AMD's Quad-Core Barcelona: Defending New Territory
by Johan De Gelas on September 10, 2007 12:15 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
Conclusion
It's close to a nightmare to try to review a server CPU in a few days, but we hope we have at least provided you with an idea what AMD's newest quad-core is capable of. We'll summarize our preliminary results with this small table.
Considering that AMD prices this Opteron 2350 under the Xeon 5345, AMD has an attractive price/performance offering for most applications. The only exception is a chess engine and highly optimized Intel binaries. Although our testing is not finished yet, there is very little doubt that AMD's newest chip is very energy efficient. Add to that the fact that the AMD platform is not burdened with the extra power consumption of FB-DIMMs, and it is clear that the third generation of Opterons will lead in the performance/watt area for a few months. When you are looking for the highest performance however, Intel has still a solid advantage with it's 3 GHz Xeon x5365
The future looks very interesting with the 45nm Xeon Harpertown and a 2.5GHz AMD quad-core in the next quarter. AMD hasn't clearly hit a homerun this time, but at least they're playing in the same ballpark.
Again, if you're curious about how quad-core Opteron functions in more of a desktop capacity - as a preview of things to come with the launch of Phenom - don't miss our AMD Phenom Preview article. We tossed in a GeForce 8800 GTX and ran some gaming and general computing performance numbers. It's still a socket 1207 server motherboard, but we limited the comparison to Santa Rosa versus Barcelona Opteron performance in order to focus on the CPU and not on potential platform differences.
It's close to a nightmare to try to review a server CPU in a few days, but we hope we have at least provided you with an idea what AMD's newest quad-core is capable of. We'll summarize our preliminary results with this small table.
| The Opteron 2350 (2 GHz) vs. Xeon "Clovertown" | |
| General applications | Opteron 2350 (2GHz) equates to Xeon clock speed of: |
| WinRAR 3.62 | 2.7 GHz |
| Fritz Chess engine | 1.8 GHz |
| HPC applications | |
| Intel optimized Linpack | 1.9 GHz |
| 3D Applications | |
| 3DS Max 9 | 2 GHz |
| zVisuel 3D Kribi Engine | 2.33 - 2.4 GHz |
| zVisuel 3D Kribi Engine (AA) | 2.4 GHz |
| Server applications | |
| Specjbb | 2.4 GHz |
| MySQL | 2.33 GHz |
Considering that AMD prices this Opteron 2350 under the Xeon 5345, AMD has an attractive price/performance offering for most applications. The only exception is a chess engine and highly optimized Intel binaries. Although our testing is not finished yet, there is very little doubt that AMD's newest chip is very energy efficient. Add to that the fact that the AMD platform is not burdened with the extra power consumption of FB-DIMMs, and it is clear that the third generation of Opterons will lead in the performance/watt area for a few months. When you are looking for the highest performance however, Intel has still a solid advantage with it's 3 GHz Xeon x5365
The future looks very interesting with the 45nm Xeon Harpertown and a 2.5GHz AMD quad-core in the next quarter. AMD hasn't clearly hit a homerun this time, but at least they're playing in the same ballpark.
Again, if you're curious about how quad-core Opteron functions in more of a desktop capacity - as a preview of things to come with the launch of Phenom - don't miss our AMD Phenom Preview article. We tossed in a GeForce 8800 GTX and ran some gaming and general computing performance numbers. It's still a socket 1207 server motherboard, but we limited the comparison to Santa Rosa versus Barcelona Opteron performance in order to focus on the CPU and not on potential platform differences.
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kalyanakrishna - Tuesday, September 11, 2007 - link
I don't deny people use MKL ... I dont agree that anyone targeting performance on AMD Opteron will use MKL. No one running HPL/Linpack for Top 500 submission would use MKL on Opteron. No one who wishes to test his Opteron for performance would use MKL to do so. No one wishing to have the fastest possible results from his Opteron will do so.Even ISV's now provide code that is optimized for Xeon and Opteron separately.
JohanAnandtech - Tuesday, September 11, 2007 - link
Ok, point taken. Give us some time, and we'll follow up with new compilations of Linpack.kalyanakrishna - Wednesday, September 12, 2007 - link
Thank you. Appreciate the effort.leexgx - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
and how offen do you read anandtechs Previews and reviewsunlike when intels core 2 came out all the hipe was real, to bad for AMD this time
this cpu is going to be good, problem is will it be able to compleat with Intels new cpu when it comes out
i still useing an amd system if your wundering and so all the rest of my pcs apart from my server as i just thow in an old P4 mobo to just file sharein house (all second hand parts apart from the hdds)
phaxmohdem - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
I wonder if it would be feasible for AMD to take the Intel approach, and slap two of there new native quad cores together and release an octal core CPU in the near future. Or would they remain the multi-core purists they have become... Similarly I wonder if 2 65nm Barecelona cores could even fit under that heat spreader... or come in under an acceptable thermal envelope.Accord99 - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
It won't fit on Socket F:http://www.madboxpc.com/news/am2/AMD_barcelona.jpg">http://www.madboxpc.com/news/am2/AMD_barcelona.jpg
fic2 - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
Page 8, 3DS Max 9 last paragraph:"Dual 3GHz Opteron 2222 is capable of generating about 29 frames per hour", but then
"potential 3GHz Barcelona will be able to spit out ~35 frames per second". I think that is supposed to be ~35 frames per hour. Otherwise that is an extremely impressive speedup!
JohanAnandtech - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
No, it is "per second". We used a Octalcore 2THz Barcelona there.... Thanks, fixed that one :-)
phaxmohdem - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
Got SuperPi times for that beast? ;)Roy2001 - Monday, September 10, 2007 - link
Kentsfield has 2*143mm^2 dies. Barcelona is 280+ mm^2. Penry would be even smaller, 2*100 mm^2. So unless AMD can increase the frequency to 3.0+Ghz soon and price their new quad-core processors higher than Intel's, AMD would be still in red unless it oursouces Athlon 64 to TSMC.