AMD Shanghai Launch - Database Testing
by Jason Clark & Ross Whitehead on November 13, 2008 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
Conclusion
As you've seen, AMD is still competitive with Intel's 3.0 GHz Harpertown in the database workloads that we've shown here. We were quite surprised that Shanghai was able to meet and, in some cases, pass Harpertown at various workload levels in some of the benchmarks. Obviously, when it comes to power, AMD is still leading this space by a significant margin. FB-DIMMs obliterate any power efficiency in Intel's processors, especially when you have eight (or more in some cases) of them present in a server.
What about how Shanghai fairs against its older brother Barcelona? Well, in some cases, the gain is clearly just the increased clock speed. However, in others Shanghai achieves an increase of anywhere from 10-15% over and above the clock speed difference. It's obvious that Shanghai is what Intel would call a "Tock" of the clock for the Barcelona architecture, and it is a nice little bump for turning a few knobs and a die shrink. 2009 will be a very interesting year for AMD and Intel. Whether or not Shanghai can hold down the fort until Istanbul comes out remains to be seen.
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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?