Intel Xeon 3.6 2MB vs AMD Opteron 252 Database Test
by Jason Clark & Ross Whitehead on February 14, 2005 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
Price comparison & Final Words
In previous articles, we've taken a look at the cost of the processor itself. Since servers aren't just about the processor, we've taken our pricing to an entire platform. We've attempted to spec out Intel and AMD servers from 2 different vendors and have them as close as possible in terms of features. There are obviously a few differences here and there, but as illustrated below, the price difference is negligible between either platform when taking into account the features missing on either platform. Note that we are comparing Dual Intel 3.6 1MB L2 based servers against Dual Opteron 250 servers, since the newer products that we have discussed in this article are not yet in the retail channel.
| HP ProLiant DL360 SCSI | HP ProLiant DL145 SCSI | IBM xSeries 336 | IBM eServer 326 | |
| Platform | Intel | AMD | Intel | AMD |
| CPU | Dual 3.6 GHz 1MB L2 | Dual Opteron 250 (2.4GHz) | Dual 3.6 Ghz 1MB L2 | Dual Opteron 250 (2.4 GHz) |
| Memory | 2GB | 2GB | 2GB | 2GB |
| Hard Drive | 36.4 Pluggable Ultra320 (15,000 RPM) | 36.4 Non Pluggable Ultra320 (15,000 RPM) | IBM 36GB 2.5" 10K SCSI HDD HS | 36GB 10K U320 SCSI HS Option |
| SCSI Controller | Smart Array 6i Plus controller (onboard) | Dual Channel Ultra 320 SCSI HBA | Integrated Single-Channel Ultra320 SCSI Controller (Standard) | Integrated Single-Channel Ultra320 SCSI Controller (Standard) |
| Bays | Two Ultra 320 SCSI Hot Plug Drive Bays | Two non-hot plug hard drive bays | 4 hot swap bays | 2 hot swap bays |
| Network | NC7782 PCI-X Gigabit NICs (embedded) | Broadcom 5704 Gigabit Nics (embedded) | Dual integrated 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet (Standard) | Dual integrated 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet (Standard) |
| Power | 460W hot pluggable power supply | 500W non hot plug power supply | 585W power supply | 411W Power Supply (Standard) |
| Server Management | SmartStart & Insight Manager | None | System Management Processor (Standard) | System Management Processor (Standard) |
| OS | None | None | None | None |
| Cost | $5,946 | $5,009 | $5,476 | $5,226 |
Final words
We've illustrated how workload has a significant effect on platform decision when it comes to database servers. Obviously, for a small to medium business, where there are multiple different workloads being run on the same server, the decision to go with a platform architecture best suited for Data warehousing alone doesn't make sense. But for larger organizations where multiple database servers are used, each having a specific purpose, the decision to go with one platform or another could have a significant impact on performance. For dual-processor applications, Intel leads the way in everyday small to heavy transactional applications, whereas AMD shines in the analytical side of database applications "Data Warehousing".
These results do raise some questions as to what is going on exactly during each test at an architectural level. Is the processor waiting for data from the L2 cache? Is the processor branch prediction units not suited for this particular workload? Is there a bottleneck with memory latency? We want these questions answered, and are going to investigate ways to provide concrete answers to these tough questions in the future.
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Zan Lynx - Monday, February 14, 2005 - link
I see Viditor explained what he really wanted. That was my first comment and by the time I'd filled out all the forms and received the email with my password he had already explained. Sorry. Please ignore me.Zan Lynx - Monday, February 14, 2005 - link
Viditor, the test hardware used 8GB RAM for both the Xeon and Opteron systems according to page 2.Viditor - Monday, February 14, 2005 - link
Jason - Let me expand on my request...Because there is still no hardware IOMMU on Xeon chipsets, I believe they must use PAE for 64bit addressing over 4GB, however Opteron doesn't have this problem and can address directly up to 128GB.
I would very much like to see the results of a comparison on the same testbed you used for this article (8GB Ram) to compare and see how much this effects performance as this seems a very typical model to me.
Cheers!
Viditor - Monday, February 14, 2005 - link
Jason - Very well done test and article!I too would be very interested in a 64bit Linux (or even Windows Beta) test with that configuration...
One of the things I am anxious to see is Xeons reaction to >4GB of ram on its performance. There are still NO results (that I have seen) with that configuration.
Cheers, and thanks for the article.
sri2000 - Monday, February 14, 2005 - link
Someone mentioned adding other database functions to provide different kind of stresses. How about using SQL Server Data Transfromation Services (DTS) to perform a variety of mass imports/exports from the test database?You could also perform some Full-Text searches mixed in with the regular queries on appropriately indexed tables - though those are really disk intensive rather than CPU-intensive (though the CPU usage does spike significantly when these queries are run).
I also wonder if adding queries which hit Views in addition to regular tables would affect anything, the result being that you're essentially running nested queries (though this doesn't likely reflect the type of usage seen in your forums, which was the basis of this test).
By the same token, having queries that use wildcards, user functions, sub-queries, etc (rather than just simple selects & inserts) will also add complexity to the searches & might affect the results.
Marlin1975 - Monday, February 14, 2005 - link
Like someone else pointed out, when will you do some test to see what the SSE3 did for AMD.Also what were the temps on both of the NEW Cpus. Haveing hundreds of them in a server room can cost a arm and a leg to keep cool, so I think temps do matter here.
fitten - Monday, February 14, 2005 - link
#39, we don't need to point out that 64-bit Intel P4 Xeons have been out and available for a while even though WindowsXP64 isn't available yet. You can run the RC WindowsXP64 on those and on Opterons/Athlon64s.rgb - Monday, February 14, 2005 - link
I don't think the BIOS of the test machine was adapted to Revision E Opterons.I adapted LinuxBIOS to the Rev E stepping last week and the 1 GHz support is really the easiest thing (was already present in revision D processors). Changing the HT speed while the operating system is running is _very_ difficult. It requires a reset or LDTSTOP on both CPUs for the new frequency to be effective, so this is normally done a boot time in the BIOS. I guess ntune does not really change the HT frequency.
In addition Revision E has a number of errata fixed which result in improved performance (for example Errata 94).
The most important point is the new memory controller mode that reduces the DRAM bank conflicts. It improves STREAM benchmarks scores around 30%. This modes has to be automatically enabled by the BIOS, so please rerun the benchmark on a mainboard that supports Rev E processors.
Quanticles - Monday, February 14, 2005 - link
I'd really want to see tests run on Linux, even if it is 32-bit. There are too many Windows programs that are tailored to Intel processors.I dont need to point out that Microsoft is delaying the 64 bit version of Windows until Intel has their 64 bit processor come out. If they're going to delay like that then I wonder how well the Opteron will preform on it.
Phiro - Monday, February 14, 2005 - link
Jason: Ignore all the 64-bit idiots. Please keep supplying 32-bit sql benchmarks for a LONG time - in the real world 99.5% of production dbs are running on 32-bit sql servers and that number will remain quite high for a long, long time no matter how fast 64-bit takes off.