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Well doesnt seem like amd is doing any better now are they? You haeve to consider that with the 'outdated' fsb stuff Intel has the perofrmance crown no matter what way you slice it...whereas AMD does have the integrated MMU and the Hypertransport. Kind of amazing to think what numbers the Intel architecture would be pusing out if it did go MMU and CSI...

Well doesnt seem like amd is doing any better now are they?
perhaps you missed http://www.sun.com/x64/benchmarks/ over 100 word record benchmarks for AMD cpus.

Edited 2006-12-17 21:26

Hey nice link man. Never saw that. Are there any Sun hardware running on Intel quad core processors? I would sure like to see the numbers from them!

No. Sun are an Opteron & SPARC-only shop.

As for the article, there's nothing unexpected in it - Intel craps on AMD for floating point performance; AMD craps on Intel for memory bandwidth. Clovertown doesn't change a thing - it just makes it more polar.

I have to agree about the FSB. IMHO this should be junked ASAP. The Memory to CPU bottlneck is Intel's biggest problem.
The raw CPU is fine but they are going to get hammered in late 2007 by the superior data shifting ability of AMD with their Hypertransport.
Server do a lot of bulk data shifting. At the present time, the biggest use of Quad Cores will be in the Server Market (Software Licenses permitting that is...) If you can't get the data in and out of the CPU quicker that your main competitor then you are going to have real problem.
It's ok for the likes of IBM & HP though as they have the resources to design good motherboards but for the rest of us, I see little or no gain over the current conroe CPU's.

I have to agree about the FSB. IMHO this should be junked ASAP. The Memory to CPU bottlneck is Intel's biggest problem. The raw CPU is fine but they are going to get hammered in late 2007 by the superior data shifting ability of AMD with their Hypertransport.

In reality AMD CPUs with superior data shifting ability get hammered by QX6700
http://www.hothardware.com/printarticle.aspx?articleid=911

In reality AMD CPUs with superior data shifting ability get hammered by QX6700
http://www.hothardware.com/printarticle.aspx?articleid=911

Quite frankly, considering that the Core Duos are a whole revision further on than AMD in terms of their die size and on 65nm, and AMD have reached their absolute limit with 90nm, those results are nothing short of an embarrassment for Intel.

From a multi-threaded application point of view, which is very relevant to servers and to this article, the Intels were taken to the cleaners:

http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.aspx?page=8&articleid=91...
http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.aspx?page=10&articleid=9...
http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.aspx?page=11&articleid=9...

Basically, you have to buy a QX6700 to get anything that is significantly better than comparable AMDs, and you then have to ask yourself if it's actually worth the money to get it. I suppose that's the key question.

Additionally, Intel still don't have anything comparable to Hypertransport which works better as memory size grows which is important servers. That's why Intel have had to come up with FB-DIMMS, which AMD are somewhat less than keen on obviously. They also still don't have on-die memory controllers either.

As far as servers are concerned, AMD's architecture is just plain better. From a desktop and workstation (and servers - previous Xeons were terrible) point of view then Intel have improved significantly in performance from the rubbish they were producing before, but considering that Intel are still more expensive than AMD the question many people should ask is "Is it worth it?"

I have to admit your post sums it up quite well.

Intel do have a competitior to AMD's hypertransport, CSI, technologically there is nothing wrong with it, the problem is, however, its not going to be released until 2008, which quite frankly, is unacceptable given what changes AMD have announced for their future line up.

With that being said, one wonders why Intel feel the need to go with CSI - NIH syndrome I guess; because given the across-industry support, hypertransport would be a nice fit for what Intel needs.

With that being said, there was a good article on the merits and downside of a integrated memory controller - although I understand Intel wish to avoid the pitfalls of one vs. the other, their responsiveness, outside the laptop space, to AMD's product line up, has be quite pathetic to say the least.

Quite frankly, considering that the Core Duos are a whole revision further on than AMD in terms of their die size and on 65nm, and AMD have reached their absolute limit with 90nm, those results are nothing short of an embarrassment for Intel.

I fail to understand your point. How is Intel advantage with technological process is embarrasment for Intel?

Basically, you have to buy a QX6700 to get anything that is significantly better than comparable AMDs

Surely, you have to buy quad Intel cpu to get anything that is significatly better that quad AMD cpu. What did you expect?

, and you then have to ask yourself if it's actually worth the money to get it. I suppose that's the key question.

Sure it is, considering that quad AMD offerings are slower, more expensive (look at the Xeon vs Opteron or QX6700 vs FX series prices), and hotter (look at the QuadFX power consumption - twice as comparable Intel).

Additionally, Intel still don't have anything comparable to Hypertransport which works better as memory size grows which is important servers.

In theory, yes. In practice, as shown in multiple reviews, Core2-based platform is clearly ahead of Opteron or QuadFX one. In addition, there are NUMA coherency issues which requires fine-tuned VM and can significantly affect performance.

but considering that Intel are still more expensive than AMD the question many people should ask is "Is it worth it?"

It's cheaper or comparable. Check the prices.

and the fsb and non die mounted mmu still bites them in the a$$.

Well, if by "bittes in the ass" you mean significant performance lead over AMD offerings...

Even with the best of those numbers its only a 25% improvement

Yes, and it shows that octal-core Xeon setup is not limited by FSB.

and none of the benchmarks were typical uses for a server. Start a few large transfers of data from disk to ram or disk to network and then do the same benchmarks and see if the benchmarks still hold up.

http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2772
Intel is absolute performance leader in almost all benchmarks.

where are server type benchmarks?

those are all toy benchmarks where the main loop in the code fits in l2 if not l1 cache, and the total working set is only 4GB, so nothing really taxing to anything but the cpu.

where are server type benchmarks?
Well, if SPEC / SSL / Apache/PHP/MySQL / PostgreSQL / Java Webserving are not "server type benchmarks", I think you need to explain what do you mean by this term.

those are all toy benchmarks where the main loop in the code fits in l2 if not l1 cache

PostgreSQL or Apache core fits in 1-4Mb or 128Kb L1 cache? Man, I wish it were true!

Anyway, code data size has little to do with memory bandwith and latency limitations. So what's your point?

, and the total working set is only 4GB, so nothing really taxing to anything but the cpu.

I wonder, did you actually read the article? They tested 64bit systems ONLY running 64-bit Linux. WHere did you get this "4GB working set"?

Edited 2006-12-18 05:30

I think you need to scroll past the LMBench benchmarks and look at the server benchmarks in the 2nd half of the document.