AMD's Quad-Core Barcelona: Defending New Territory
by Johan De Gelas on September 10, 2007 12:15 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
3ds Max 9 (32-bit Windows)
We tested with the 32-bit version of 3ds Max version 9, which has been improved to work better with multi-core systems but which is not as aggressively tuned for SSE as LINPACK and zVisuel. We used the "architecture" scene, which has been a favorite benchmarking scene for years. All tests were done with 3ds Max's default scanline renderer, SSE is enabled, and we rendered at HD 720p (1280x720) resolution. We measured the time it takes to render ten frames from 20 to 29. All results are reported in seconds, lower being better.
As this test has been our standard test for a while, we added results from previous tests. This time, Intel is firmly in the lead: most of the test runs well in the cache of each CPU. AMD did make a progress though. A Dual 3GHz Opteron 2222 is capable of generating about 29 frames per hour. As this benchmark scales well with clock speed, we may assume that a potential 3GHz Barcelona will be able to spit out ~35 frames per hour. In other words, the new quad-core is about 20% more efficient than the previous dual-core generation, core per core, clock per clock. This is also shown by the score of the quad Opteron 880 (2.4GHz). But it is not enough to beat the Intel armada: even a 2GHz Xeon will probably slightly beat the current 2GHz Opteron 2350.
We tested with the 32-bit version of 3ds Max version 9, which has been improved to work better with multi-core systems but which is not as aggressively tuned for SSE as LINPACK and zVisuel. We used the "architecture" scene, which has been a favorite benchmarking scene for years. All tests were done with 3ds Max's default scanline renderer, SSE is enabled, and we rendered at HD 720p (1280x720) resolution. We measured the time it takes to render ten frames from 20 to 29. All results are reported in seconds, lower being better.
As this test has been our standard test for a while, we added results from previous tests. This time, Intel is firmly in the lead: most of the test runs well in the cache of each CPU. AMD did make a progress though. A Dual 3GHz Opteron 2222 is capable of generating about 29 frames per hour. As this benchmark scales well with clock speed, we may assume that a potential 3GHz Barcelona will be able to spit out ~35 frames per hour. In other words, the new quad-core is about 20% more efficient than the previous dual-core generation, core per core, clock per clock. This is also shown by the score of the quad Opteron 880 (2.4GHz). But it is not enough to beat the Intel armada: even a 2GHz Xeon will probably slightly beat the current 2GHz Opteron 2350.
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Phynaz - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
Isn't this intentionally crippling the system?JohanAnandtech - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
No. Just check what Intel and other companies do when they submit Specjbb scores for example. With HW prefetch on, you get about 10% lower scores.nj2112 - Tuesday, September 11, 2007 - link
Was HW prefetching off for all tests ?lplatypus - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
I thought that 2x00 series CPUs only supported one coherent hypertransport link, so would this mean that the "Dual Link" feature involving two HT links would require 8300 series CPUs?mino - Tuesday, September 11, 2007 - link
Well, maybe the changed that and all links are active (to enable setups like this) and the CPU just refuses to comunicate more than one coherent hopa away..mino - Tuesday, September 11, 2007 - link
Well, maybe the changed that and all links are active (to enable setups like this) and the CPU just refuses to comunicate more than one coherent hopa away..MDme - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
Let the games begin!Viditor - Thursday, September 13, 2007 - link
Are you going to be re-doing the review with the shipping version (stepping BA) anytime soon?I'm most curious to see if the improvement of 5%+ claims are true...
MDme - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
I think Barcelona will be a success in the server world. It's performance is around 20% faster than equivalently clocked xeons with the exception of certain programs like fritz and the linpack intel library where it is around 5-10% slower. But since it scales better than the xeon chips it should negate that and increase it's lead on others as core/sockets increase. add to that it's power efficiency tweaks and aggressive pricing, AMD will be able to hold off intel in the server world.....maybe.With 2.5Ghz Barceys coming up that would be equivalent to around 3-3+ Ghz xeons. So AMD was right that they need to get to 2.6 Ghz....AMD needs to ramp up clock to get the highest-end performance crown, but for now, their offering offers a nice balance of performance and power efficiency for the price.
Now time for the Phenom to get it's act together.
TA152H - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
The article should have mentioned the performance penalty Intel chips are suffering from with regards to FB-DIMMS. While it's true they should be benchmarked in servers with with memory, it's also widely rumored that they are going to be offering choices in the near future. This memory has a really big impact on a lot of benchmarks, so when looking towards the future, or desktop, it's important to keep in mind the importance of Intel using different memory. I don't think even Intel is stubborn enough to stick with this seriously slow, and power hungry memory. Maybe as a choice it's fine, but it must be clear to them that offering something else as well as FB-DIMMs is very desirable in the server space. Then again, look at how long they stuck with Rambus.