Elmer, Re: Xeon vs Athlon MP
Due to Hyperthreading, Intel is now quite far in front of AMD in the server market, which may help to maintain some margins for the time being. Hammer has a lot of catching up to do before it shows a definite advantage. As far as we know, Hammer will likely launch at 2.0GHz and 1MB of L2 cache before the end of Q2. Intel will have about 2 more quarters until Nocona is launched, so Prestonia will have to make up for it for most of the year. Fortunately, given the current performance stackup, Intel is looking pretty good. Here is a summary of Intel's lead in Anand's review.
(Xeon 2.8GHz vs Athlon MP 1.8GHz)
Web DB 1x Load - 19.4%
Web DB 4x Load - 50.7%
Web DB 6x Load - 53.2%
Web DB 12x Load - 51.6%
Ad DB 1x Load - 23.3%
Ad DB 4x Load - 38.8%
Ad DB 6x Load - 43.6%
Ad DB 12x Load - 54.8%
While the Xeon reaches the peak of its lead in the web database at a 4x load, it continues to scale better in the ad database. These are remarkable gains, even considering the 55.6% advantage in frequency. 4-way Xeon MP is also very encouraging, given the very good scalability in these tests.
Xeon is also likely to gain in frequency, too, before Hammer launches. I wouldn't be surprised to see 3.2GHz by then. Given these kinds of leads, Hammer may be hard pressed to beat Prestonia, let alone Nocona. Intel is looking pretty good right now, and I'm eager to see if it can continue into next year.
wbmw
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
