So along those lines, why the heck did you compare a well spec'd Opteron 880 against a Low Power L5640. Why not compare it to something like an X5650 that was the bottom proc of the high end family at the time?
I get that, but go back and read the article and you see there are several generalized statements about "processors from then vs processors from now". When making such comparisons they should have pointed out that the differences seen are against a Low Power model and that a normal or high power model would have even more impact on then vs now.
Your "new" Xeon L5640 is already 3 years old. In comparison, you could have gone with the much newer Xeon E3 v2 that uses 22nm Ivy Bridge. You would get even better power efficiency at a much lower cost (currently $200-300) per chip. However, memory capacity may be a problem as you would have to rely on a LGA 1155 server boards which typically have fewer ECC ram slots.
LGA1155 doesn't support dual socket boards; so until about a year ago the older LGA1366 chips (LGA1567 was also available but AT didn't need quad-socket any longer) were the only viable Intel option for their performance target.
Right, I want to run my enterprise on a desktop chip with a Xeon badge. A Xeon E3 v2 is nothing more than a Core i7 with Xeon bading and ECC support.
You want at least an E5 before I will even remotely consider it an Enterprise server. In that space everything is currently on Sandy Bridge EP/EN with Ivy Bridge EP coming around Sept, Ivy EN (why bother really) a few months later, and then Ivy EX (The E7 big boys) either late 2013 or early 2014.
PS: Xeon E3 v2 = Dual Channel memory and 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0 (Single socket only) Xeon E5 v1 = Quad Channel memory and 40 lanes of PCIe 4.0 per socket, 80 lanes in a standard 2P server similar to their "new" DB server.
RAID Controllers (especially with SSDs behind them) and Network cards and such need some decent I/O.
You gotta remember that these CPU's are most likely donated for free. So i'm guessing that's why they went intel. Plus intel is badass where amd is not.
DL585 G7 with 4 sockets can have 4 pci-e bus. A dl380 G7 has 1 pci-e bus to share. The DL360p gen8 has one bus whilst the DL380p gen8 has two pci-e 3.0 bus.
Choices made here can have huge impact on the i/o subsystem when using 10/40gb networking and multiple raid cards. It is very much possible that an older quad-cpu system with 4 bus can outgun dual socket system with a single bus.
"Although die area has gone up a bit, you get 3x the number of cores, a lot more cache and much more memory bandwidth." And that is not taking into account all the features that went from the north- and south-bridge and other chips on the mainboard onto the CPU die. :D Incredible.
Like what? AMD put the memory controller into the CPU Die back in 2006 so the "old machine" has roughly the same architecture that the new machine has because the Westmere based L5640 does not have PCIe controllers inside just like the old AMD Opteron 880. You need at least Sandy Bridge Xeons for that particular feature.
You're right. Didn't realize that the CPU was that old. 2010 doesn't seem that long ago, but there were quite a few changes done between then and what launched last year. :)
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skuban - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
Some per core comparisons would make a nice addition to the 1st table.Casper42 - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
So along those lines, why the heck did you compare a well spec'd Opteron 880 against a Low Power L5640. Why not compare it to something like an X5650 that was the bottom proc of the high end family at the time?Seems like a real Apples:Oranges type comparison.
aruisdante - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
Because they're compairing what they had then to what they have now. It's apples to apples in terms of application, not processor.Mumrik - Sunday, March 17, 2013 - link
That would make absolutely no sense. This is an article about Anandtech's upgrade.Casper42 - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
I get that, but go back and read the article and you see there are several generalized statements about "processors from then vs processors from now".When making such comparisons they should have pointed out that the differences seen are against a Low Power model and that a normal or high power model would have even more impact on then vs now.
bryanb - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
Your "new" Xeon L5640 is already 3 years old. In comparison, you could have gone with the much newer Xeon E3 v2 that uses 22nm Ivy Bridge. You would get even better power efficiency at a much lower cost (currently $200-300) per chip. However, memory capacity may be a problem as you would have to rely on a LGA 1155 server boards which typically have fewer ECC ram slots.MartinT - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
You have to remember (from the other articles) that these upgrade were done a long time ago, IIRC before Ivy Bridge Xeons even launched.DanNeely - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
LGA1155 doesn't support dual socket boards; so until about a year ago the older LGA1366 chips (LGA1567 was also available but AT didn't need quad-socket any longer) were the only viable Intel option for their performance target.Casper42 - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
Right, I want to run my enterprise on a desktop chip with a Xeon badge.A Xeon E3 v2 is nothing more than a Core i7 with Xeon bading and ECC support.
You want at least an E5 before I will even remotely consider it an Enterprise server.
In that space everything is currently on Sandy Bridge EP/EN with Ivy Bridge EP coming around Sept, Ivy EN (why bother really) a few months later, and then Ivy EX (The E7 big boys) either late 2013 or early 2014.
Casper42 - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
PS:Xeon E3 v2 = Dual Channel memory and 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0 (Single socket only)
Xeon E5 v1 = Quad Channel memory and 40 lanes of PCIe 4.0 per socket, 80 lanes in a standard 2P server similar to their "new" DB server.
RAID Controllers (especially with SSDs behind them) and Network cards and such need some decent I/O.
JlHADJOE - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
Whoa dude! I didn't even know PCIe 4.0 already launched!Casper42 - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
Doh!jasonelmore - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
You gotta remember that these CPU's are most likely donated for free. So i'm guessing that's why they went intel. Plus intel is badass where amd is not.tribunal88 - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
Is there a particular reason you went with Intel over AMD this time around?MartinT - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
I'm guessing- performance
- performance/Watt
and, often overlooked:
- pretty good chance Intel's going to be around for the five years these servers are supposed to run.
JlHADJOE - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
Simple. Intel's better than AMD today.In 2005, pre-Core2 AMD was the best, so they bought AMD. These days Intel is the best, so they bought Intel.
Emulex - Friday, March 22, 2013 - link
DL585 G7 with 4 sockets can have 4 pci-e bus. A dl380 G7 has 1 pci-e bus to share. The DL360p gen8 has one bus whilst the DL380p gen8 has two pci-e 3.0 bus.Choices made here can have huge impact on the i/o subsystem when using 10/40gb networking and multiple raid cards. It is very much possible that an older quad-cpu system with 4 bus can outgun dual socket system with a single bus.
Some food for thought.
MrSpadge - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
Where did you get that special edition of the Xeons with just 2 memory channels? ;)Death666Angel - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
"Although die area has gone up a bit, you get 3x the number of cores, a lot more cache and much more memory bandwidth."And that is not taking into account all the features that went from the north- and south-bridge and other chips on the mainboard onto the CPU die. :D Incredible.
Casper42 - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
Like what? AMD put the memory controller into the CPU Die back in 2006 so the "old machine" has roughly the same architecture that the new machine has because the Westmere based L5640 does not have PCIe controllers inside just like the old AMD Opteron 880. You need at least Sandy Bridge Xeons for that particular feature.Death666Angel - Saturday, March 16, 2013 - link
You're right. Didn't realize that the CPU was that old. 2010 doesn't seem that long ago, but there were quite a few changes done between then and what launched last year. :)