Expensive Quad Sockets vs. Ubiquitous Dual Sockets
by Johan De Gelas on October 6, 2009 1:00 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
The Number One Reason for Quad Socket
VMmark - which we discussed in great detail here - tries to measure typical consolidation workloads: a combination of a light mail server, database, fileserver, and website with a somewhat heavier java application. One VM is just sitting idle, representative of workloads that have to be online but which perform very little work (for example, a domain controller). In short, VMmark goes for the scenario where you want to consolidate lots and lots of smaller apps on one physical server.
The VMmark scores of the Xeon X5570 make some of the quad socket platforms look silly - once again. The 16 "Shanghai" cores are 13% slower and the 24 "Dunnington" cores are 15% slower than the eight cores with SMT of the X5570. While raw processing power and the excellent optimizations for Hyper-Threading are the main reasons why the X5570 is superior, we suspect it is not the only reason. We'll discuss this in more detail later in this article. Luckily for AMD, the quad Opteron 8435 stays out of the reach of Intel's best server platform.
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Photubias - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
This is surely to be tested, but the Fiorano platform (as this AMD Chipset is called), is yet to be released.solori - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
Fiorano (SR5690/SP5100, et al) are out now for Socket-F and really require an Istanbul to show their stuff (like IOV, etc). With a minor tweak on HT bus speeds, don't expect to see much improvement in memory bandwidth for Fiorano/Socket-F pairings. Where you should see improvement is in power consumption - pairing HE/EE Istanbul parts with Fiorano/Kroner should create a better performance/watt result in virtualization.Collin C. MacMillan
http://blog.solori.net">http://blog.solori.net
bpdski - Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - link
It is pretty amazing how fast the new 55xx chips are. Personally, I am holding out on any new server purchases and deployments until the EX systems come out next year. I am pretty excited about the performance potential of a dual or quad octal-core system. I feel for AMD, but if the EX systems scale as well as they should, they are really going to crush the Opterons.duploxxx - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
2 answers to that, first off all looking at the design EX will be way more expensive creating a gap between 2 socket-4 socket platform even when only deploying 2 octa will be a very expensive baseline due to the motherboard layout. To expensive actually and a lot of focus trying to get risc/sparc marketshare.Second don't you think AMD knows this? The c32 G34 platform launch is much closer then people think, AMD made a clear roadmap and since 45nm all looks like going well on shape, keep in mind the cpu for the new platform is almost ready since it is based on istanbul and the new platform chipset was also released few weeks ago for the socket F platform, you will also see much more OEM activity with this platform due to one brand supplier, no longer need of the old nvidia/broadcom.
EX was delayed-delayed-delayed if it continues like this it will be launched more or less at the same time, so keep the feeling. BTW even if the 55xx sereis would be again a bad performing server part (which it is finally not thank you intel) 75% of the market would be still buying it just for the brand name.....:)
cosminliteanu - Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - link
Many thanks for this article !:)
BrightCandle - Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - link
A dual socket will easily fit in a 1U. But 1.25A is some serious extra cost within a colo.The 2U quad sockets on the other hand are a busting 500W+, again serious extra money in a colo.
The Colo's want you using 0.5A per 1U, there is a major mismatch from these machines to the reality of the power you can actually get. Love the speed, not liking the cost of running them.
sonicdeth - Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - link
Thanks for this. Personally I can't recommend any of the quad socket systems until we see Intels Nehalem-EX early next year. The dual core 55xx series is just fantastic for the price (especially with VMware). We've deployed several HP 380G6's and couldn't be happier.Bazili - Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - link
Great article. Congrats!!!Could you pleas include a software price analysis? I guess it can show huge differences among a 24 core box and a 8 core box.
tobrien - Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - link
these are amazing articles, you guys do such an awesome job with these.thanks a ton!
JohanAnandtech - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - link
Thanks for the kudos! much appreciated :-)