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AMD vs Intel: A Linux Bout
CrzyP writes "AnandTech puts the latest and greatest AMD and Intel CPUs, including 32-bit and 64-bit versions, to the test in their first ever "Linux Desktop CPU Roundup" to see which performs the best in various Linux applications including database, compiling, rendering, encryption, and more. They suggest the Athlon 64 3500+ over the P4 560 for "balancing price and performance". Very informative!"
move along. Or at least that's what we were told when we clicked on this article. A bug in the slashcode?
I bought an Athlon64 3200+ system in June and I'm quite happy with it as a server, but there are a few issues. There doesn't seem to be any way to run Wine on 64 bit chips, or at least the compilation fails for lack of support for low level locking operations. Also, the dual library setup (/lib and /lib64) creates problems for some projects that use older build systems. I also made the mistake of getting an ATI graphics card, and they don't have 64-bit drivers, and the Mandrake ones are too buggy to run UT2004.
Uh... Gentoo doesn't do prelinking by default. Thanks for playing!
I don't use Emacs; it uses me.
Because you probably have a crap heatsink/fan combo. If you like to live richly get a Swiftech MXV462-V series heatsink for it... Works wonder but it's damn pricey (around $50.00 for the heatsink itself, big heavy copper block with a few hundred rough surface aluminum spikes driven into it in a spherical layout)
s wiftech/mcx462-v/page2.htm
It also has one of the best mounting methods I've seen, no more screwdrivers prying against super strong springs in tight corners...
http://www.cluboverclocker.com/reviews/heatsinks/
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Tired of clicking next page
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
Uh... Gentoo doesn't do prelinking by default. Thanks for playing!
Uh... Gentoo uses a prelinked system to "prove" how fast they are in the performance data on their site. Thanks for proving what sheep Gentoo lusers are!
PowerMacintosh Dual 2Ghz PowerPC G5
(unofficial, published at apple.com)
SPECint_base2000: 800
SPECfp_base2000: 840
Advanced Micro Devices ASUS SK8V Motherboard, AMD Opteron (TM) 150
(official, www.spec.org)
SPECint_base2000: 1566
SPECfp_base2000: 1439
There you have it, Opteron is nearly twice as fast as the 970.
Meet linux 2.6
Linux 2.4 SMP wasn't HT aware so the scheduler would not take advantage of shared cache on virtual processors, this is no longer true with 2.6
Namaste
When I bought my P4, the CPU was more expensive than a comparable AMD.
But, once I factored in a mobo with the feature set I wanted, the total package was actually about 5 bucks cheaper.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The Swiftech MCX462-V (MVX does not exist afaik ;)) is not the best heatsink out there money can buy. There are a lot of others which beat the Swiftech in both performance, price and noise levels. I've done 2 AMD heatsink roundups, one of them was posted at /. here
:)
The latest update I made can be found here from August 2004 and includes tons of innovative Heatpipe coolers which deliver great performance at a lower price! can't beat that?
Look for a Thermalright SP-94 or Sharkoon HSP1 to get your AMD chilly
LinuxHardware.org has just posted their version of this article which covers not only benchmarks performed under Gentoo Linux, but also a technology overview and Linux support of the hardware. Take a look: Intel's New Platform Verses AMD's 64-bit Prowess.
Socket 754 chips generally cost far less than the s939 ones at comparable speeds...
Only until this Wednesday. These new 90nm chips run cooler too, 1.4V core instead of 1.5V. The 90nm 3500+ goes on sale Monday. I'd expect Newegg, MWave, and the rest of the usual suspects to get them around then or shortly thereafter.
DDR2 has much higher latency than DDR1 (negating one of the major AMD64 advantages) and costs twice as much. I don't know why AMD would bother with it. PCI-Express boards will be here soon enough, well before Christmas, if you absolutely have to have one.
AMD released the 90nm Athlon 64 3000+ Low-Voltage notebook CPUs today. Acer gets the first batch for their new Ferarri 3400 and Europe gets the first batch of those. Oh well, I'm holding out for an Athlon 64 notebook with a high-end nVidia GPU anyhow since ATI apparently can't be bothered to write decent 64-bit Linux drivers.
The debian amd64 port is still fairly experimental, but it works. It builds off the official i386 packages (almost) as often as the official packages do so there's no problem with being behind. The only thing is that a handfull of packages don't compile properly for amd64 so they're waiting for someone to patch them. As far as 32-bit applications, you have a bit of compatibility using the ia32-libs package, but it really doesn't work all that well.
So if you like debian, want the bleeding edge and don't mind a few quirks and lack of 32-bit application support (like I do) go for it. Otherwise just use normal i386 Debian or another AMD64 port.
Links: file repository, docs, wiki, and mailing list.
Recently posted: Intel's New Platform Verses AMD's 64-bit Prowess. Similar scope in benchmarks, perhaps better analyzed.
