Everyobe compare the best P4 against the best A64, and that's 3.6F vs. 3800+ or 3.4EE vs. FX-53. It dosen't make sense to compare the most expensive Intel desktop CPU with the cheapest AMD desktop CPU (for socket 939). So, the best Xeon should always be compared with the best Opteron at any given time. It's that simple, so why argue about the obvious?
He simply means that if you're gonna compare A64 to P4, you should make sure you're comparing CPUs at similar price points. If the 3.6F will retail for $637 as KK claims, then the 3.6F is positioned against the A64 3800+. No question about it.
In regards to: 67 - Posted on Aug 13, 2004 at 12:36 AM by Arias74
"I'm still a little confused why KK still thinks that a 3.6GHz P4 will be marketed against a 3500+ A64. They do not occupy the same space, price-wise. If you're looking at a 3500 in the name, even Intel realizes that you can't judge by numbers alone, based on the fact that they are moving to an arbitrary naming convention for their processors. The only way to compare the two different product lines is by price, because that is the only constant. So, if the 3.6GHz P4 is the highest priced desktop cpu, then you would have to compare that to AMD's highest price. "
You're logic doesnt make sense, and you manage to contradict yourself. You are basically saying that I should compare one companies top of the line to anothers' no matter what the price? Did you not just mention that the price was the most important factor for comparison? Comparing the most expensive processors basically factors out price when you compare.
Like Derek Wilson said, it is a valid comparison, and your speculation makes no sense whatsoever, even judging by your own previous statements.
#86, I agree that the fact alone that the Opteron trounces the Xeon does not mean the article is more valid. What does is the fact they Kris took the time to test several cases and was able to show under what conditions the Opteron will trounce the Xeon and under what conditions the Xeon will trounce the Opteron (in the same program depending on compiler options). I would also like to take a second to say that what also helps is the fact that the DB benchmarks make quite a bit more sence in this article. The Opteron's strong suite is DB/Server environments... It did *not* make sence to see the Xeon trouncing an A64 in a DB benchmark like in the first article.
why is it that when the opteron trounces the xeon in a benchmark, you are quick to question the validity of the benchmark, but when the xeon beat the opteron in your previous review, there was no second guessing. perhaps your thought process should have been, since the opteron TROUNCED the xeon in several benchmarks, that the opteron can do those tasks so much better than the xeon. that's how i read benchmarks. also, if you question the validity of john the ripper in your own article, why not just get rid of it? i would have also liked to have seen some more insight to the xeon's 64 bit addressing and processing capability, but if you're leaving that for another review, then that's ok. all in all, much better than the previous review. i'm glad u took the criticism to heart and didn't get angry and defensive.
I been a long time AT reader but kept quite for sometimes however this review cuts my silence off. This is a nice review it is indeed informative and better than the first one. Hope to see more reviews like this. Keep it up!
Kristopher: The P4F is marketed as a workstation CPU and not a desktop CPU like 3x00+/FX-5x. Opteron 1xx/2ss, however, is also marketed as a workstation & server CPU.
And there dosen't exist any Xeon MP solutions based on the Nocona core, only DP & UP.
Nocona is just the name of the core. The core refers to both MP/DP and UP solutions.
To correct your statement, the 3.6 Xeon DP competes with the Opteron 250. Since the WW31 Intel APAC calls a UP Xeon a Pentium 4, this is where we drew the conclusion that a 3.6F is marketed against a 3x00+/FX-5x/Opteron 1xx.
The 3.6F will retail at $637 according to the APAC by the way. The Xeon DP will retial for $850, correct.
Kristopher, the 150 ISN'T supposed to compete with the 3.6 Nocona. That's the 250 that does that. However, the 150 and 250 are identical, except the 250 has DP support enabled, and costs $851 - just like the 3.6 Nocona. Therefore, a 150 vs. Nocona comparison IF the Nocona is only used in a UP config is fair, even though the 150 is cheaper.
"Basically, all I'm saying is that it is faulty reasoning to assume that a 3.6GHz Intel cpu will be marketed against a 3500+ Amd A64 cpu."
See, there's the problem with marketing. People do see a price tag. People also two other things: a speed number and a brand.
Most people that read this site "get" that performance is more than a number, a brand, and a price tag. But the majority of the population thinks very differently.
Despite AMD's rise to the top of the CPU performance heap in many catagories, Intel is still a bigger name to the public at large.
When a random person looking for a computer sees two boxes, one with (lets say) a 3400+ and the other with a 3.4GHz pentium 4, the will absolutely feel that these products are marketed at the same target performance level. And since AMD makes up its own performance rating scheme, we would tend to agree with this assessment.
A random person sees all of this together: AMD + 3400 + low price and Intel + 3.4GHz + high price ... Based on the current state of the universe, people will generally think one of two things: the AMD system is a lower price because it is some how "cheaper" in terms of quality than the Intel system, or they'll be saving enough money that going with the AMD system is worth it. It's just psychology of people who don't know enough about what they're buying.
It is an unavoidable fact that AMD and Intel parts will be _marketed_ via their performance rating or their clock speed.
Of course, if advertising and marketing did everything in the best interest of the customer all the time, then our site wouldn't be useful. AMD could say "Buy intel if you want to do encoding" and Intel would say "buy AMD if you want to build a gaming rig" and we'd all be happy.
Honestly, general CPU marketing does not target us. We will all get together and one way or another discover the part that has the highest value. We want to know, how much performance am I getting for my dollar. We want to know how little we can spend to get the best machine we can, since it will all be obsolete in a year anyway. For this reason, we are trying to expand our CPU reviews to include more information on price/performance and value.
But since we don't assume we know performance before hand, and price is a market dicated entity, we start from marketing and go from there.
The original comparison of Nocona to the 3500+ is not an invalid comparison. At the same time, there were other issues, and it has been a learning experience for us in terms of performance testing on Linux. Granted, including a 3700+ as well would have been helpful in seeing how AMDs performance rating scales wrt Nocona preformance. The only real difference between the Nocona system and a desktop P4f 3.6 is the fact that we had to use a Tumwater board, which may or may not have had a significant impact on the performance playing feild. We'll certainly revist that question when we get our hands on a p4f (buying that Dell may be a good idea).
But, as everyone can see from the job Kris did on this latest review, we write for the readers. Price point comparisons are very doable for us, but it gets difficult before product enters the market -- which is why we don't really get hardcore about pricing out of the gates. The market does influence what happens to the price after its launch, and we like to take that into consideration.
And that's the last we'll say about that ;-)
Please continue to let us know what you guys want to see, and we will continue to deliver. Thanks for all the support and outpouring of general goodness on these comments -- Kris deserves it for putting in such hard work over his vacation.
#72: the Nocona 3.6 and the 3.6F are going to be identical (different pin out though). I am thinking about buying a Dell just to prove it :) (You cant buy the CPU in retail yet).
I sent an email out to Oracle, lets see what they say.
great job Kris, much better this time around(I had faith in you). But one thing trubles me about you benchmarks. I don't recall seeing any benchs on how fast you can run F@H on the puppies :)
I think that you did a much better article this time, Kris and not because the Opteron kicked the Xeon around pretty badly in a lot of your benchmarks. This time you compared processors that can be considered direct competitors and the comparisons do actually mean something. Kudos to you on taking the time to do the comparison right and this kind of article is what I expect to read when I come here to Anandtech. :-)
MySQL and Postgres is cool ... but what about some commercial products like Oracle as well ?
I'd really really like to see some numbers pished for 10g on those beasts..
Hmm... #68, that's nice.. I would also like Apache server performance as well, as this one is server CPU shootout. Try to reconstruct a page request response benchmark. kind like the one that used in Opteron review or in AcesHardware. Also, please check the scalability when adding second and 3rd/4th processor. how many percent can we gain over the single one.
BTW, Kris.. in my opinion, Nocona 3.6 is not comparable to P4 3.6F, because Nocona 3.6 is way faster than 3.6F. It is much more comparable to P4 3.6EE than 3.6F vanilla. I think Intel will release a new 3.6F with vanilla P4 flavor when it is re-released as plain a plain one. So, I guess, 3.6EE is not comparable to A64 3500+ in many ways, as P3 3.4EE is comparable to AFX-53.
