Replies to post #2706 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[Elmer Phud]

More details -

Despite claims that Hammer would beat anything Intel has to offer, Hammer gets it's but kicked by Itanium in TPCC and edges out Xeon (for now)

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_8796_8800~69696,00.html

[economaniac]

Elmer, you're gonna gloat cause Intel got out a software patch in time to claim that the 800FSB P4 was a real product?

This is a server launch, and servers use 2 or more processors and Opteron just ate Xeon and came back for a piece of Itanium 2. Now the question is how long it takes for software support for X86-64, and when do the 4 ways hit the market. At these prices if the software support is there the server market just encountered a paradigm shift.

E

[jhalada]

Elmer,

As I predicted, Hammer fails to match Intel SPEC performance despite their promises.

Good prediction.

I don't mean to rain on your parade, but there are 2 issues that could swing things from -5% to 5% or so such as:
- adopting DDR-400
- running in 64 bit mode (submission is in 32 bit mode)

I don't think AMD is going to go with DDR-400 in the servers (and neither is Intel). But they may in the workstation market. As far as 64 bit OS and compilers, they will come and be improved to the point that they will outperform the best 32 bit code.

BTW, what are the base and peak scores of the mysterious 3 GHz P4 with the patch applied?

Joe

[economaniac]

Elmer, re Spec, but Intel is reporting base scores essentially identical to their peak scores, while the peak scores for the Opteron are much higher- (edit I see Joe already made this point)

SpecINT
-------
Base 1095
Peak 1170
Full submission here -
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DownloadableAssets/cint2000.005.pdf

SpecFP
------
Base 1122
Peak 1219
Full submission here -
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DownloadableAssets/1P_1800_Speed_cfp2000.005.pdf

I don't really have a good handle on what that means for real world performance. I suspect that Opteron base numbers will improve substantially if they can improve compiler support.

E