Slashdot Mirror
AMD Takes Opteron To 2.4GHz
EconolineCrush writes "AMD has added a series of Opteron x50 processors to its workstation and server line that push the K8 core up to 2.4GHz. The Tech Report has tested the latest single and dual-processor Opterons against more than 20 other processors, including exotic Pentim 4 Extreme Edition chips, affordable Athlon 64s, and everything in between. Even if you have no interest in AMD's latest workstation chips, the review is worth checking out to see how two dozen of the fastest workstation and PC processors stack up in rendering, scientific computing, speech recognition, and even gaming tests."
Can somebody please benchmark a dual AMD opteron against a dual PPC 970 (MAC G5), using Linux in 64bit mode. What is with all these kids benchmarking opterons in 32bit mode?
Adding a bigger cache is not only easy, but a cheap way to rake in more cash without doing much R&D work.
It's might be easy, but it isn't cheap to add more cache. Cache accounts for something like 50% of the die surface of a modern chip, and a larger die means a lower yield and less chips per wafer.
"Why is it puzzling? In their historic "Intel Inside" world, they were basically competing against themselves. Adding a bigger cache is not only easy, but a cheap way to rake in more cash without doing much R&D work."
You are forgetting a key deficiency of the P4 "netburst" architecture. Its incredibly long pipeline which makes it very susceptable to cache misses. Therefore the larger the L2 cache the less of a performance hit the processor will take if it misses an instruction or two.
It is possible that adding a bigger cache is 'cheap' but if that were the case we'd see a dramatic reduction in the price of P4EEs as they are getting schooled by AMDs. L2 Cache is not cheap to implement. And significantly adds to the manufacturing cost of the processor.
Additionally the lack of a FSB upgrade on the Xeons is troubling, but that apparantly is coming later this year, and this may reduce the advantage of the Opteron's to SOME degree. However, in the current architecture the Xeon's FSB bandwidth will always be shared - while the Opteron's get dedicated bandwidth for every processor. This is really the most remarkable advantage of 'Hammer' family of AMD CPUs over the Netburst generation of P4s/Xeons.
"I believe Intel had thought they had reached monopoly status, which really they had, and the culture had become complacent. This did not happen at the underdog AMD, who has recently been able to quickly leapfrog Intel's offerings."
Intel put a lot of money and R&D into a product line (P4 NetBurst) and honestly - even with AMD making inroads - they still do not have that large a share of the CPU market. Intel has however observed their lead eroding and have canned Tejas - successor to the Prescott. So Intel is able to step up and make the big changes even when it has sacrificed large amounts of R&D money.
Intel to formally confirm Tejas canned
Intel may have canned Tejas...