Good job Kris, you did a much better job this time! I guess the first article must really have been a learning experience! But that's what life is all about. So keep up the good work, and I look forward to reading more of your reviews.
I also posted after reading the first article, so I figure I may as well do so again.
I'm still a little confused why KK still thinks that a 3.6GHz P4 will be marketed against a 3500+ A64. They do not occupy the same space, price-wise. If you're looking at a 3500 in the name, even Intel realizes that you can't judge by numbers alone, based on the fact that they are moving to an arbitrary naming convention for their processors. The only way to compare the two different product lines is by price, because that is the only constant. So, if the 3.6GHz P4 is the highest priced desktop cpu, then you would have to compare that to AMD's highest price.
For example, if you have 2 systems in the store side-by-side, and one was priced $500 more than the other, wouldn't you assume that the higher priced item would be that much better, hence the higher price tag? Especially nowadays when $1000 can get you a very capable system, $500 is a huge price difference.
Basically, all I'm saying is that it is faulty reasoning to assume that a 3.6GHz Intel cpu will be marketed against a 3500+ Amd A64 cpu. Heck, even AMD doesn't know how to market their own Semprons... apparently, a Sempron 2800+ is only equal to an AXP 2400+ in terms of performance... very weird and wacky stuff!
As far as the chips used...These are very much in compitition with one another. Around the same price and "the best workstation processor" of the respective competing companies. Best vs. best and price. What else is there?
You still need to dump the old article... or at least get rid of the hyperbolye in the conclusion.
T8000, it is interesting how you consider this second review biased, even though many people had pointed out legitimate problems with the first one.
You bring up a good point about HT though. Even though it helps in some cases, it hurts in many others. How much of a selling point is it in that case?
I was impressed with both the constructive criticism of the readers and the profesionalism of Kris's responses in this whole affair. Very nice job on this follow-up review. Hopefully, more updates will follow as more 64-bit programs become available.
Nice job on this piece, Kris. I like the way you handle criticism. I think it's fairly obvious to you and everyone else that if the Opteron is capable of such a showing in a UP configuration, the Xeon doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of outperforming the Opteron in multiprocessor configs. If you do decide to write an article comparing multiprocessor machines it'll be down-right ugly for Intel.
Great review! I wish someone would benchmark AMD 64 and EM64T in 64 bit mode with MORE THAN 4 Gigs of RAM. I heard EM64T takes a hit with more than 4 gigs.
This was a great followup article, and certainly cleared a lot of things up. I was just wondering if its possible to use the SPEC benchmarks in addition to the ones you've used, so we can get the SPECint & SPECfp values to go with it. There are some published values for these on the spec website, but the setups for each of those published results are not the same, so its difficult to put them in perspective. Since you ususally have access to very similar setups, I was wondering if you could add those two tests to your set of benchmarks. Thanks!
Kris - "To be honest i wouldnt have known some of the mistakes i made had people not been so critical. I am not upset with the final outcome, it happens to everyone"
And that is why AT is the first site I come to for information...
Great job, and thanks!
When I compare this review to the previous one, I see two interesting points:
1. Most benchmarks ran a lot faster without hyperthreading, a scenario that was not tested here.
2. When enough users (or a user with a lot of names) complain about their favorite product not winning the benchmarks, their product will come out better soon therafter. I wonder if the Celeron 335 would have outperformed the Athlon 64 3800+ as well when this was required in the comments of the Celeron 3xx review by enough user names.
i just wanted to say im a long time anandtech reader and I appluade the work done wiht this review to clear up the problems with the previous one.
it takes some guts to come out and admit things were done badly and I can say I can respect the reviews more knowing you all are willing to admit those things, some sites have a problem with that and work with the readers to solve the problem. i have been a fan of the site for several years and I was very suprised at the first review, but now i see you trying to make up for that and go forward, I just want to thank you for the work done on this review.
it may still not be perfect in answering all the questions, but it certainly goes along way versus the first article. i look forward to follow ups.
First off, MUCH better.... At least this seemed like a more fair fight.
2 concerns/gripes/comments though...
1) In the hardware config I noticed that one machine had Unregistered memory with CAS2, the other had Registered CAS 3 memory. Since I know that Opteron requires registered, I'd assume that made the Opteron run the CAS 3 stuff. I really would have prefered to see a CAS 2 to CAS 2 fight (just to keep the apples to apples as much as possible.)
Second, (and this is a personal gripe against most benchmarking sites) either pick a color code for each brand's processor and use that color for ALL charts showing that processor, or always list them in the same order. Showing the "best one first" can be rather confusing when they're changing order from one chart to the next.
One other thing... Doesn't the Xeon have more than 1MB L2 cache? I thought the newer ones were all using 2MB or more of that or L3???
Anyhow, thanks for going back and redoing this work. I don't think any of us hates you personally, we just want to see FAIR and EVEN reporting in general across the board. This review has gone a long way towards restoring my faith in this site.
Agree with 42 and 52 something wrong with your statement on Blowfish. Also agree with 50 on the power of different optimisations (and its early days for the Nocona). Thanks also for waking up my interest in linux.
I noticed the unreadable table, too. I think it's some IE specific code, because I could view it in IE, just not firefox. You'd think linux benchmarks would have mozilla-compliant html :)
Now, I don't know if it's just me, but I couldn't bring up the forum popup in firefox, either. Why not?
> From looking at the graphs, it becomes easy to
> see why JTR makes a difficult program to use as
> a benchmark. Had we left the default -O2
> compilation, Blowfish hashing would have been
> faster on the Xeon processor than the Opteron.
> However, as soon as we use -O3, the Opteron
> outperforms the Xeon processor.
Um, no it doesn't. The opteron continues to lose, even with the -O3 optimization. In fact, -O3 doesn't seem to help either significantly in any of the JTR benchmarks.
-O2: Xeon wins 481 to 419
-O3: Xeon wins 478 to 420
Of course, Opteron wins the rest, and -O3 doesn't seem to matter there, either.
Kris glad you included Crafty chess program into review. If you want to address anything dealing with the Program (like test wise) you can contact Dr. Robert Hyatt directly through ICC (Internet chess club, free to use if you log on as a Guest) he is online there as the name Hyatt.
He is very easy to talk to about crafty if you need help.
The one thing that I really see in these benchmarks is how much Intel is suffering when they are trying to run AMD64 optimized code. Normally intel makes the spec for new instructions before AMD impliments, the compiler writers and software coders take advantage of Intel's peculiaries and then AMD has to build the functionality with the same peculiaries as the intel implimentation if they want to compete. Look at most SSE2 benchmarks. I think AMD is at a disadvantage having had to back fit the instructions using the existing CPU op units.
This time it looks like intel is getting a taste of their own bitter medicine, trying to make 32bit integer units look and perform like 64bit units to the outside world, if the rumors about intel's 64bit implimentation are true. Now it will be interesting to see if compiler writers and software coders will (or are able to) go back to the drawing board and make this round of intel chips perform up to the strong initial AMD 64 bit performance baseline.
I'm guessing that there will be a 64 bit performance gap (larger than the 32 bit gap) until intel respins the silicon a couple times. I look at this round of 64bit intel chips as like a em64sx, in reference to the 386sx, even though the 386sx was 32 internally an 16 externally, kind of the opposite of having 64bit registers and 32bit ops units, but perhaps still an appropriate analogy.
Kris,
I have to hand it to you, you took a lickin' and kept on tickin'. I realize it's pathetic that in order to do a review you have to literally dissect every benchmark for "fuzzy" code but that's the way it is. Got to do the homework and if it's out of the realm om your expertise yoou have to ask other. Remember, benchmarks are for liars.
That said, you'll probably turn out to be the best comparitive benchmark reviewer on the internet.
1, Now I'd just like to point out, that it's not like nobody is complaining now becouse this time AMD wins. This time around the processor choice was ok and, as much as I see from the opinions of readers who are much better informed in the server/linux world than me, the benchmark choice/execution was great, too.
2, I know you're off to your vacation now (by the way, have a good time!), bat later it would be interesting if you managed to do a 2 and/or 4 processor setup with Noconas and opteron 250/850s as well. As far as i know, Opteron's biggest advantage was its excellent scalability. Opteron's advantage used to grow immensly. Does this change with the new Noconas?
