AMD vs Intel: A Linux Bout

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Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday September 20, 2004 @07:32AM from the battle-of-the-titans dept.

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!"

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But they didn't even, like, use Gentoo! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-20 07:33 · Score: 4, Funny

Everyone KNOWS that for the best Linux performance you must use a specially optimized compile with Gentoo! It's a FACT!
Intel never on top for price/performance.. by brxndxn · 2004-09-20 07:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

Aside from the few times Intel released a great overclocker, I have never seen a lower-priced Intel processor beat a higher-priced AMD processor in any significant set of benchmarks..

AMD4tw!

Yet, benchmarks, until recently, always seemed to compare same clock speeds/ratings despite Intel's offerings always costing more. It's nice they're starting to be more fair to AMD.

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1. Re:Intel never on top for price/performance.. by Jeff+DeMaagd · 2004-09-20 08:08 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yet, benchmarks, until recently, always seemed to compare same clock speeds/ratings despite Intel's offerings always costing more
  
  The prices always fluctuate over time, from store to store, etc., so it is hard to compare $200 AMD with $200 Intel. And then there's the motherboards and chipsets. I think comparing based on price might need to be an exercise left to the reader.
duh by Nate+Fox · 2004-09-20 07:35 · Score: 4, Funny

They suggest the Athlon 64 3500+ over the P4 560

Well yea. The AMD has more and bigger numbers. Its got to be gooder.
Hyperthreading by grub · 2004-09-20 07:36 · Score: 5, Interesting

So this latest benchmark suggests that HyperThreading doesn't do a whole lot. Is this the case on all unixy systems (ie: is HT geared more to Windows?) or is lacklustre performance on Windows the case as well?

I'm leaning heavily to the AMD 64 stuff for my next home unixy machine, any arguments for the P4?

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Trolling is a art,
1. Re:Hyperthreading by Nos. · 2004-09-20 07:43 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  No hyperthreading is hyperthreading. How the OS is written will make some difference, but HT is not some supper technology that makes slower processors act like faster ones. It just makes them a bit more efficient. Your better off going dual processors or to a faster processor. Of course, I'd agree with your last statment, go for the AMD64, according to everything I've read and heard, you won't regret it.
2. Re:Hyperthreading by currivan · 2004-09-20 07:46 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  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.
3. Re:Hyperthreading by adisakp · 2004-09-20 07:46 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Hyperthreading is REALLY good for allowing low work threads to be much more responsive under heavy system conditions. One of the places I've noticed hyperthreading really shines is allowing MS Windows systems to have a more responsive UI when the system is stressed out by heavy CPU workloads.
  
  This is useful in programming because the editor keeps up nicely without going "away" for a couple seconds if I decide I want to make some changes or revisions to a file while compiling the rest of the project.
4. Re:Hyperthreading by Sevn · 2004-09-20 07:48 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  but HT is not some supper technology..
  
  It could be with some thermal glue and a fondue pot.
  
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5. Re:Hyperthreading by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-20 07:58 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  You bought a 64bit consumer orientated chip to use as a server, tried to install 32 bit Windows emulator as AMD64 native binary and have an ATI graphics card to play UT2004?
  
  1+1=5
  
  Wouldn't you be better with WinXP 64 beta? This isn't a troll, I have a rack full of Opterons running linux and a desktop AMD64 machine but I'm not a gamer, and I've no use for Windows programs. You on the other hand...
6. Re:Hyperthreading by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-20 08:05 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  No input re: M$ on HT'd cpu's.
  
  Under Linux I have seen various effects due to HT in the CPU. In the bad old (2.4 kernel) days dual Xeons would often run slower under relatively high load because the scheduler was agnostic of the fact that virtual cpu's share cache. I have also seen some sections of code which a)caches up nicely and b) is VERY heavy on FP math, give me about 1.8x the throughput by enabling HT. Seems the more a feature is hyped by marketing, the more likely it is that your mileage will vary greatly. Now if we could just get an OS/compiler that could use all the freakin' MMU's on a Power4 instead of just one .....
7. Re:Hyperthreading by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-20 08:06 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Windows understands that there are two "virtual" processors, while linux treats them as two physical processors.
  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
8. Re:Hyperthreading by dmayle · 2004-09-20 09:08 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  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 Users Prefer Underdog Company by adisakp · 2004-09-20 07:36 · Score: 5, Funny

Why am I surprised ?? :)
1. Re:Linux Users Prefer Underdog Company by grub · 2004-09-20 07:42 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Huh? Nowhere in the article was Apple mentioned...
  
  --
  Trolling is a art,
2. Re:Linux Users Prefer Underdog Company by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-20 07:46 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  He said "underdog" not "underwater."
3. Re:Linux Users Prefer Underdog Company by gl4ss · 2004-09-20 07:56 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  they make good products sure..
  
  but the dollar per performance ratio isn't as good as amd's - and that's a fact.
  
  nobody cares about the 'little guy' in cpu buying.. otherwise cyrixes and transmetas would have fared better.
  
  most of the guys using amd's i know would be be using intel if it offered better performance per dollar - the intel only users i know just prefer intel for whatever reasons ranging from 'reliability' to "amd's are space heaters" to "amd suxxx".
  
