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."

Comments

The Conclusion...

[Mz6]

From the article to save everyone the 16 pages of boring charts and graphs.. Conclusions "If I were building (or, implausibly perhaps, buying) my ultimate workstation right now, I'd want a pair of Opteron 250s beating at the heart of it. The benchmarks speak volumes. For single-processor systems, the Opteron 150 looks like the fastest x86 CPU on the planet. In a multiprocessor configuration, the Opteron 250 scales up very well, even without the benefit of an optimal memory configuration, a NUMA-aware OS, or 64-bit extensions. By contrast, Intel's dual Xeons are a little bit disappointing. They perform relatively well in CPU-bound apps like 3D rendering programs, which are also largely well optimized for SSE2. But in memory-bound applications where dual Xeons ought to do well, like video encoding, the Xeons' slow bus and RAM hold them back. One has to wonder what Intel is hoping to accomplish by saddling its workstation-class processors with older, slower technology. Even a single Pentium 4 benefits greatly from additional bus and memory bandwidth. Surely a pair of Xeons on shared bus ought to have this same advantage. Intel's apparent willingness to forego such enhancements in favor of adding ever-larger on-chip caches to the Xeon is puzzling"

AMD are back

[RoderickMcDougall]

They were lagging there for a while but the benchmarks depict a good story. Looks like the opteron is going to be yet another AMD chip that is great for gaming (and most other things). Hopefully a cheaper price than the p4's will really contribute to yet another dominating year for AMD.

2.4 Rates as around PR3900+

[�nertia]

I have been running my Opteron 248 at 2400Mhz. Sisoft seems to equate this to a PR rating of 3900+. I have no idea how it calculates this so please take that with a measure of salt.

I don't think it is puzzling at all

[peterdaly]

Intel's apparent willingness to forego such enhancements in favor of adding ever-larger on-chip caches to the Xeon is puzzling"

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.

It's not until recently that AMD has starting "schooling them" on what improvement really means. Just look at how Intel is going to use the AMD x86-64 method in the upcoming Intel 64bit platform. And now "If I were building (or, implausibly perhaps, buying) my ultimate workstation right now, I'd want a pair of Opteron 250s beating at the heart of it. The benchmarks speak volumes. For single-processor systems, the Opteron 150 looks like the fastest x86 CPU on the planet..." And this is at much lower mhz!

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.

-Pete

Re:I don't think it is puzzling at all

[Yartrebo]

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.

Re:I don't think it is puzzling at all

[Vaystrem]

"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...

Waste of time...

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

A word of caution

[GigsVT]

I had an AMD64 chip with the heat spreader.

I went to take the heat sink off the other day, and the vacuum that formed between the heat spreader and heat sink caused the chip to get yanked right out of the closed ZIF socket when I tried to get the heat sink off.

Then, after reinstalling the chip, apparently the heat spreader has become disconnected from the core internally, because the CMOS reports rising temperature up to 120C, but even the heat spreader isn't warm if I turn the system off and get the heat sink off again.

So be very careful. It takes about 10 minutes to take the heat sink off the heat spreader if you used a coating of grease that covers the whole top of the chip, even if you used a thin coat. You have to wiggle the heat sink and gently pull up for quite a while before that vacuum is broken. It doesn't help that the heat sink design makes it impossible to see the chip or slide the heat sink to the side.

And be aware that it doesn't take a whole lot of force to yank the chip right from the ZIF, possibly damaging things in the process.

Re:A word of caution

[MoronGames]

The problem is that you're using too much thermal compound. Generally, you use no more than an amount the size of a grain of rice, and spread it out to cover the entire heatspreader, and the bottom of the heatsink. Not only will this give a lower chance of damaging something, but it will also get better heat transfer and drop your temperatures.

Re:Think it's time to seriously consider AMD

[frozenray]

Indeed, the outlook for AMD looks good given their roadmap and Intel's problems:

• The "Prescott" P4 got mostly negative reviews, c't Magazine mentions in their current issue that Tejas (Prescott's planned successor) is being scrapped
  
• For all the money they invested into Itanium, they seem to be lacking a coherent strategy for the architecture (or if they have one, they're not talking about it)
  
• Their new processor rating and the power requirements of the Prescott line may be an indication that they cannot continue to crank up the clock on the CPUs any longer (GHz being the primary sales generator) without running into major problems with leak currents
  
• AMD has processors which are looking more interesting to businesses than the previous CPUs, plus they have taken the lead in 64-bit processors for desktops and have dual core CPUs in the pipeline (heh)
  

It will be interesting to see how Intel responds to these challenges - c't speculates that the future Pentiums will use the architecture they have in the Pentium M line (developed in Israel). If they're smart they'll introduce a dual core CPU based on the Pentium M architecture, if AMD is smart they'll modify their existing designs and beat intel to the punch again.

Speaking as a business user, I'd welcome an emphasis on ergonomics and environmental concerns over raw speed. I'd rather have silent systems that do not overload the air conditioning with enormous amounts of heat than screamers which spend 99.9 % of their time waiting for the user to press a key anyway.

But the price...

[Dezer]

Has anyone actually checked on the price? Take a gander over at http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInforma tion/0,,30_118_609,00.html?redir=CPT301 The new 150/250/850 models are $637/$851/$1514 comparatively. Compare that to the *48 models, which are still expensive. Does AMDs increased market share herald a a new strategy from AMD? Back "in the day" we all used to love AMDs more than Intels because of the great performance/cost ratio. I would love to have a pair of opterons, but the prices are ridiculous. I miss the old AMD...