3, I saw this at another HW site: on the final page of their reviews they have a chart where they list all the benchmarks once more and show with a percentage number how faster/slower a processor is compare to its rival. E.g. you take the nocona as 100% (or zero) and list for every benchmark how faster/slower Opteron was. (Say, +25% or -37%).
4, As for pos #36 by kaoman. I think that if they had compared 2 desktop processors, than we wouldn't have seen any of these benchmarks, save for Lame. We would have seen office, gaming, AV, and rendering benchmarks. And about the price: let's wait for it, shall we?! By the time Prescott 3.6F is available, 90nm A64 is out, which might also be tweaked, if the rumor mill is right, and it will also be cheaper for AMD to produce, so it might be cheaper for us as well.
Thanks for the SSL benches.
Especially useful are 1024+ bits RSA/DSA sign/verify figures (at the bottom), digests: MD5 or SHA-1, and popular ciphers, like RC4, blowfish. Take 1024 bytes or bigger blocks, and you have valuable, easy to visualize comparison information.
Great job, Kris, and thanks to Super Micro! It's good to see when people don't just hide, but both listen and respond. I was ready to remove Anand from my bookmarks like I did with Tom's years ago, but it's staying now.
Awsome! You took it like a man, and I think that all of us learned from your hard work including the errors in it. I feel that you did your abosolute best to accomodate & listen to your readers, correct your errors, and produce an unbiased evaluation.
There is nothing anybody can do about their mistakes except do their best to correct them and learn from them.
After reading these posts to your new article I am sure that you blood preasure has dropped greatly. Harsh (un)constructive criticism can be very difficult to take.
Crap, now I mixed myself up... none of the charts seem to show the Opteron going from a loss to a win. Indeed, the Opteron is slower than XEON across the board in the Blowfish section.
Kudos on a good follow-up article, though I felt the original had far more merit than most others did. It must've been difficult to decipher the valid and constructive criticism from all the blather.
That said, I did notice some oddity with the John the Ripper results:
You say "Had we left the default -O2 compilation, Blowfish hashing would have been faster on the Xeon processor than the Opteron. However, as soon as we use -O3, the Opteron outperforms the Xeon processor."
However, the only graph that shows the Opteron going from a loss with -O2 to a win with -O3 is the bottom MD5 graph. Perhaps you meant to say MD5 then in your comments, or are some of the graph numbers wrong?
Congratulations with a much better review this time, although your conclusions are almost as bad as the sloppy old review. Based on the results I'd expected something more like this:
"Without a doubt, the Opteron 150 trounces over the 3.6GHz Xeon in real world benchmarks."
BTW, AMD's Opteron 150/250 is directly comparable with Intel's Xeon 3.6GHz in 1-way & 2-way systems.
BTW 2, the Performance Test Configuration table on page 1 is unreadable (white text on white background).
So before a nice old J. Beam integrates the hours of my day into peaceful, cushioned oblivion, let me assure you that from my point of view you did a very good job today.
You endured a continuous datasphere bashing and gave your best to adress criticism in a constructive way.
But what I dont understand with the first article's controversy.. if the 3500+ costs ~ $350, and assuming the 3.6F costs ~ $450 by late August (http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=770923), AND that the performance of the 3.6F EQUALS the Xeon 3.6, what was wrong with the first article's choice of proccessors comparison? The whole apples-to-apples analogy WORKS in the sense that both chips are 64bit x86 processors. If the 3.6F = Xeon 3.6, who cares which one is used to compare to the Athlon64? And that was the basis of the article. A name or price tag doesn't make a processor comparison any more or less proper when the CPUS are identical. Granted I don't know for a fact if they are, but I'm taking Kris's word for it.
Now that is what I call great damage control :-) Way to turn it around KK, now go enjoy your vacation!
I have been among your leading critics after that train wreck you posted, but you have definitely shown the necessary focus and ability to except criticsm be it constructive or otherwise, and rebound quickly, good job.
Ah I hadnt noticed you put it there but you have to realy know what you are looking for to be able to see that it is not the standard GCC 3.3.3 compiler. Maybe put a small note at the bottom of the compiler section in bold saying "This is not the standard GCC compiler" or the like as most people will not notice that it isnt standard. but I have to say its nice to see Linux getting such a large main steam coverage.
This should have been the first 64bit article.It is well written and makes sense, a real 180 from that last debacle. Good job! I do however still have issues with the use of synthetic benchmarks. Why bother tossing them in at all when the real world tests in this very review show how utterly useless they are? The AMD chip tracks a mud hole in the a$$ of the Xeon in all but the synthetic tests. This only gives the AMD zealots more ammo for the possibility of some sort of bias toward Intel, and in this case I would tend to agree with them. Keep up the good work :)
Much better Kris, and I was only disappointed in not getting to see the 32-bit comparisons to see how well the current iAMD64 implementation is running.
Only thing you left me confused on was the last paragraph on the John The Ripper benchmark. Might only be me who can't understand what you mean.
Datacipher, it really depends on your point of view. For server performance benchmarks, like the SQL stuff, another server chip was the way to go (like we did here).
If we go the desktop route, the line becomes a little blurry, particularly on Intel's end. Intel defines UP servers and high end workstations almost identically.
If we were to go on price alone, we still don't have the fairest comparison since the 150 is priced cheaper than the Xeon and the 3.6F. Some of my sources have said the 3.6F may debut considerably lower than its Xeon 3.6GHz server counterpart, even though they are the same processor with different pin outs.
Regardless of what you think, the 3.6F and Xeon 3.6GHz processors will compete against AMD dual channel offerings in the 2.4GHz range. If you read some of our other reviews, L2 cache size doesnot seem as critical on the A64 platform.
Whelp, anyway, hope that helps. When the 3.6F actually shows up at newegg with a price, then i will tell you for sure what it competes against :)
Stellar Job on this one, you earnt the vacation. Anyway the reason this one seems more correct is that in the 32-bit tests, opteron beats the Xeon (so why should this one be so different), now everywhere else I've read are saying that the Xeon's 64-bit performance wasn't much and yours was a contradiction. That's why there was the contravercy. Anyway, this confirms the party line.
Now I'm really confused! In the original article you say that the chips were not meant to compete...but then you also said things like "it turned out to be more appropriate than antipated". Now you are saying that since the 3.6F will be marketed against the 3500+...that it is the correct choice...
Now I'm trying to understand...forgive my ignorance. Basically you took a server chip as a stand in for the 3.6F against the 3500+ in what amounts to basically a desktop shootout? What I don't understand about this is how can Intel release a 3.6F with a roughly comparable cost to the 3500+ but with the same performance as the xeon 3.6?
Also, if the cpu choice was correct...why did you then switch to the opeteron 150?
To be honest i wouldnt have known some of the mistakes i made had people not been so critical. I am not upset with the final outcome, it happens to everyone.
Sorry to be a bit harsh there Kris but they are not in the standard GCC3.3.3 manual which I was using as a reference. It would be nice to state that you are using a ported compiler in your config to prevent any future confusion. Though its a pretty good article over all. much better than some recent ones on Anand. I hope this standard is kept up.
I posting because I was complaining about the first review on another board. The first review was horribly done.
But it takes a real stand up person to take all the bitching that went on and be able to go back and look at what they did and decide to redo it because they made a mistake. For that I will give you much praise. The other hand is the first review shouldn't have been turned in the way it was but it isn't always the way someone does something that is the most important but the way they respond to the criticism they get.
So thanks for all the effort on redoing the article and you provided you are a stand up guy who simply made a mistake. It happens and everyone can move on.
Now all I want to say is big thanks for listening to your readers. Unlike other site which I would not mention that claims they are never wrong I think it is very nice of Anandtech editors to accept the criticizm and feedback from their readers and to get back retesting/reviewing.
It is not about scores or brands - it is about the trust of the people reading these arcticles - a misleading review in most cases is worse than non-review.
Also Kristoper please do not take criticizm of the previous article personally - by criticizing your article most people were hoping you will do better next time.
No youre correct. The context of the sentence though its the hand coded ASM used in 3.6 "stable" is ancient. Someone pointed out to me it doesnt even have the original MMX optimizations in it (i think).
Yeah, gj Kris, and yeah, I'd say you deserve a vacation after all that... thanks for listening to people, that's a lot more than certain editors at certain sites COUGHCOUGHTHGCOUGH would do.
