AMD Opteron 248 vs. Intel Xeon 2.8: 2-way Web Servers go Head to Head
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Jason Clark on December 17, 2003 9:15 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
The Web Application Server Test Environment
With a web application server in place, we needed an application to put under load. We used FuseTalk Enterprise (http://www.fusetalk.com) as our web application as it’s written for ColdFusion MX and is based on the component architecture that most enterprise level applications consist of.To put FuseTalk under load, we used WAS (Web Application Stress Tool), a free tool released by Microsoft that can record a user’s interaction with a web application and play it back as fast or as slow as required. We used a 200-user load and didn’t record any delay between requests. ColdFusion was set up to process 20 simultaneous threads, a number derived from CPU load. WAS was also set to deliver a maximum of 20 threads to ColdFusion at a time. The main goal was to simulate heavy load on the server in order to bring out differences between the platforms compared.
Once the application was under load, we recorded how long the hardware took to process a page from when the application server starts processing the template to when it hands it off to the client. Some web tests record from when the client requests the page to when the client receives the data. We think that method is flawed when testing how hardware impacts the performance of an Application server. When testing web application server performance as it relates to hardware, you want to remove as many bottlenecks and variables as possible. If you measure how long it took to deliver the data to the client, you are relying on consistent network performance. Network performance can be a variable based on data collision and many other factors.
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Superbike - Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - link
CRAMITPAL right as always!Jeff7181 - Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - link
You'd think some people here have a huge investment in AMD the way they touch their balls every time AMD comes out ahead in a benchmark.Anyway, it's nice to see some benchmarks that clearly show what AMD processors are capable of... only other thing I'd like to see is the cost of the configurations used. That would even extend AMD's "lead."
morcegovermelho - Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - link
Ooops...The last sentence should be read as:
try in calculator 141 + 82.3%. The result is 257,043.
morcegovermelho - Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - link
quote:"The Opteron 248 setup managed to outperform Intel’s fastest, largest cache Xeon MP by a whopping 45%"
I think the number should be 82,3%.
If the Opteron was twice as fast (100% faster) as the Xeon the Average Request Time would be half of 257ms (128.5ms). The Opteron Average Request Time is 141ms (82% faster than Xeon).
Try in calculator: 141 + 82%. The result is 257,043.
Shinei - Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - link
The message is clear: Opteron wins, flawless victory. Now if only I could AFFORD a 248 setup... ;)RZaakir - Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - link
"it would of been nice to have taken out a singnal(sic) opteron also so(sic) see 1x proformance."Knowing how well Opteron chips scale, this was probably a decision made out of mercy for Intel.
Nehemoth - Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - link
Awesomedvinnen - Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - link
it would of been nice to have taken out a singnal opteron also so see 1x proformance.jerkweed - Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - link
Quote: Intel was not very receptive to the idea of doing a head-to-head; not out of a fear of losing, but out of a desire not to lend AMD any credibility by showing that the Opteron is indeed a competitor to the Itanium 2.That might be what Intel told AT, but honestly, Intel is terrified of seeing a head-to-head benchmark for an application like this. Itanium/Itanium 2 (known by most HPC/64-bit gearheads as 'Itanic') will show numbers much slower than even their Xeons for a web benchmark. The vast majority of all web-server cpu usage is INT specific... look at the numbers for spec INT yourself:
http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/res2003q4/
Falco. - Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - link
all i can say is damn...can't wait for that 4 way shootout and the opteron vs itanium test ...