Linux and EM64T; Intel's 64-bit Suggestion
by Kristopher Kubicki on August 9, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Linux
Conclusions
Although the Athlon 64 3500+ and the Xeon 3.6GHz EM64T processors were not necessarily designed to compete against each other, we found that comparing the two CPUs was more appropriate than anticipated, particularly in the light of Intel's newest move to bring EM64T to the Pentium 4 line. Once we obtain a sample of the Pentium 4 3.6F, we expect our benchmarks to produce very similar results to the 3.6 Xeon tested for this review.Without a doubt, the 3.6GHz Xeon trounces over the Athlon 64 3500+ in math-intensive synthetic benchmarks. Again, not that it is really a comparison between the two chips yet anyway, but perhaps something of a marker of things to come. However, real world benchmarks, with the exception of John the Ripper is where AMD came ahead instead. Even though John uses several different optimizations to generate hashes, in every case, the Athlon chip found itself at least 40% behind. Much of this is likely attributed to the additional math tweaking in the Prescott family core, and the lack of optimizations at compile time.
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. The 3.6F processor the Xeon represents does not even exist in retail channels yet. Also, keep in mind that the AMD processor is clocked 1400MHz slower than the 3.6GHz Xeon. With only a few exceptions, synthetically the 3.6GHz Xeon outperformed our Athlon 64 3500+, whether or not the cost and thermal issues between these two processors are justifiable.
We will benchmark some SMP 3.6GHz Xeons against a pair of Opterons in the near future, so check back regularly for new benchmarks!
Update: We have addressed the issue with the -02 compile options in TSCP, the miscopy from previous benchmarks of the MySQL benchmark, and various other issues here and there in the testing of this processor. Expect a follow up article as soon as possible with an Opteron.
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saechaka - Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - link
i don't know much about cpu but this thread has been a great read. to fifi, i don't think you thank the garbage man if he spews garbage on your driveway, but if he picks it up, you should. props to kris for picking up the garbage. maybgherald - Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - link
I think this article can be best characterized as "useless" or perhaps "how to not benchmark processors."I'm pretty sure Kris will take it as a lesson learned, and anticipate any follow ups will be more interesting/informative.
To those who allege Kris or Anand have somehow been paid by Intel: quit talking out of your ass. Seriously, I've got better things to do than read your senseless drivel.
People make mistakes, and that's all we should take away from this.
fifi - Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - link
I don't understand, what's with the thanking Kris ?Do you THANK your newspaper editor? do you THANK a TV news reporter? do you THANK your mailman?
This is his job, he is supposed to do it right. If he screws up, then he gets told off. That's all.
If he does a good job with it, then he is told that it's a job well done, more than that, AT gets visitors, gets sponsors and ads.
But he screws up major and we are supposed to THANK him for screwing up?
Do you THANK your garbage collector for spewing garbage all over your driveway? Do you thank your TV news reporter for giving you wrong *news*?
No, I am not grateful that this *review* was posted. It was incomplete, misleading, confusing and factually incorrect.
MikeEFix - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link
"Those who pay attention to our other articles should know the 3.6F and the 3500+ are in fact marketed against each other."This statement is incorrect
Viditor - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link
G'day Kris!Thanks for the reply! I can imagine that it's not easy to deal with all of the yammering...!
"I'll just remove all the 3500+ marks and you can all look back at my previous articles to see where this 3.6F stands"
PLEASE DON'T!!
If you could just post an Update saying that some possible errors occured and that you're looking into them, that would be much better...
"There was a problem with the MySql graphs. We posted the 32-bit marks on accident instead of the 64-bit"
I figured it was something like that...
"i'm open to retest and revise as many times as it takes to provid ethe best information i can"
Many thanks! That's all that most of the intelligent posters can ask for...please try to ignore the rest.
dtobias - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link
This article was either the perfect marketing gimmick for Anandtech.com, or a colossal screw up. This was like Coke saying they were pulling Coke Classic off the market. We'll know that it was nothing but a publicity stunt when Anand gets back from vacation and prints a retraction. If not, then we'll start looking for the new intel ads to pop up at Anandtel.com Hey - if they paid you then you have to put the ads up, right?plus - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link
Anand,Do the right thing. Take it down tonight, repost it when you believe it's accurate.
Don't be the next Tom's Hardware. Too many people count on Anandtech.com.
Plus
KristopherKubicki - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link
Alright.Heres the deal. I'll just remove all the 3500+ marks and you can all look back at my previous articles to see where this 3.6F stands.
Second, I asked if anyone wanted the binaries or test files from this review. I just went over my email and from the 120+ emails i got flaming me, 3 people asked for the binaries. I'm probably just going to give open shell access to the machine and let you guys find out for yourself where this machine stands.
There was a problem with the MySql graphs. We posted the 32-bit marks on accident instead of the 64-bit. The comments we posted on the benchmark magically still lined up.
DJB is one of my professors and i will discuss some of the issues raised with him concerning primegen. Thats if he doesnt cut my head off first for posting his program without his permission.
I need to persue the issues with TSCP. I'll admit, the only reasons i posted it here was because i saw it in Ace's benchmarks; whom i draw and extreme amount of respect from.
Regardless of what you may or may not think about the marks from the review, i'm open to retest and revise as many times as it takes to provid ethe best information i can. Simply stating "this review sucks" or "why did you compare these chips" without digesting the entire article has been extremely discouraging.
Oh and for all those people who think Intel paid me for this review or whatever; yeah right they dont even know i have their chips! Good luck trying to prove that one.
Kristopher
KristopherKubicki - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link
Testsnorre - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link
Slash dotted!http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/04/08/09/136230.sh...