First: I appreciate the work you put into this review. But i cannot restrain to offer one (hopefully constructive) remark:
you write: "We are using John the Ripper 1.6.37 in this portion of the benchmark. As a few extremely knowledgeable readers pointed out, the "stable" 1.6 branch of code relies heavily on hand coded ASM which by today's standards is fairly ancient anyway."
Handcoding ASM for specific tasks is NOT ancient. Handcoded ASM allows you to utilize the execution units and the cache-latency distribution of a given core architecture to fullest extend.
That is of uttermost importance to widespread library functions used in scientific calculations. Even the popular GIMPS client is handcoded in ASM for every CPU-variation (there are even different codepaths for different cache sizes). The GIMPS developers are fighting for every single clock that can be saved in a inner loop for different architectures.
That aside...
Have a nice vacation. I guess you ned it ;)
If you - for yourself - agree that you could have done better, swallow your pride and try to convert the substantial complaints into positive energy. Ingnore the personal bullshit from wannabe-i-know-betters. Never waste a minute of your life for that. It's not worth is.
Hang on You said that you used -march=nocona and -march=k8 with gcc3.3.3. However those compile options are NOT IN gcc3.3.3! There is a serious problem if you use non existant optimisations as it casts a shadow of doubt on the competence of the author as it shows they dont know what they are doing.
If this is the case read up on Linux before doing articles! If I am being overly harsh then correct the error
Much better. Your compiler flags arnt the best as things like "-funroll-loops" tends to do nothing but bloat the binarys. Also your config page is not working in Firebird. Its nice to see realistic results. From the last version it looked as if all x86-64 cpus got owned by intel's offering because that was the only data you where presented with.
However this shows a price for price comparison which is much better.
One point I have to make is why the first article was ever published in the first place as it was of little value as you had nothign realistic to compare it wiht.
nice to see comparable processors benched against each other, the 164 in the old review justs isn't in the same category of processors.
that said. i'm dissapointed to see the Xeon look so weak. I expected the benches to flop back and forth on which proc was faster because of their different designs. I know the Opt150 is one hell of a chip, but I think intel can do better.
"The 3.6F will still be marketed against the 3500+/3800+ dual channel AMD CPUs. The benchmarks were messed up in that article, not our processor choice. This was addressed at the beginning of both articles"
First great redo. :) I dont care who wins or looses, but at least now the comparision is fair.
About the above quote, who is doing this marketing/comparison. Im assuming Intel? Doesnt it look suspect that they want to compare a 800+ dollar processor with one in the low 300s? Why fall for marketing pr/fud?
I enjoyed this article much more than the first one. This one is much more accurate in my opinion.
I would like to point out that you can purchase an Opteron 150 (boxed) for $594.49 with free shipping at
http://www.chumbo.com/info.asp?s=030143803701&... and not $850 like you quoted in your "Final Thoughts" page. Additionally, AMD's pricing page suggests that the Opteron 150 be priced at $637. Any store pricing the Opteron 150 at $800 or $850 will not make any sales, so, I don't think you can justify your statement, "Thus, it is priced around $850 at time of publication." That is the only thing I think you should change with this article. That sentence should be changed to, "Thus, it is priced (by AMD) at around $650 and can be purchased at around $600 at time of publication."
Other than that, I think you've written a wonderful article. I'd also like to thank you for doing this during your "vacation" time. I suppose that wasn't much of a vacation. I think what you did shows quite a bit of dedication to your work, and I (for one) appreciate it.
datacipher: The 3.6F will still be marketed against the 3500+/3800+ dual channel AMD CPUs. The benchmarks were messed up in that article, not our processor choice. This was addressed at the beginning of both articles/
Sorry for the empty posts, I just signed up to say this....
I think I can speak from a different perspective as I am not a techhead. I do keep a casual eye on hardware and have done extensive programming so I would not classify myself as computer illiterate.
Still I WOULD not have noticeed the rediculous choice of cpu's used in the 1st article. I would have just skimmed the article and assumed that a reasonable choice of benchmark material was used. I would not have known about any of the flaws in the benchmarks. I WOULD have accepted and given weight to the conclusion...which was clearly unwarranted given this second review.
I would like to thank all the posters who criticized that review because without you watchdogs, I would have blindly accepted the article as I used to do with Anandtech which I always though was a reliable source.
Kristopher, it's good you posted a new article, but honestly, your first article was extremely misleading...almost fraudulent...it really changes the nature of Anandtech in my mind...I thought I could rely on you fellows...
If you had initially even written of your reasoning as to why you were using such an uncomparable processor and then properly framed your conclusions it would have been fine....but in the article itself you seemed to be saying that it was a reasonable comparision and the conclusions were not given proper reference.
This review is MUCH better.. But still, WHY aren't there reference 32 bit scores for the Noconca, so we can see how much of a difference between 32 and 64 bit performance there is?
Yeah... this reivew (to me) proves that Kris is a good, well-intentioned guy, as he put aside his own personal time to re-do these benchmarks. But the results within also prove how utterly inaccurate the first review was, thus justifying (some of) the criticism he recieved.
I can see that you did learn at least one lesson, Kris; there are no claims in the conclusion of the Opteron "trouncing" the Xeon this time (even though such a remark may be justified now). :)
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Everyobe compare the best P4 against the best A64, and that's 3.6F vs. 3800+ or 3.4EE vs. FX-53. It dosen't make sense to compare the most expensive Intel desktop CPU with the cheapest AMD desktop CPU (for socket 939). So, the best Xeon should always be compared with the best Opteron at any given time. It's that simple, so why argue about the obvious?JGunther - Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - link
Don't be daft ss284.He simply means that if you're gonna compare A64 to P4, you should make sure you're comparing CPUs at similar price points. If the 3.6F will retail for $637 as KK claims, then the 3.6F is positioned against the A64 3800+. No question about it.
ss284 - Monday, August 16, 2004 - link
In regards to: 67 - Posted on Aug 13, 2004 at 12:36 AM by Arias74"I'm still a little confused why KK still thinks that a 3.6GHz P4 will be marketed against a 3500+ A64. They do not occupy the same space, price-wise. If you're looking at a 3500 in the name, even Intel realizes that you can't judge by numbers alone, based on the fact that they are moving to an arbitrary naming convention for their processors. The only way to compare the two different product lines is by price, because that is the only constant. So, if the 3.6GHz P4 is the highest priced desktop cpu, then you would have to compare that to AMD's highest price. "
You're logic doesnt make sense, and you manage to contradict yourself. You are basically saying that I should compare one companies top of the line to anothers' no matter what the price? Did you not just mention that the price was the most important factor for comparison? Comparing the most expensive processors basically factors out price when you compare.
Like Derek Wilson said, it is a valid comparison, and your speculation makes no sense whatsoever, even judging by your own previous statements.
Locutus4657 - Saturday, August 14, 2004 - link
#86, I agree that the fact alone that the Opteron trounces the Xeon does not mean the article is more valid. What does is the fact they Kris took the time to test several cases and was able to show under what conditions the Opteron will trounce the Xeon and under what conditions the Xeon will trounce the Opteron (in the same program depending on compiler options). I would also like to take a second to say that what also helps is the fact that the DB benchmarks make quite a bit more sence in this article. The Opteron's strong suite is DB/Server environments... It did *not* make sence to see the Xeon trouncing an A64 in a DB benchmark like in the first article.acejj26 - Saturday, August 14, 2004 - link
why is it that when the opteron trounces the xeon in a benchmark, you are quick to question the validity of the benchmark, but when the xeon beat the opteron in your previous review, there was no second guessing. perhaps your thought process should have been, since the opteron TROUNCED the xeon in several benchmarks, that the opteron can do those tasks so much better than the xeon. that's how i read benchmarks. also, if you question the validity of john the ripper in your own article, why not just get rid of it? i would have also liked to have seen some more insight to the xeon's 64 bit addressing and processing capability, but if you're leaving that for another review, then that's ok. all in all, much better than the previous review. i'm glad u took the criticism to heart and didn't get angry and defensive.briant - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
I been a long time AT reader but kept quite for sometimes however this review cuts my silence off. This is a nice review it is indeed informative and better than the first one. Hope to see more reviews like this. Keep it up!briant.
snorre - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
Kristopher: The P4F is marketed as a workstation CPU and not a desktop CPU like 3x00+/FX-5x. Opteron 1xx/2ss, however, is also marketed as a workstation & server CPU.And there dosen't exist any Xeon MP solutions based on the Nocona core, only DP & UP.
