Facebook VP Slams Intel's, AMD's Chip Performance Claims

narramissic writes "In an interview on stage at GigaOm's Structure conference in San Francisco on Thursday, Jonathan Heiliger, Facebook's VP of technical operations, told Om Malik that the latest generations of server processors from Intel and AMD don't deliver the performance gains that 'they're touting in the press.' 'And we're, literally in real time right now, trying to figure out why that is,' Heiliger said. He also had some harsh words for server makers: 'You guys don't get it,' Heiliger said. 'To build servers for companies like Facebook, and Amazon, and other people who are operating fairly homogeneous applications, the servers have to be cheap, and they have to be super power-efficient.' Heiliger added that Google has done a great job designing and building its own servers for this kind of use."

Comments

You're Computin' for a Shootin' Mister

[eldavojohn]

So let me get this straight, the Vice President of a web company is criticizing the hardware guys in two of the world's biggest chip makers?

You guys don't get it

Is it possible to take out a massive life insurance policy on Jonathan Heiliger?

To build servers for companies like Facebook, and Amazon, and other people who are operating fairly homogeneous applications, the servers have to be cheap, and they have to be super power-efficient.

I assure you, despite your misconception that the world revolves around you everyone has those requirements. From the people who build supercomputers right down to the netbook I am typing on while watching Gurren Lagann.

Can we get like a panel of hardware engineers to have a discussion with this guy and can I get some popcorn?

Something about his arguement doesn't work

[joeflies]

1) Facebook & Amazon need cheap, power efficient systems
2) Intel and AMD aren't measuring up with processors to power these systems
3) However, Google has systems appropriate for this use (presumably using Intel or AMD processors)

If that's his argument, then it would seem that the real conclusion is that Facebook can't build systems as good as Google's, even though they are using the same processor technology.

Re:WTF?

[Zebai]

I agree I think this was writing his own resignation with this crap. The guy is basically telling everyone that he is incapable of finding an acceptable solution for his company and blaming intel and amd because he has committed a great deal of money on something that he didn't plan well enough to know exactly what the long term costs vs performance was. In the very article he says to not be cheap, but in many more words than necessary, probably to try to disguise what he is saying like most politicians, that they were not only too cheap, but made bad decisions on what to be cheap with. Its as if he's already in a public office, hes telling everyone he screwed up, why he screwed up, and trying to make it look like hes teaching everyone lesson to make his mistake to be less of a disaster.

Re:WTF?

[edmudama]

I think we read different articles. He's not saying he didn't plan well enough, he's saying that Intel and AMD promise that Gen Y processor is 35% faster than Gen X processor, and he's not seeing anywhere near 35% in real world performance.

If the application was purely CPU bound, and Y wasn't giving me 35% more than X, I'd complain.

However, if it's a complex system like almost everything else, why would they expect their application to get 35% faster when there's probably 6 or 8 critical subsystems that could all be bottlenecks as well?