Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[pgerassi]

Ephud:

Base isn't before Result, its below Result on any single submission. Its also why SPECfp_rate2006 is the Result (previously referred to as Peak) and base has got another symbol as SPECfp_rate_base2006. Thus any discussion about SPECfp_rate2006 necessarily talks of the Result score, not base. How its put into tables isn't relevant, especially since the configurable query form allows one to not display the base score in any table.

Also no ECC registered DDR3 DIMM is currently available for purchase. No server would be run using non ECC memory as a common rule of thumb is one soft error per GB per day. Most servers run 24/7, thus a test 24GB server would have 24 errors every day, something that would be unacceptable for any mission critical server or HPC type work.

The three i7 submissions (920, 940 and 965) all used PC3-8500 CL7 memory. Registered ECC memory with the same DRAM as base would be CL11 and may be slower to boot, such as PC3-6400 making the same speed as PC2-6400 CL5 ECC registered DIMMs used in the Shanghai entries. Either of these would drop scores and both changes would drop them more. And that is on top of any cache coherency overhead from simply going from 1P to 2P.

I also notice that no system configuration as to what the specifics of the memory used in that estimate other than it was 24GB of memory (I assume 12 DIMMs of 2GB Samsung DDR3 PC3-8500 CL7 memory as was used in the i7 submissions) for that 2P server.

One other note from the i7 submissions is that SMT is turned off in 2 of the result subtests (410.bwaves and 450.soplex) having only 4 copies run instead of 8. So they get a higher result in those without one logical core trouncing on the other. For the SPECint_rate2006 subtests, they turn SMT off for one there too (429.mcf). Thus SMT isn't a win some of the time.

Pete