KristopherKubicki - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
Nocona is just the name of the core. The core refers to both MP/DP and UP solutions.To correct your statement, the 3.6 Xeon DP competes with the Opteron 250. Since the WW31 Intel APAC calls a UP Xeon a Pentium 4, this is where we drew the conclusion that a 3.6F is marketed against a 3x00+/FX-5x/Opteron 1xx.
The 3.6F will retail at $637 according to the APAC by the way. The Xeon DP will retial for $850, correct.
Kristopher
bhtooefr - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
Kristopher, the 150 ISN'T supposed to compete with the 3.6 Nocona. That's the 250 that does that. However, the 150 and 250 are identical, except the 250 has DP support enabled, and costs $851 - just like the 3.6 Nocona. Therefore, a 150 vs. Nocona comparison IF the Nocona is only used in a UP config is fair, even though the 150 is cheaper.Macro2 - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
KK, it's amazing what a little parental supervision can do.DerekWilson - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
#67 and all others with this on their minds:"Basically, all I'm saying is that it is faulty reasoning to assume that a 3.6GHz Intel cpu will be marketed against a 3500+ Amd A64 cpu."
See, there's the problem with marketing. People do see a price tag. People also two other things: a speed number and a brand.
Most people that read this site "get" that performance is more than a number, a brand, and a price tag. But the majority of the population thinks very differently.
Despite AMD's rise to the top of the CPU performance heap in many catagories, Intel is still a bigger name to the public at large.
When a random person looking for a computer sees two boxes, one with (lets say) a 3400+ and the other with a 3.4GHz pentium 4, the will absolutely feel that these products are marketed at the same target performance level. And since AMD makes up its own performance rating scheme, we would tend to agree with this assessment.
A random person sees all of this together: AMD + 3400 + low price and Intel + 3.4GHz + high price ... Based on the current state of the universe, people will generally think one of two things: the AMD system is a lower price because it is some how "cheaper" in terms of quality than the Intel system, or they'll be saving enough money that going with the AMD system is worth it. It's just psychology of people who don't know enough about what they're buying.
It is an unavoidable fact that AMD and Intel parts will be _marketed_ via their performance rating or their clock speed.
Of course, if advertising and marketing did everything in the best interest of the customer all the time, then our site wouldn't be useful. AMD could say "Buy intel if you want to do encoding" and Intel would say "buy AMD if you want to build a gaming rig" and we'd all be happy.
Honestly, general CPU marketing does not target us. We will all get together and one way or another discover the part that has the highest value. We want to know, how much performance am I getting for my dollar. We want to know how little we can spend to get the best machine we can, since it will all be obsolete in a year anyway. For this reason, we are trying to expand our CPU reviews to include more information on price/performance and value.
But since we don't assume we know performance before hand, and price is a market dicated entity, we start from marketing and go from there.
The original comparison of Nocona to the 3500+ is not an invalid comparison. At the same time, there were other issues, and it has been a learning experience for us in terms of performance testing on Linux. Granted, including a 3700+ as well would have been helpful in seeing how AMDs performance rating scales wrt Nocona preformance. The only real difference between the Nocona system and a desktop P4f 3.6 is the fact that we had to use a Tumwater board, which may or may not have had a significant impact on the performance playing feild. We'll certainly revist that question when we get our hands on a p4f (buying that Dell may be a good idea).
But, as everyone can see from the job Kris did on this latest review, we write for the readers. Price point comparisons are very doable for us, but it gets difficult before product enters the market -- which is why we don't really get hardcore about pricing out of the gates. The market does influence what happens to the price after its launch, and we like to take that into consideration.
And that's the last we'll say about that ;-)
Please continue to let us know what you guys want to see, and we will continue to deliver. Thanks for all the support and outpouring of general goodness on these comments -- Kris deserves it for putting in such hard work over his vacation.
Thanks,
Derek Wilson
Senior CPU & Graphics Editor
allnighter - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
Thank you Kris. Much better this time around. My trust is restored. Thanks again.KristopherKubicki - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
#72: the Nocona 3.6 and the 3.6F are going to be identical (different pin out though). I am thinking about buying a Dell just to prove it :) (You cant buy the CPU in retail yet).I sent an email out to Oracle, lets see what they say.
Kristopher
val - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
Linux is different than windows, Windows have more overhead and more depending on frequency. Lets wait for results on Windows 64bit to judge...matman326 - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
*Stading up and clapping*great job Kris, much better this time around(I had faith in you). But one thing trubles me about you benchmarks. I don't recall seeing any benchs on how fast you can run F@H on the puppies :)
Viditor - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
I agree with Decoder Kris...next review, could you use the 4+ gig of ram? I'd like to see the same benches with large amounts of ram to compare...Cheers,
Charles
muddocktor - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
I think that you did a much better article this time, Kris and not because the Opteron kicked the Xeon around pretty badly in a lot of your benchmarks. This time you compared processors that can be considered direct competitors and the comparisons do actually mean something. Kudos to you on taking the time to do the comparison right and this kind of article is what I expect to read when I come here to Anandtech. :-)CyTG - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
MySQL and Postgres is cool ... but what about some commercial products like Oracle as well ?I'd really really like to see some numbers pished for 10g on those beasts..
Adul - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
prd00My understanding is the Nocona 3.6 is the same care os the P4 3.6F. Cache size and all. There is no L3 cache on this chip as far as I know of yet.
from page 1
AMD Opteron 150 (130nm, 2.4GHz, 1MB L2 Cache)
Intel Xeon 3.6GHz (90nm, 1MB L2 Cache)
prd00 - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
Hmm... #68, that's nice.. I would also like Apache server performance as well, as this one is server CPU shootout. Try to reconstruct a page request response benchmark. kind like the one that used in Opteron review or in AcesHardware. Also, please check the scalability when adding second and 3rd/4th processor. how many percent can we gain over the single one.BTW, Kris.. in my opinion, Nocona 3.6 is not comparable to P4 3.6F, because Nocona 3.6 is way faster than 3.6F. It is much more comparable to P4 3.6EE than 3.6F vanilla. I think Intel will release a new 3.6F with vanilla P4 flavor when it is re-released as plain a plain one. So, I guess, 3.6EE is not comparable to A64 3500+ in many ways, as P3 3.4EE is comparable to AFX-53.
DrMrLordX - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
Good review. This one was definitely thoroughly explained and well-thought-out.I'd like to see the 3800+ put through the paces next, but eh, you guys deserve a rest *)
Locutus4657 - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
Good job Kris, you did a much better job this time! I guess the first article must really have been a learning experience! But that's what life is all about. So keep up the good work, and I look forward to reading more of your reviews.Arias74 - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
One last comment as well, and then I'll shut up.I was wondering what the possibility of using Apache for benchmarking in future reviews? Just a thought...
Salvador
Arias74 - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
I also posted after reading the first article, so I figure I may as well do so again.I'm still a little confused why KK still thinks that a 3.6GHz P4 will be marketed against a 3500+ A64. They do not occupy the same space, price-wise. If you're looking at a 3500 in the name, even Intel realizes that you can't judge by numbers alone, based on the fact that they are moving to an arbitrary naming convention for their processors. The only way to compare the two different product lines is by price, because that is the only constant. So, if the 3.6GHz P4 is the highest priced desktop cpu, then you would have to compare that to AMD's highest price.
For example, if you have 2 systems in the store side-by-side, and one was priced $500 more than the other, wouldn't you assume that the higher priced item would be that much better, hence the higher price tag? Especially nowadays when $1000 can get you a very capable system, $500 is a huge price difference.
Basically, all I'm saying is that it is faulty reasoning to assume that a 3.6GHz Intel cpu will be marketed against a 3500+ Amd A64 cpu. Heck, even AMD doesn't know how to market their own Semprons... apparently, a Sempron 2800+ is only equal to an AXP 2400+ in terms of performance... very weird and wacky stuff!
