Intel Corp (INTC)

[mas]

I believe Intel could substantially close these throughput deficits to Power8 if it chose to double the threads on Xeon to 4. Power8 has 8 threads to match its eight-issue core, virtually nothing is left on the table in terms of unused pipelines whereas I believe Intel is leaving 20-30% throughput performance behind by not having quad-threads to match its quad-issue Xeon. Yes Xeon is cheaper, cooler and has generally higher single-thread performance but still there is no reason to give your competition any unnecessary edge. The Broadcom Vulcan ARM server chip will have 4 threads to match its quad-issue and the MIPS chip on which it is cloned from, XLPII, can beat the equivalent network Xeon in some network throughput benchmarks. This issue/thread mismatch is an oversight that Intel really should get round to fixing one day.