Power
Our AMD system had a different but similar power supply as our Intel system. The fan setup was also different, but the peak power consumption of the fans of both systems was very close. If you would like a completely apples-to-apples comparison (or at least as close as we can get), we'll refer to our previous performance/watt measurements which have been done with almost identical systems. Take these Intel versus AMD figures with a grain of salt, but the comparison between the different AMD CPUs is still very interesting.
To be fair, we are using somewhat early Intel samples; the current Intel CPUs will probably consume a little less power due to process maturity and other minor tweaks. Still, it is very clear that AMD's CPUs are able to save a lot more when they are not stressed. What kind of power savings may you expect when you buy a lower power Opteron?
The above table makes a few interesting points
Our AMD system had a different but similar power supply as our Intel system. The fan setup was also different, but the peak power consumption of the fans of both systems was very close. If you would like a completely apples-to-apples comparison (or at least as close as we can get), we'll refer to our previous performance/watt measurements which have been done with almost identical systems. Take these Intel versus AMD figures with a grain of salt, but the comparison between the different AMD CPUs is still very interesting.
| Power Usage | ||||||
| SPECjbb | Cinebench (Load) | Idle | PowerNow! Idle | Load vs. Idle Savings | Idle PowerNow/EIST Savings | |
| Dual Xeon 5160 3.0 | 376 | 354 | 248 | 244 | 110 | 4 |
| Dual Xeon E5345 2.33 | 374 | 331 | 248 | 244 | 87 | 4 |
| Dual Opteron 2224 SE | 380 | 409 | 310 | 159 | 250 | 151 |
| Dual Opteron 2222 | 330 | 342 | 259 | 158 | 184 | 101 |
| Dual Opteron 8218HE 2.6 GHz | 279 | 299 | 225 | 155 | 144 | 70 |
To be fair, we are using somewhat early Intel samples; the current Intel CPUs will probably consume a little less power due to process maturity and other minor tweaks. Still, it is very clear that AMD's CPUs are able to save a lot more when they are not stressed. What kind of power savings may you expect when you buy a lower power Opteron?
| Power Savings | ||||
| SPECjbb | Cinebench | Idle | PowerNow! Idle | |
| Normal 95W vs. SE 119W | 50 | 67 | 51 | 1 |
| HE 68W vs. Normal 95 | 51 | 43 | 34 | 3 |
The above table makes a few interesting points
- It is quite impressive that the AMD Opteron 2222 is now able to reach 3GHz at 95W. This means that, compared to just 2-3 months ago, you save up to 67W per server and get the same performance (2222 versus the older 2222SE).
- AMD's PowerNow! Technology is very efficient: it saves you between 150W and 250W depending on system load and configuration. 250W seems impossible, but the three fans of our Tyan TA26 had to run at much higher speeds to cool the CPUs at 3.2GHz than at 1GHz.
- The gains of Intel's EIST are very limited: the CPUs only throttle back to 2GHz.
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piroroadkill - Tuesday, August 7, 2007 - link
it is a car analogyGul Westfale - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
good analogy there, except that mustangs (and various other cars) use pickup truck engines for cost reasons. large trucks use larger engines (often diesels) because they offer considerably more torque at much lower RPM than a smaller gasoline engine; and thus provide more pulling power.Gul Westfale - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
these are not regular consumer cpus, but intended for use in commercial servers and workstations. they and their motherboards cost more because they support features such as multiple sockets (so in addition to having multiple cores on one chip you can also have multiple chips on one motherboard).yyrkoon - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
they win 1 of 2 tests, and it is clear they are the winner ? Why ? Because they won the software rendering also ? Anyone interrested enough in rendering, and HAVING to have this sort of hardware for it is NOT going to bother with software . . .
This means your conclusion on this point is incorrect, and in which case, it boils down to which application the rendering machine is going to do.
Man you guys come to the wierdest conclusions based on your own data, and I am not even the first to notice/mention this sort of thing . . .
JohanAnandtech - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
The Quadcore wins all high resolution rendering tests. Where do you see the DC opterons win against the Quadcore Intel in high resolution rendering? Show me a rendering engine where a 3 GHz K8 DC core is faster in high resolution renderering than a 2.33 GHz Quadcore. All decent and used in the realworld rendering engines will more or less show the same picture.In fact, the "rendering performance" situation will get worse for the K8 as SSE-2 tuning will get more common. All Intel CPUs since core and all AMD CPUs since Barcelona will show (or are already showing) high performance boost from using better SSE-2 code.
yyrkoon - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
Ok, I see now with the graphs 'lower is better' on 3ds max, I missed that with the tables, which is actually what I meant this morning 'table obfustication'. I personally do not mind tables, but when the data is not in a uniform spot, it confuses/makes it harder to read at a glance.Anyhow, I was tired when I posted this morning, cranky, and was overly harsh I think. However it *is* much easier for me personaly to read the graphs at a glance (I cannot speak for everyone though).
yyrkoon - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
Oh, and while on the subject, you guys here at anandtech have lately mastered the art of graph obfustication. Is it really THAT hard leaving items in the same rows / columns for different tests ? Are we trying to confuse the results, or is there some other reason this happens, and has gone completely over my head ?JohanAnandtech - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
The only reason is that until very recently I didn't master the graphing engine. I got some weird error messages and gave up. But I have found the error, and you should see some nice graphs which don't obfusticate...Spoelie - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
the gif on page 2 is non-looping, so after a very quick jump from 1ghz -> 2.8ghz (why??) -> 3.2ghz , it stays put on the 3.2ghz image. If reading the article, by the time the reader sees the image, it's already 5 minutes on the last image and staying there, making it for all intents and purposes a static image instead of an animated one:)
JohanAnandtech - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
Thanks, fixed that. The reason to show 2.8 GHz is that for example Specjbb and other applications sometimes don't completely stress the CPU and then the cpu dynamically goes back to 2.8 GHz. It are simply the 3 stages I saw the most, and found the most interesting to show.