Salvador
Zebo - Friday, August 13, 2004 - link
Good job, Kris!As far as the chips used...These are very much in compitition with one another. Around the same price and "the best workstation processor" of the respective competing companies. Best vs. best and price. What else is there?
You still need to dump the old article... or at least get rid of the hyperbolye in the conclusion.
AnnoyedGrunt - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
T8000, it is interesting how you consider this second review biased, even though many people had pointed out legitimate problems with the first one.You bring up a good point about HT though. Even though it helps in some cases, it hurts in many others. How much of a selling point is it in that case?
I was impressed with both the constructive criticism of the readers and the profesionalism of Kris's responses in this whole affair. Very nice job on this follow-up review. Hopefully, more updates will follow as more 64-bit programs become available.
-D'oh!
Topnikko - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Nice job on this piece, Kris. I like the way you handle criticism. I think it's fairly obvious to you and everyone else that if the Opteron is capable of such a showing in a UP configuration, the Xeon doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of outperforming the Opteron in multiprocessor configs. If you do decide to write an article comparing multiprocessor machines it'll be down-right ugly for Intel.drewintheav - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Kris you are a w e s o m e !!!!!!Decoder - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Kris,Great review! I wish someone would benchmark AMD 64 and EM64T in 64 bit mode with MORE THAN 4 Gigs of RAM. I heard EM64T takes a hit with more than 4 gigs.
offtangent - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Kris,This was a great followup article, and certainly cleared a lot of things up. I was just wondering if its possible to use the SPEC benchmarks in addition to the ones you've used, so we can get the SPECint & SPECfp values to go with it. There are some published values for these on the spec website, but the setups for each of those published results are not the same, so its difficult to put them in perspective. Since you ususally have access to very similar setups, I was wondering if you could add those two tests to your set of benchmarks. Thanks!
OT
Viditor - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Kris - "To be honest i wouldnt have known some of the mistakes i made had people not been so critical. I am not upset with the final outcome, it happens to everyone"And that is why AT is the first site I come to for information...
Great job, and thanks!
Cheers,
Charles
T8000 - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
When I compare this review to the previous one, I see two interesting points:1. Most benchmarks ran a lot faster without hyperthreading, a scenario that was not tested here.
2. When enough users (or a user with a lot of names) complain about their favorite product not winning the benchmarks, their product will come out better soon therafter. I wonder if the Celeron 335 would have outperformed the Athlon 64 3800+ as well when this was required in the comments of the Celeron 3xx review by enough user names.
trooper11 - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
i just wanted to say im a long time anandtech reader and I appluade the work done wiht this review to clear up the problems with the previous one.it takes some guts to come out and admit things were done badly and I can say I can respect the reviews more knowing you all are willing to admit those things, some sites have a problem with that and work with the readers to solve the problem. i have been a fan of the site for several years and I was very suprised at the first review, but now i see you trying to make up for that and go forward, I just want to thank you for the work done on this review.
it may still not be perfect in answering all the questions, but it certainly goes along way versus the first article. i look forward to follow ups.
KristopherKubicki - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
#55: Had a typo when i moved the table back over to make it readable :) They are both registered C3.I will work on the color issue more in the future, i just picked the default colors this time around.
There are new Xeon processors, dubbed Iriwindale, that use 2MB L2 cache. However, the Xeons you see now with large cache are L3.
Kristopher
Anemone - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
It's a small word, but means a lot...Thankyou.
2002cbr600f4i - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Kris,First off, MUCH better.... At least this seemed like a more fair fight.
2 concerns/gripes/comments though...
1) In the hardware config I noticed that one machine had Unregistered memory with CAS2, the other had Registered CAS 3 memory. Since I know that Opteron requires registered, I'd assume that made the Opteron run the CAS 3 stuff. I really would have prefered to see a CAS 2 to CAS 2 fight (just to keep the apples to apples as much as possible.)
Second, (and this is a personal gripe against most benchmarking sites) either pick a color code for each brand's processor and use that color for ALL charts showing that processor, or always list them in the same order. Showing the "best one first" can be rather confusing when they're changing order from one chart to the next.
One other thing... Doesn't the Xeon have more than 1MB L2 cache? I thought the newer ones were all using 2MB or more of that or L3???
Anyhow, thanks for going back and redoing this work. I don't think any of us hates you personally, we just want to see FAIR and EVEN reporting in general across the board. This review has gone a long way towards restoring my faith in this site.
--Mike
Pumpkinierre - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Agree with 42 and 52 something wrong with your statement on Blowfish. Also agree with 50 on the power of different optimisations (and its early days for the Nocona). Thanks also for waking up my interest in linux.adiposity - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Hey snore...I noticed the unreadable table, too. I think it's some IE specific code, because I could view it in IE, just not firefox. You'd think linux benchmarks would have mozilla-compliant html :)
Now, I don't know if it's just me, but I couldn't bring up the forum popup in firefox, either. Why not?
-Dan
adiposity - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
> From looking at the graphs, it becomes easy to> see why JTR makes a difficult program to use as
> a benchmark. Had we left the default -O2
> compilation, Blowfish hashing would have been
> faster on the Xeon processor than the Opteron.
> However, as soon as we use -O3, the Opteron
> outperforms the Xeon processor.
Um, no it doesn't. The opteron continues to lose, even with the -O3 optimization. In fact, -O3 doesn't seem to help either significantly in any of the JTR benchmarks.
-O2: Xeon wins 481 to 419
-O3: Xeon wins 478 to 420
Of course, Opteron wins the rest, and -O3 doesn't seem to matter there, either.
-Dan
Dranzerk - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Kris glad you included Crafty chess program into review. If you want to address anything dealing with the Program (like test wise) you can contact Dr. Robert Hyatt directly through ICC (Internet chess club, free to use if you log on as a Guest) he is online there as the name Hyatt.He is very easy to talk to about crafty if you need help.
douglar - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
The one thing that I really see in these benchmarks is how much Intel is suffering when they are trying to run AMD64 optimized code. Normally intel makes the spec for new instructions before AMD impliments, the compiler writers and software coders take advantage of Intel's peculiaries and then AMD has to build the functionality with the same peculiaries as the intel implimentation if they want to compete. Look at most SSE2 benchmarks. I think AMD is at a disadvantage having had to back fit the instructions using the existing CPU op units.This time it looks like intel is getting a taste of their own bitter medicine, trying to make 32bit integer units look and perform like 64bit units to the outside world, if the rumors about intel's 64bit implimentation are true. Now it will be interesting to see if compiler writers and software coders will (or are able to) go back to the drawing board and make this round of intel chips perform up to the strong initial AMD 64 bit performance baseline.
I'm guessing that there will be a 64 bit performance gap (larger than the 32 bit gap) until intel respins the silicon a couple times. I look at this round of 64bit intel chips as like a em64sx, in reference to the 386sx, even though the 386sx was 32 internally an 16 externally, kind of the opposite of having 64bit registers and 32bit ops units, but perhaps still an appropriate analogy.
Macro2 - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Kris,I have to hand it to you, you took a lickin' and kept on tickin'. I realize it's pathetic that in order to do a review you have to literally dissect every benchmark for "fuzzy" code but that's the way it is. Got to do the homework and if it's out of the realm om your expertise yoou have to ask other. Remember, benchmarks are for liars.
That said, you'll probably turn out to be the best comparitive benchmark reviewer on the internet.
Mac
mrdoubleb - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Good job, Kris!1, Now I'd just like to point out, that it's not like nobody is complaining now becouse this time AMD wins. This time around the processor choice was ok and, as much as I see from the opinions of readers who are much better informed in the server/linux world than me, the benchmark choice/execution was great, too.
2, I know you're off to your vacation now (by the way, have a good time!), bat later it would be interesting if you managed to do a 2 and/or 4 processor setup with Noconas and opteron 250/850s as well. As far as i know, Opteron's biggest advantage was its excellent scalability. Opteron's advantage used to grow immensly. Does this change with the new Noconas?
3, I saw this at another HW site: on the final page of their reviews they have a chart where they list all the benchmarks once more and show with a percentage number how faster/slower a processor is compare to its rival. E.g. you take the nocona as 100% (or zero) and list for every benchmark how faster/slower Opteron was. (Say, +25% or -37%).
