true support in the Opteron. VIA is one of the key chipset companies supporting AMD64 and today TweakTown takes a preview look at their new K8T800 chipset with AMD Opteron 242 and 244 processors. 64-bit computing is boarding - don't miss the train!"

Comments

64-bit computing is just now boarding?

[Surak]

Where have you been? I've had a 64-bit machine for almost 5 years now. ;) It's even been EOLed since July 2002.

C'T Review

[gmania]

There is a nice review in the latest german C'T too (issue 18 - page 36) of the MSI K8T Master2FAR board with dual opteron support, Via K8T800/VT8237 chipset and a lot of nice features (AGP, SATA, GBit Ethernet). Size constaints meant only a single memory-bus is implemented, a 5-10% speed bump on memory access. Another downside is no PCI-X slots.

The nicest thing though is the price: 280 euros. Sounds like a good workstation board.

Re:C'T Review

[DarkSarin]

go for this the s2885 from tyan. It has PCI-X, AGP, SATA, GBe, and hold 16GB RAM... Can't lose.

Re:Readable hardware reviews

[semaj]

I know it's a pain... more advertising revenue for them though I guess.

I always hit the printable version and cancel the print dialog. Plus that means modem users have a chance to read the article in less than a week. :-)

Re:Well.

[Ed Avis]

For the relatively small number of programs (at least on Linux) that have trouble with 64-bit longs, just compile as i386 code. The Opteron is backwards compatible with 32-bit code and gets reasonable performance out of it.

"Finally"?

[mblase]

It has been a long time coming but we are finally reaching the beginning stages of 64-bit mainstream computing.

I guess you didn't hear about the Apple PowerMac G5 when it was announced months ago and began shipping last week, then....

Re:"Finally"?

[FatherOfONe]

Well I have had my dual Opteron system for about three weeks now, AND I ordered a G5 over a month ago.... The G5 still hasn't shipped to me (I ordered the 1.8GH model). Even if it did the Opteron was out more than a month ago.

Now granted the article should say something like, this is the first somewhat affordable x86 chip to provide 64 bit computing.

There are many other links that have excellent benchmark results of the Opteron. Specifically, toms hardware has a great review, but to sum most of the review up...
The dual Opteron 244 kicks the crap out of a dual Xeon in most linux server type benchmarks. This is WITH 32 bit code. The next step is to get code that is still 32 bit but compiled for the Opteron. i.e. Oracle wich is out now. This gives you another small gain in performance and then lastly you can test again with pure 64 bit compiled programs. The last "MAY" give you some performance increase over 32 bit programs recompiled, but that depends on the program. An example would be a simple "hello world" would not run any faster, but a database that needs more than 4GB of memory should perform better.

So for our company we didn't compare the Opteron to a Itanium, but to a Xeon and the dual Opteron smokes it.

Note, that I always say dual Opteron, because a single Opteron doesn't perform any better than the current 32bit X86 chips. In most cases it performs worse. One of the key factors with the Opteron is the way the chips talk to the front side bus. This is currently the bottleneck in most dual/quad processor x86 systems. AMD has somewhat handled this bottleneck by allowing both chips to have a separate path to "some" RAM and providing a larger amount of data to pass from processor to RAM. I can't speak for the quad and eight way systems, but for the dual processor systems this makes a HUGE difference.

In our environment, a dual Opteron 1.8GH beats a QUAD 2.8GH Xeon in performance (with Oracle). Given that Oracle charges us 15k per CPU + 4k a year, that is a huge savings, and we are not forced to go to a pure 64 bit system today.

Intel addresses the front side bus issue to RAM by increasing the on die cache of the Xeon. So they released a 1MB version of the Xeon 3GH (they had a 512MB version before), to combat the Opteron. The problem is that it didn't help that much. Intel's solution would be to include X86 code, "done well, not the crappy way it is done now" in the Itanium, and lower the price to under a grand. I doubt they will do that any time soon, so it looks like this will give AMD a good path to the small server market. Factor that in with IBM and SUN wanting to use their stuff in new server, things look ok for the Opteron.

I still don't know how well the AMD Athlon 64 will be though. That chip isn't due to be released until next month. That is the replacement for the current Athlons, and for AMD's sake it better beat a P4 in most Windows stuff.

Re:Well.

[hattig]

The really useful thing about the Opteron isn't the 64-bit aspect, but the fact that in 64-bit mode you get a lot more registers, etc, to play with. This in turn means that code compiled for the 64-bit mode will run faster than the code compiled for the 32-bit mode. Also the on-die memory controller means that memory latency is much lower, which in turn means things run faster. I'd buy a dual Opteron machine over a dual Xeon machine anyday.

Slashdoted...Here is the Article...