  --
  world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Re:AMD running at 50deg C. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-20 07:52 · Score: 4, Informative

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)

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/s wiftech/mcx462-v/page2.htm
Printable / 1 page link by aardwolf204 · 2004-09-20 07:55 · Score: 5, Informative

Printer friendly link

Tired of clicking next page

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The Price/Performace of a VIA C5 (or C7)..... by Powertrip · 2004-09-20 07:56 · Score: 4, Interesting

The Price/Performace of a VIA C5 (or C7)would be interesting to see here. No, I don't expect it to come even close in 'horsepower' to the players, but it would be of great interest for low-cost server appliances of sorts.
Re:AMD by leoboiko · 2004-09-20 07:59 · Score: 5, Funny

I've always been an AMD fan

Poor guy. You have an heroic job, my friend. Keep on spinning, our processors' integrity depends on you.

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A question in a vacuum isn't worth much by Roadkills-R-Us · 2004-09-20 08:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

Since you didn't read the article, why are you asking the question? The testing looked pretty thorough to me, and the analysis was reasonable.

And for the record, I know a number of AMD freaks. None of them are pro-AMD because of the Windows vs Linux thing. A few of them are anti-Intel, but some of them use Windows.

So at least among those I know who voice an opinion, your thesis rings false.
Where's the 754s? by ameoba · 2004-09-20 08:08 · Score: 5, Interesting

Any article that bases its conclusions on price/performance ratios that leaves out AMD's socket 754 Athlon64s is overlooking a major contender. Socket 754 chips generally cost far less than the s939 ones at comparable speeds and with the current generation of chips the dual-channel memory that s939 offers doesn't provide that much of a performance boost.

Some might say that the s754 chips are an upgradability dead end but most people aren't upgrading CPUs without replacing the motherboard & RAM anyways. A s939 chip doesn't really get you much more upgrade headroom since there are no 939 boards with PCI-Express and DDR2 on them anyways...

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It mostly solves problems that don't exist on AMD by ColourlessGreenIdeas · 2004-09-20 08:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

Hyperthreading lets the other thread use execution units that'd otherwise be empty due to pipeline bubbles. This makes a reasonable difference on many applications on the P4, due to its absurdly long pipeline. A more sensible pipeline length (i.e. an AMD processor) means there'll be less benefit to hyperthreading. I can't think of any good reason why the effects will be different between Windows and Linux.

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Re:I love AMD processors by Tsiangkun · 2004-09-20 08:15 · Score: 5, Insightful

I love AMD for the stealth marketing.

AMD has never ran an ad campaign informing me the processor is inside the computer. AMD has never assaulted my ears with crappy noise from painted blue freaks.

1. Put the money into R&D
2. produce a great product a fair price
3. let the word of mouth advertising do it's thing.
4. Profit

There is no ??? in this business strategy.
Re:Debian and Athlon 64 Systems Question... by Too+Much+Noise · 2004-09-20 08:16 · Score: 4, Informative

I haven't used Deb on amd64, but judging from the relevant anouncement you should not have too much trouble:

Taking the ported source packages count, debian-amd64 is the most complete port after i386, see the Buildd stats.
...

Native execution of legacy 32bit binaries is supported by the kernel, and core libraries are provided by the ia32-libs package.
Re:AMD running at 50deg C. by jmke · 2004-09-20 08:25 · Score: 5, Informative

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 :)
Re:I love AMD processors by 0racle · 2004-09-20 08:45 · Score: 5, Insightful

Ya because todays consumer is well informed about all issues surrounding the product they intend to purchase. Thats why OS/2 and Apple beat out the less then stellar offerings from Microsoft over the past decade.

Hmmmm....

People buy what ever a company makes the most noise about. There are still people that you really have to slam their head against a wall to convince that an AMD processor isn't inferior to Intel, simply because they never hear of this 'AMD thing.' The only real reason to choose one over the other is the cost. That said, being a fan of either is just silly. Unless you run benchmarks that spit out numbers, which are meaningless in the real world, you will not be able to tell what a system is running. If I threw a AMD processor in a box and slapped an Intel Inside sticker on the front, 99 out of 100 people would tell me I'd get better performance from an AMD chip after they used it, the last person probably wouldn't care. You see an increase in performance in an AMD system because you expect to, not because it actually is so much better, since the differences in real performance are imperceptible.

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LinuxHardware.org has similar article by vherva · 2004-09-20 09:03 · Score: 5, Informative

Recently posted: Intel's New Platform Verses AMD's 64-bit Prowess. Similar scope in benchmarks, perhaps better analyzed.

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This mostly goes to show by dlakelan · 2004-09-20 09:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

How little in the way of data analysis skills even tech savvy people have.

Mouse over to see the 64 bit results, on a different scale? Yuck.

Do the test 3 times and take the maximum? Yuck, how about the average?

Bar charts? With non-constant widths between factors? yuck.

I think probably 3 charts would have sufficed to show the whole thing. One showing total sum of time taken to run each of 3 suites: desktop, content, and benchmark, one color per suite.

One showing the effect of 32 vs 64 bits on processors capable of doing both.

One anova of DDR1 vs DDR2 (text) and of Hyperthreading vs. Not.

One plot of performance to price ratio for the best config of each processor.

And don't even get me started on the HINT benchmark (which is hard to get anymore I guess).

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Re:compile times by pclminion · 2004-09-20 10:01 · Score: 4, Informative

I'd say 4 minutes to compile the kernel is about right. Notice I said "kernel," not modules!
It takes about 20-30 minutes to do a full compile including modules, depending on my system load.