AMD Shanghai Launch - Database Testing
by Jason Clark & Ross Whitehead on November 13, 2008 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
Idle Power and AS3AP Performance
We tested the systems, at idle, with both four DIMM and eight DIMM configurations. The impact was not as significant on the AMD system as it was on the Intel system. The difference in power consumption on the AMD system is only 7W but on the Intel system it was 49W.
Barcelona uses 6% more power at idle than Shanghai. The eight DIMM Intel system uses 56% more power than Shanghai, and the four DIMM Intel system uses 30% more power than Shanghai. A large chunk of this difference on Intel clearly comes from the FB-DIMMs, given the power scaling from four to eight FB-DIMMs, but AMD may still have a slight lead overall even if we discount the memory.
For the first three load points it is close but Intel is able to lead by an average of 15%. Once we hit load point four all systems are almost identical and then with load point five Shanghai is able to lead by as much as 11%. In the first four load points, the performance of Shanghai @ 2.7 GHz vs. Barcelona @ 2.3 GHz is within 2% even though there is a 17% bump in clock. At load point five, Shanghai is able to outpace Barcelona by 11% but still less than the clock bump.
Shanghai and Barcelona exhibit similar CPU usage profiles for the first few load points and then you see that Barcelona @ 2.3 GHz maxes out.
The Opterons are the clear leaders from a power perspective. Shanghai uses approximately 12% less power than Barcelona. Intel uses 27% to 46% more power than Shanghai, depending on the DIMM configuration.
At all load points, Shanghai is the clear winner. For the first four load points Shanghai is again ~12% more efficient than Barcelona, and as much as 28% or 47% more efficient than the Intel systems depending upon the DIMM configuration.
Note: The line for Harpertown four DIMMs is dotted in the above graphs because we did not actually run this configuration but speculate this is the power consumption based on idle power consumption analysis.
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Jason Clark - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link
Hi folks, as with most all launches, there are a number of articles we do each on a specific area. Ross and I focussed on database performance under microsoft sql server. I know a VM piece is in the works, just hang on and you'll see something soon.Viditor - Tuesday, December 9, 2008 - link
"I know a VM piece is in the works, just hang on and you'll see something soon"Not to be picky, but it's been almost a month now. Any word on the VM piece??
johnsonx - Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - link
no, you have to have it all done at once, and you have to cover every aspect we could even imagine wanting tests for, or we're going to gripe.Viditor - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link
I am surprised that you didn't choose any VM specific benches, as that is an obvious design goal of Shanghai's...It would have been nice to see if they were successful.
duploxxx - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link
that's exactly what i asked, additional Vmware testing like anand did before.the overall vmware performance of shanghai 2,7 is already known in VMmark, it totally destroys any x86 intel platform known today even the 6 core dunnington @2,66ghz. but additional tests would be nice.
http://www.vmware.com/products/vmmark/results.html">http://www.vmware.com/products/vmmark/results.html
lplatypus - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link
Regarding the delayed introduction of HT3: could it be that these CPUs actually do support HT3, and we're only waiting for support in the chipset?duploxxx - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link
Common anand you can do better then that. Where are mysql loads/io/3d measurements and hypervisor testing....JohanAnandtech - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link
Please understand that:Anand is the CEO and founder of the complete Anandtech, inc. and writer of many desktop/mobile oriented articles.
Jason and Ross are part of it.anandtech.com and run the Windows/Database tests.
The hypervisor/ MySQL/Linux stuff is done by myself (Johan De Gelas) and I am still working on our Shanghai review. ESX does not like the new BIOS that makes Shanghai possible, so we won't be able to post ESX numbers before a new BIOS is ready.
duploxxx - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link
if you would just let us use the edit button :), my usage of anand, was just meant as a short word of anandtech actually, sry for that.didn't know you had bios issues, seems like some vendors (dell) had less issues. looking forward to those parts.
the info like latency is really added value.
Proteusza - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link
We see some numbers for Shanghai. Any news on when the desktop part will be released/tested?I'm pleased it does well in performance/watt, but slightly disappointed that it doesnt beat Barcelona significantly in performance/clock.
I wonder how well it will fair in games?