[da5idnetlimit.com]

For those of you that wanted the grapics, I'll be taking an ASCII Art Course for the next one 8p

Introduction

We saw the release of the Opteron processor earlier this year which was powered by AMD's own 8131 Northbridge. With many months passed since and a lot of R&D invested, it was time to see what VIA were capable of when given the latest 64-bit processor to play with from AMD. The latest chipset to hit the market from the Taiwanese chipset manufacturer comes in the shape of the K8T800 and carries over everything you need when it comes to inserting those brand new processors into VIA-powered motherboards.

The K8T800 chipset carries over with it the latest Southbridge from VIA, the VT8237, which we were very impressed with when reviewing the PT800 only last month. It carries over the same features which we will look more into later on.

Due to the limitation in server hardware and server benchmarking software, we have chosen to write a preview on the chipset with a lot of benchmarks with different processor environments. We will help give people an understanding of the technology and the future it has.

Without dragging on anymore, let's see what VIA's K8T800 chipset is capable of when powered with some of the newest and most powerful processors to hit the market from Advanced Micro Devices.

The Opteron Processor

Before we get into talking about the chipset, we will take a moment to have a look at the processor which will be accompanying our test motherboard today.

The AMD Opteron is the latest processor to hit the market and carries the long awaited 64-bit architecture to the retail market. While we have seen Intel release a 64-bit processor to the market in the shape of the Itanium and Itanium 2 some time ago, it was one product that the end-user would not consider purchasing due to its high price tag and lack of chipset support.

The Opteron comes with a massive 940 pin count which is the largest of any processor implementing the PGA format. PGA or Pin Grid Array can be separated into two parts: the first being Pin, which in this case is the small metal pins we see coming from the bottom of the processor and the other is the Grid Array. The Grid Array is the formation the pins are in, which here is a 940 pin formation. Together we have the highest pin count currently on the market for this kind of technology. The Opteron processor also carries a huge 1MB of L2 cache to help when it comes to processor-hungry applications. The Opteron also has three Hyper Transport buses which we will look into more in just a moment.

What else AMD has in store for 64-bit

While we are on the subject of AMD processors, we may as well have a quick look at what else AMD have in store for the 64-bit market.

The cheapest of AMD's 64-bit line will be known as the Athlon 64 and will most likely be launched next month in Taiwan at Computex 2003. The Athlon 64 will be the entry level 64-bit processor and the mainstream product with a pin count of 754 replacing Athlon XP. Athlon 64 has the smallest amount cache out of the group with only 512k and will only support Single Channel DDR and one Hyper Transport Bridge meaning it is not SMP-capable.

The other processor which will be making an introduction, which seems to be confusing a lot of people, is Athlon FX or Athlon 64 FX. The Athlon FX will be the enthusiast processor, according to speculation currently floating around. Consisting of 1MB cache and three Hyper Transport buses, the only difference between it and the Opteron is support for SMP. The Athlon FX will consist of 939 pins; the pin that is missing is the one that gives it the ability to run Dual Processor mode.

Hyper Transport Buses

As we just mentioned, the Opteron and the Athlon FX will consist of multiple HT (Hyper Transport) buses, while the cheaper mainstream Athlon 64 will only have one.

One of the buses goes to your peripherals (your AGP slot, PCI slot, etc). This is the only one on the Athlon 64. The s

Re:The first 64-bit platform (with qualifiers...)

[Junta]

Obviously you didn't do any research. Here is a board I've gotten to work with, complete with AMD chipset:
http://www.amdboard.com/msi_k8d_master.h tml

And all currently announced chipsets:
http://www.amdboard.com/opteron_chipset s.html
AMD themselves, nVidia, and VIA.

Re:Well.

[Daniel Phillips]

it's not the price that's holding me back (I'm considering a dual xeon for some serious SGML crunching) but rather the question of "what's the added value of 64bit for me here ?"

I'm doing fine with my 3GB Ram...

On a 32 bit architecture, the kernel has to use nasty, expensive tricks to address memory over 3/4GB (for the default 1:3 userspace/kernel memory split). These tricks require lots of TLB invalidations, which are painfully slow, since the cache has to be reloaded from main memory. 64 bit architectures can just directly address that high memory, so you get a speed boost. How much, I don't know yet, since I don't have an Opteron at hand to benchmark. It will be quite measurable.

I can't wait...

[djeaux]

Let's see ... 64-bit WinXP is due some time next year. Longhorn some (ambiguous) time after that. I know /. is the home of the *NIX faithful, but that's a very small percentage out in the real world.

Are we about to enter 18 months to 2 years of mostly running 32-bit apps on 64-bit hardware? (Or even longer than that, if we recall that "32-bit Win95" was really 16-bit in sheep's clothing.) And what's a "generation" for hardware? 2 years?

There will probably be some nice bargains on 32-bit boxen later this year & next, I'm sure. And they're gonna run those old 32-bit apps just fine. Then, when they wear out in 2-3 years, you can upgrade to 64-bit hardware to actually run 64-bit apps.

In other words, that first train trip is going to take you to an amusement park that's still under construction.