4, As for pos #36 by kaoman. I think that if they had compared 2 desktop processors, than we wouldn't have seen any of these benchmarks, save for Lame. We would have seen office, gaming, AV, and rendering benchmarks. And about the price: let's wait for it, shall we?! By the time Prescott 3.6F is available, 90nm A64 is out, which might also be tweaked, if the rumor mill is right, and it will also be cheaper for AMD to produce, so it might be cheaper for us as well.
Have great holiday, Kris!
kresek - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Thanks for the SSL benches.Especially useful are 1024+ bits RSA/DSA sign/verify figures (at the bottom), digests: MD5 or SHA-1, and popular ciphers, like RC4, blowfish. Take 1024 bytes or bigger blocks, and you have valuable, easy to visualize comparison information.
Pjotr - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
""Now will all of you A-Holes get off KrizK's & AT editorial staff's back!!"HAHHAHAHAHAHA I'm laughing my ass off.
Great Job getting in the first post, and a good first post at that."
I don't think it was a good post. Calling people with valid views, that even the author acknowledged, "A-holes" is just blunt and irrelevant.
skiboysteve - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
great review, glad to see you take the readers to heart.Pjotr - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Great job, Kris, and thanks to Super Micro! It's good to see when people don't just hide, but both listen and respond. I was ready to remove Anand from my bookmarks like I did with Tom's years ago, but it's staying now.Soultrap - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Kris,Awsome! You took it like a man, and I think that all of us learned from your hard work including the errors in it. I feel that you did your abosolute best to accomodate & listen to your readers, correct your errors, and produce an unbiased evaluation.
There is nothing anybody can do about their mistakes except do their best to correct them and learn from them.
After reading these posts to your new article I am sure that you blood preasure has dropped greatly. Harsh (un)constructive criticism can be very difficult to take.
Good work!
johnsonx - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Crap, now I mixed myself up... none of the charts seem to show the Opteron going from a loss to a win. Indeed, the Opteron is slower than XEON across the board in the Blowfish section.johnsonx - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Kris,Kudos on a good follow-up article, though I felt the original had far more merit than most others did. It must've been difficult to decipher the valid and constructive criticism from all the blather.
That said, I did notice some oddity with the John the Ripper results:
You say "Had we left the default -O2 compilation, Blowfish hashing would have been faster on the Xeon processor than the Opteron. However, as soon as we use -O3, the Opteron outperforms the Xeon processor."
However, the only graph that shows the Opteron going from a loss with -O2 to a win with -O3 is the bottom MD5 graph. Perhaps you meant to say MD5 then in your comments, or are some of the graph numbers wrong?
snorre - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Congratulations with a much better review this time, although your conclusions are almost as bad as the sloppy old review. Based on the results I'd expected something more like this:"Without a doubt, the Opteron 150 trounces over the 3.6GHz Xeon in real world benchmarks."
BTW, AMD's Opteron 150/250 is directly comparable with Intel's Xeon 3.6GHz in 1-way & 2-way systems.
BTW 2, the Performance Test Configuration table on page 1 is unreadable (white text on white background).
TauCeti - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Hi Kristopher,ref#21
Ok, rereading your sentence i agree :)
So before a nice old J. Beam integrates the hours of my day into peaceful, cushioned oblivion, let me assure you that from my point of view you did a very good job today.
You endured a continuous datasphere bashing and gave your best to adress criticism in a constructive way.
Have a nice trip.
Tau
NesuD - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Nice save Kris, Glad to see you square it all up.datacipher - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
"When the 3.6F actually shows up at newegg with a price, then i will tell you for sure what it competes against :)"OK, fair enough. Thanks for the replies...
kaoman - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Nice article and better benchmarks.But what I dont understand with the first article's controversy.. if the 3500+ costs ~ $350, and assuming the 3.6F costs ~ $450 by late August (http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=770923), AND that the performance of the 3.6F EQUALS the Xeon 3.6, what was wrong with the first article's choice of proccessors comparison? The whole apples-to-apples analogy WORKS in the sense that both chips are 64bit x86 processors. If the 3.6F = Xeon 3.6, who cares which one is used to compare to the Athlon64? And that was the basis of the article. A name or price tag doesn't make a processor comparison any more or less proper when the CPUS are identical. Granted I don't know for a fact if they are, but I'm taking Kris's word for it.
DAPUNISHER - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Now that is what I call great damage control :-) Way to turn it around KK, now go enjoy your vacation!I have been among your leading critics after that train wreck you posted, but you have definitely shown the necessary focus and ability to except criticsm be it constructive or otherwise, and rebound quickly, good job.
Lynx516 - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Ah I hadnt noticed you put it there but you have to realy know what you are looking for to be able to see that it is not the standard GCC 3.3.3 compiler. Maybe put a small note at the bottom of the compiler section in bold saying "This is not the standard GCC compiler" or the like as most people will not notice that it isnt standard. but I have to say its nice to see Linux getting such a large main steam coverage.Well done again.
Lynx
AMDScooter - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
This should have been the first 64bit article.It is well written and makes sense, a real 180 from that last debacle. Good job! I do however still have issues with the use of synthetic benchmarks. Why bother tossing them in at all when the real world tests in this very review show how utterly useless they are? The AMD chip tracks a mud hole in the a$$ of the Xeon in all but the synthetic tests. This only gives the AMD zealots more ammo for the possibility of some sort of bias toward Intel, and in this case I would tend to agree with them. Keep up the good work :)tfranzese - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Much better Kris, and I was only disappointed in not getting to see the 32-bit comparisons to see how well the current iAMD64 implementation is running.Only thing you left me confused on was the last paragraph on the John The Ripper benchmark. Might only be me who can't understand what you mean.
KristopherKubicki - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
datacipher:Datacipher, it really depends on your point of view. For server performance benchmarks, like the SQL stuff, another server chip was the way to go (like we did here).
If we go the desktop route, the line becomes a little blurry, particularly on Intel's end. Intel defines UP servers and high end workstations almost identically.
If we were to go on price alone, we still don't have the fairest comparison since the 150 is priced cheaper than the Xeon and the 3.6F. Some of my sources have said the 3.6F may debut considerably lower than its Xeon 3.6GHz server counterpart, even though they are the same processor with different pin outs.
Regardless of what you think, the 3.6F and Xeon 3.6GHz processors will compete against AMD dual channel offerings in the 2.4GHz range. If you read some of our other reviews, L2 cache size doesnot seem as critical on the A64 platform.
Whelp, anyway, hope that helps. When the 3.6F actually shows up at newegg with a price, then i will tell you for sure what it competes against :)
Kristopher
srg - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Stellar Job on this one, you earnt the vacation. Anyway the reason this one seems more correct is that in the 32-bit tests, opteron beats the Xeon (so why should this one be so different), now everywhere else I've read are saying that the Xeon's 64-bit performance wasn't much and yours was a contradiction. That's why there was the contravercy. Anyway, this confirms the party line.srg
datacipher - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Kristopher:Now I'm really confused! In the original article you say that the chips were not meant to compete...but then you also said things like "it turned out to be more appropriate than antipated". Now you are saying that since the 3.6F will be marketed against the 3500+...that it is the correct choice...
Now I'm trying to understand...forgive my ignorance. Basically you took a server chip as a stand in for the 3.6F against the 3500+ in what amounts to basically a desktop shootout? What I don't understand about this is how can Intel release a 3.6F with a roughly comparable cost to the 3500+ but with the same performance as the xeon 3.6?
Also, if the cpu choice was correct...why did you then switch to the opeteron 150?
Thanks in advance.
KristopherKubicki - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Lynx516:I posted the GCC -v at the beginning of the review, please let me know if there is something else i should do.
Kristopher
KristopherKubicki - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
To be honest i wouldnt have known some of the mistakes i made had people not been so critical. I am not upset with the final outcome, it happens to everyone.Kristopher
Lynx516 - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Sorry to be a bit harsh there Kris but they are not in the standard GCC3.3.3 manual which I was using as a reference. It would be nice to state that you are using a ported compiler in your config to prevent any future confusion. Though its a pretty good article over all. much better than some recent ones on Anand. I hope this standard is kept up.Humblest appologies
Lynx
Spectre999 - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
I posting because I was complaining about the first review on another board. The first review was horribly done.But it takes a real stand up person to take all the bitching that went on and be able to go back and look at what they did and decide to redo it because they made a mistake. For that I will give you much praise. The other hand is the first review shouldn't have been turned in the way it was but it isn't always the way someone does something that is the most important but the way they respond to the criticism they get.