-- v --
A more sensible pipeline length (i.e. an AMD processor) means there'll be less benefit to hyperthreading.
Actually, any processor with an "overabundance" of resources (say, if the Athlon 64 had 4 FPU and had HT) can make use of HyperThreading.
Simplistic example: In the P4 case, the pipeline is long (20 stages) and there are ~4 or so execution units. That's 80 things that can be in-flight that can have stalls. HyperThreading can help keep more of the 80 "things" doing something every clock than only one thread of execution.
If the Athlon 64 had 8 different ALU/FPUs or something, the odds are that some of them would be idle every clock (that's probably more than the instruction level parallelism in most code streams). If, say, 50% of them were idle at any given clock tick, then HyperThreading would be an option to keep them busy as well.
There doesn't seem to be any way to run Wine on 64 bit chips
Pure, misinformed mistakes
I use Gentoo primarily on my Athlon 64 3000+ SFF, and I use wine to run Forte Agent and Microsoft Photo Editor. I haven't yet found an Open Source program (or pair of programs) that performs as well as these two for looking at... pictures of sailboats. Yeah... pictures of sailboats
Wine works just fine on amd64, it just needs to be compiled to 32-bit code.
Linux treats HT different than regular SMP, too. The question is, your kernel is compiled for SMP, or SMP and HT?
Well, lookit that.
:).
To answer my own question, there's the HP ProLiant DL585. 4 Opteron processors, four hot swap drive bays, up to 64GB ram. Uses the AMD 8000 series chipset. All in a 4U rack mount chassis. Very nice.
I guess AMD really is getting ready to take over the world
By the way, I'm no AMD hater. My box at home has an AthlonXP 1700+ in it. I just wasn't aware there was anything available in the "Large x86 Server" catagory.
Carpe Cerevisi - Seize the Beer
Windows understands that there are two "virtual" processors, while linux treats them as two physical processors.
FYI: WindowsXP understands. According to Intel, you should have hyperthreading turned off running an older version of Windows.
As another poster pointed out, kernel 2.6 handles hyperthreading correctly. And I had thought actually, that 2.4.17 and up handled it too, but I don't know the whole story. Don't know where you're getting the AMD's QC issues getting worse bit from. It'd be nice if you could provide a source so we can all be informed.
Think for yourself, destroy your television.
> How the OS is written will make some difference,
/ 09 /13/228780.aspx
> but HT is not some supper technology that makes
> slower processors act like faster ones.
If the OS equates a single hyperthreaded CPU with multiple CPUs, there could be a performance hit:
http://weblogs.asp.net/oldnewthing/archive/2004
This patch has been around for a while by the looks of it:
http://kerneltrap.org/node/view/391/972
From a theoretical standpoint, considering the kinds of things a compiler does, not much. Most of the compiler's task is navigating and performing transformations on very large, branched data structures. Mostly stuff like, "Follow this pointer. Okay, does this equal that? Okay, follow this pointer. Now, does this subtree look like that one? Well, to find out, we follow this pointer..."
In other words, it's a bunch of navigation in memory with very little actual "computation." As such, it hardly benefits from doubling the width of the arithmetic units, because its task has very little to do with arithmetic.
Sure, in a very abstract sense a 64-bit CPU can do "twice as much" per clock operation, but whether that is actually useful for your intended application depends on a bunch of other factors. Compilation is not something which could benefit from having fatter integers, which is essentially what 64-bit boils down to.
AMD has stated that 754 is doomed.
No dual-core 754, They'll stop making faster speeds within a year. I think they might keep making 754 semprons, but I haven't checked the roadmap for a while.
.Look for a Thermalright SP-94 or Sharkoon HSP1 to get your AMD chilly :)
actualy the Thermalright SP-94 is for socket 478 CPUs, he'd be after a Thermalright SP-97 for socket A CPUs. Sadly the SP-97 has been discontinued but he can probably find some around. That combined with a Panaflo or Vantec Tornado fan (depending on what performance/noise ratio he's after) will be the best air cooling solution for his socket A cpu. the Zalman CNSP7000A-ALCU is also a nice option if you're looking for a quiet, decent heatsink but sadly it cant compair with a SP-97/panaflo combo in terms of quietness/performance.
I know that I shouldn't feel the trolls, but there are times when I just can't help myself.
"AMD is still having quiality control problems and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight."
Oh? I don't remember seeing anything about AMD having problems with their CPUs. I do, however, remember compiling a short list of problems Intel has had. Let's see if I can find it. Oh look, there it is! Intel churns out problem-ridden products just like anyone else. It's so funny to watch the fanboys go down in flames.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
HINT: Because Linux does it the right way in the beginning.
BTW, HT is only supported in Win XP and Linux 2.6.x. Linux 2.4 does not have proper support for it, and Win 2k, well, knows nothing about HT.
Yes, it has all the registers, etc.
FWIW, I work for AMD.
Erich Boleyn