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 Test
For the test, we had three systems: the Opteron and Xeon test beds, as well as a database server to feed the web servers being tested.The database server common to all tests had the following components:
2 x Opteron 246 processors (2.0GHz)
4 x 512MB DDR333 DDR SDRAM modules
MSI K8T Master2-FAR
Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP4
Microsoft SQL Server 2000 SP3
As we mentioned in the sections on setup of the tests, we used a RAMDISK for the database, so I/O performance was not an issue.
The Opteron test bed was configured as follows:
2 x Opteron 244 or 248 processors (1.8GHz/2.2GHz respectively)
8 x 512MB DDR333 DDR SDRAM modules
AMD reference 4-way Opteron motherboard
Microsoft Windows 2003 Enterprise Server with IIS6
Macromedia ColdFusion 6.1
The Xeon test bed was configured as follows:
2 x Xeon MP 2.0/2.8GHz processors
8 x 512MB DDR333 DDR SDRAM modules
Intel 4-way Xeon motherboard based on the ServerWorks GrandChampion HE chipset
Microsoft Windows 2003 Enterprise Server with IIS6
Macromedia ColdFusion 6.1
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
43 Comments
View All Comments
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 ...