So thanks for all the effort on redoing the article and you provided you are a stand up guy who simply made a mistake. It happens and everyone can move on.
manno - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
"Now will all of you A-Holes get off KrizK's & AT editorial staff's back!!"HAHHAHAHAHAHA I'm laughing my ass off.
Great Job getting in the first post, and a good first post at that.
-manno
hifisoftware - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Good review. All sins are forgotten now :-)menads - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Now all I want to say is big thanks for listening to your readers. Unlike other site which I would not mention that claims they are never wrong I think it is very nice of Anandtech editors to accept the criticizm and feedback from their readers and to get back retesting/reviewing.It is not about scores or brands - it is about the trust of the people reading these arcticles - a misleading review in most cases is worse than non-review.
Also Kristoper please do not take criticizm of the previous article personally - by criticizing your article most people were hoping you will do better next time.
KristopherKubicki - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Hi Tau,>Handcoding ASM for specific tasks is NOT ancient
No youre correct. The context of the sentence though its the hand coded ASM used in 3.6 "stable" is ancient. Someone pointed out to me it doesnt even have the original MMX optimizations in it (i think).
Kristopher
Jeff7181 - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
What's that sound? I hear heavy footsteps and heavy breathing... oh... wait... it's the Xeon trying to keep pace with the Opteron :DSDA - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Yeah, gj Kris, and yeah, I'd say you deserve a vacation after all that... thanks for listening to people, that's a lot more than certain editors at certain sites COUGHCOUGHTHGCOUGH would do.Pirox - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Lmao...i got hand to kriz though ..you sure are one tough guy! Nice article...and to think that the guy remains calm...what gives?KristopherKubicki - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Lynx516:Parts of 3.4.1 are backported into 3.3.3. Please check the SuSE 9.1 man pages.
Kristopher
TauCeti - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Hi Kris,First: I appreciate the work you put into this review. But i cannot restrain to offer one (hopefully constructive) remark:
you write: "We are using John the Ripper 1.6.37 in this portion of the benchmark. As a few extremely knowledgeable readers pointed out, the "stable" 1.6 branch of code relies heavily on hand coded ASM which by today's standards is fairly ancient anyway."
Handcoding ASM for specific tasks is NOT ancient. Handcoded ASM allows you to utilize the execution units and the cache-latency distribution of a given core architecture to fullest extend.
That is of uttermost importance to widespread library functions used in scientific calculations. Even the popular GIMPS client is handcoded in ASM for every CPU-variation (there are even different codepaths for different cache sizes). The GIMPS developers are fighting for every single clock that can be saved in a inner loop for different architectures.
That aside...
Have a nice vacation. I guess you ned it ;)
If you - for yourself - agree that you could have done better, swallow your pride and try to convert the substantial complaints into positive energy. Ingnore the personal bullshit from wannabe-i-know-betters. Never waste a minute of your life for that. It's not worth is.
Regards,
Tau
Lynx516 - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Hang on You said that you used -march=nocona and -march=k8 with gcc3.3.3. However those compile options are NOT IN gcc3.3.3! There is a serious problem if you use non existant optimisations as it casts a shadow of doubt on the competence of the author as it shows they dont know what they are doing.If this is the case read up on Linux before doing articles! If I am being overly harsh then correct the error
Lynx516 - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Much better. Your compiler flags arnt the best as things like "-funroll-loops" tends to do nothing but bloat the binarys. Also your config page is not working in Firebird. Its nice to see realistic results. From the last version it looked as if all x86-64 cpus got owned by intel's offering because that was the only data you where presented with.However this shows a price for price comparison which is much better.
One point I have to make is why the first article was ever published in the first place as it was of little value as you had nothign realistic to compare it wiht.
syadnom - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
nice to see comparable processors benched against each other, the 164 in the old review justs isn't in the same category of processors.that said. i'm dissapointed to see the Xeon look so weak. I expected the benches to flop back and forth on which proc was faster because of their different designs. I know the Opt150 is one hell of a chip, but I think intel can do better.
epicstruggle - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
"The 3.6F will still be marketed against the 3500+/3800+ dual channel AMD CPUs. The benchmarks were messed up in that article, not our processor choice. This was addressed at the beginning of both articles"First great redo. :) I dont care who wins or looses, but at least now the comparision is fair.
About the above quote, who is doing this marketing/comparison. Im assuming Intel? Doesnt it look suspect that they want to compare a 800+ dollar processor with one in the low 300s? Why fall for marketing pr/fud?
again, thanks for the info.
epic
dke - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
I enjoyed this article much more than the first one. This one is much more accurate in my opinion.I would like to point out that you can purchase an Opteron 150 (boxed) for $594.49 with free shipping at
http://www.chumbo.com/info.asp?s=030143803701&...
and not $850 like you quoted in your "Final Thoughts" page. Additionally, AMD's pricing page suggests that the Opteron 150 be priced at $637. Any store pricing the Opteron 150 at $800 or $850 will not make any sales, so, I don't think you can justify your statement, "Thus, it is priced around $850 at time of publication." That is the only thing I think you should change with this article. That sentence should be changed to, "Thus, it is priced (by AMD) at around $650 and can be purchased at around $600 at time of publication."
Other than that, I think you've written a wonderful article. I'd also like to thank you for doing this during your "vacation" time. I suppose that wasn't much of a vacation. I think what you did shows quite a bit of dedication to your work, and I (for one) appreciate it.
love4ever - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
thanks Kristopher.very nice review.
Carfax - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Kris, that's fine man.. Good work on this review, and I look forward to seeing the 32 and 64 bit Nocona benches in a future review!KristopherKubicki - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
datacipher: The 3.6F will still be marketed against the 3500+/3800+ dual channel AMD CPUs. The benchmarks were messed up in that article, not our processor choice. This was addressed at the beginning of both articles/Kristopher
datacipher - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Sorry for the empty posts, I just signed up to say this....I think I can speak from a different perspective as I am not a techhead. I do keep a casual eye on hardware and have done extensive programming so I would not classify myself as computer illiterate.
Still I WOULD not have noticeed the rediculous choice of cpu's used in the 1st article. I would have just skimmed the article and assumed that a reasonable choice of benchmark material was used. I would not have known about any of the flaws in the benchmarks. I WOULD have accepted and given weight to the conclusion...which was clearly unwarranted given this second review.
I would like to thank all the posters who criticized that review because without you watchdogs, I would have blindly accepted the article as I used to do with Anandtech which I always though was a reliable source.
Kristopher, it's good you posted a new article, but honestly, your first article was extremely misleading...almost fraudulent...it really changes the nature of Anandtech in my mind...I thought I could rely on you fellows...
If you had initially even written of your reasoning as to why you were using such an uncomparable processor and then properly framed your conclusions it would have been fine....but in the article itself you seemed to be saying that it was a reasonable comparision and the conclusions were not given proper reference.
I'm really disappointed.
KristopherKubicki - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Carfax:I will address that in a future review. I just didnt have the time to do it all over again :'(
Kristopher
Carfax - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
This review is MUCH better.. But still, WHY aren't there reference 32 bit scores for the Noconca, so we can see how much of a difference between 32 and 64 bit performance there is?TotalImmortal - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
thanks to all you guys at anandtech, never let it be said that you don't listen to your readership!sprockkets - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
At the end of page 5, the last paragraph is worded weird. Page 6 graph at the top, "Opteron 250"?I realize that you probably were sleeping when you did this :).
The only thing else I don't like and I know it's out of your control is those stupid "get the facts" propaganda from Micro losers.
JGunther - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Yeah... this reivew (to me) proves that Kris is a good, well-intentioned guy, as he put aside his own personal time to re-do these benchmarks. But the results within also prove how utterly inaccurate the first review was, thus justifying (some of) the criticism he recieved.I can see that you did learn at least one lesson, Kris; there are no claims in the conclusion of the Opteron "trouncing" the Xeon this time (even though such a remark may be justified now). :)
thatsright - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Now will all of you A-Holes get off KrizK's & AT editorial staff's back!!