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EM64T Xeon vs. Athlon 64 under Linux (AMD64)
legrimpeur writes "Anandtech has a nice performance comparison under Linux (AMD64) between the recently introduced 3.6GHz EM64T Xeon processor and an Athlon 64 3500+. It is disappointing to see how the Athlon gets trounced in FPU intensive benchmarks. No memory-bound benchmarks (where the Athlon is supposed to have an edge) are presented, though." Update: 08/09 23:34 GMT by T : As the Inquirer reports, many Anandtech readers take issue with the comparison.
i almost cared just then, for a second
The editors of Slashdot seem to love posting articles whose sole purpose is to evoke flame wars between Intel fans and AMD fans.
For what it's worth, I read the article and the processors seemed pretty well matched except for some "synthetic" benchmarks. I don't know much about the synthetic benchmarks that they used, but I have found that synthetic benchmarks are almost always biased in Intel's favor. Do synthetic benchmark writers optimize for Intel accidentally or is there some kind of conspiracy going on here? You be the judge.
Finally, to try to balance out the article submitter's inflammatory comments about the Athlon being "trounced in FPU intensive benchmarks", here is a nice paragraph from the article summary:
"That's not to say that the Xeon CPU necessarily deserves excessive praise just yet. At time of publication, our Xeon processor retails for $850 and the Athlon 3500+ retails for about $500 less. Also, keep in mind that the AMD processor is clocked 1400MHz slower than the 3.6GHz Xeon. With only a few exceptions, the 3.6GHz Xeon outperformed our Athlon 64 3500+, whether or not the cost and thermal issues between these two processors are justifiable."
Obviously they are not comparing processors which have price parity, so one could spin this either as "look at how slow the Athlon is", or "look at how much money you have to spend to get an Intel chip that is faster than an Athlon", depending upon your bias.
Wouldn't the larger cahced Opteron, the product actually positioned by AMD to compete with the Xeon series processors, have been a better comparison?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
for this, but:
"..No memory-bound benchmarks (where the Athlon is supposed to have an edge) are presented, though."
Why oh why do we continually have "reviews" posted that aren't comprehensive? Hell, i hardly even click on any of the posted reviews anymore...just read the comments later and find out what was missed or just plain wrong in the review.
Where does one go to get the real, straight scoop other than buying both, testing all products involved?
Yeah, i'm a little grouchy this morning...had to get that one out.
Seriously, Anandtech should just never compare widely available hardware with totally unavailable hardware. And what's with using a 512KB cache, second-rank Athlon64 to compare with Intel's flagship worstation processor? How 'bout the 1MB-equipped Athlon64 FX, or more appropriately an Opteron 150 (in stock at online retailers for $600-$650).
The slowest Socket 939 Athlon versus the fastest Xeon available. PLus the SQL test of the Athlon were in 32bit, not 64 bit (which would have resulted in a win for the athlon).
Some of the other synthetic benchmarks also show slighly suspicious anomalies.
Plus were are the Nocoma 32bit benches? How are we supposed to see how performance improved in 64bit mode without comparison?
A good review would have pitched the 3.6Ghz nacoma vs an Opteron 150, would have tested both in 32 and 64 bit and tried to use some application benchmarks.
Not just picking some old scores out of the datadump to create a "shootout"
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Where are the FPU intensive benchmarks that the Athlon is trounced in?
Under normal circumstances a prime finder application does not use the FPU. And I also doubt that the super_pi application uses the FPU. However the powray benchmark (which actually uses the FPU), is one of the benchmarks where the Athlon wins.
So it would seem that it is the Integer benchmarks where the Athlon looses, instead. This also corresponds with how the normal Athlon fares against the normal Pentium.
So you compare a highend server/workstation proc to a highend desktop proc. Sure the server chip will win the majority of the benchmarks.
Where are the 64bit benchmarks? They really didn't do any comparision to 32bit, so you can't say for sure if Intel implementation is good or not. Get the Opteron in there, do the same benchmarks in 32 and 64 modes and see if there is a difference. Also throw say 5 gigs of memory in the machines, that will see how each proc handles addressing above the 4gig limit.
This article should not have been posted here, or on Anandtech for that matter. It has already caused a riot over there, both in the comments section of the article, and the forums. This article was grotesquely sub-par for Anandtech, and should have been removed immediately. Several of us avid AT readers have spotted discrepencies in the charts, stats that are totally bogus in comparison to previous AT articles. Particularly the MySql chart. To put it simply, there is absolutely no way to compare those two chips, as someone in the forums put it, "It's like comparing apples to a slab of meat." The Xeon has double the cache, is double the price, and isa top end server chip, being compared to a midrange desktop chip. The two simply cannot be compared. The article should have included an FX chip and/or an Opteron 150. Discount the article entirely. Hardcore Intel fanboys have spoken out against this article, that should really tell you something.
Please, try not to sound so stupid...
They have a cross licence agreement, so each one has what the other has in production in the term of 6 to 9 months. That is why we see the SSE in AMD processors, and AMD64 instruction in Intel64 processors.
t s/ amd/intel.license.2001.01.01.html
http://contracts.corporate.findlaw.com/agreemen
So I don't see any problem fro AMD in licensing the cp-processor.
From the article: "That's not to say that the Xeon CPU necessarily deserves excessive praise just yet. At time of publication, our Xeon processor retails for $850 and the Athlon 3500+ retails for about $500 less"
In other news, a Corvette just smooooookkkked a Ford Taurus.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
Xeon = 3.6 GHz, A64 = PR 3500
Xeon = Server, A64 = desktop
Xeon = L3 cache 1MB, A64 = L3 Cache 512K
Xeon = $??? (probably > 800 when available), A64 = $345 (pricewatch)
Xeon = fastest of Intel's 64-bit chips, A64 = slowest of AMD's 64-bit chips
Anandtech = sold down the river? What the hell?