Trouble for AMD? Intel's Xeons getting faster

[Nitemare]

link

Hyperthreading they say...sort of like hyper transport only I doubt they will share.

 

[Ryan]

Hmmm: http://subscriber.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&threadid=719164&highlight_key=y&keyword1=prestonia

Hyperthreading isn't as great as it looks. Not to mention, it's NOTHING like Hypertransport. A Dual 2ghz Xeon (which appears as 4 processors to the operating system) with hyperthreading is SLIGHTLY faster than a Dual Athlon MP 1900+. I'm not impressed.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Report seems slightly biased.

Also, the price of the Xeon seems high - intended for the server market.

IF Intel pushed this into the consumer desktop market and MS made the NT line affordable, then is could be a strong contender for the consumer market.

 

[dullard]

<< Also, the price of the Xeon seems high - intended for the server market. >>



Intel sells the Xeons for $50 more than the equivalent P4 in lots of 1000. Thus the prices really aren't that much higher. However, many companies will buy P4 chips in lots larger than 1000, and get a price break. Few if any companies buy Xeons in huge lots. Thus the street price shows >$50 difference. Even so, the difference between the P4 and the Intel Xeon is negligible compared to the price difference between the P3 and the P3 Xeon.

From a link in rbloedow's link:
"Eeven though Windows 2000 and Windows XP only officially support two CPU's, both operating systems were able to run properly with the Hyperthreaded CPU's. This means you don't have to upgrade to a 4-processor OS like Windows 2000 server to take advantage of this technology."

That is certainly a relief for Intel. If Microsoft forced the Xeon users to buy the server versions of its software then overall computer prices would skyrocket.

"SiSoft's Sandra, while being a synthetic Windows benchmark, is one of the few pieces of software on the market with some level of Hyperthreading support...When Hyperthreading was enabled, we can certainly see some performance gains being had by the Xeon setups. One CPU with Hyperthreading gained 18% in this benchmark, while two CPU's with Hyperthreading gained 23%. Of course, this is simply a synthetic test, and to achieve any real world performance gains like this, the software would have to be specifically optimized for Hyperthreading."

So there is a benefit for certain users. If you have a program optimized for hyperthreading, and if that program can utilize hyperthreading, then significant free gains can be had. However, those are two big IFS.

 

[SuperTool]

<< Hmmm: http://subscriber.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&threadid=719164&highlight_key=y&keyword1=prestonia

Hyperthreading isn't as great as it looks. Not to mention, it's NOTHING like Hypertransport. A Dual 2ghz Xeon (which appears as 4 processors to the operating system) with hyperthreading is SLIGHTLY faster than a Dual Athlon MP 1900+. I'm not impressed. >>



If a thread utilizes all the functional units of a cpu, there isn't going to be any advantage to hyperthreading (aka SMT- simultaneous multithreading).
So if you run two threads both competing for the same functional units, you are not going to get any speedup. That's not what it's for.
They should have tried running two different programs simultaneously on athlon and xeon, and see which one finishes both jobs first. Like running an integer and a FP job at the same time. Or running 5 threads each with poor parallelism. Xeon would be able to do all 5 at once, while athlon would have to do them one at a time.

 

[AGodspeed]

The Athlon MP's are still competitive, and CERTAINLY priced a lot lower. Prestonia motherboards are selling for over $600 on average!! Athlon MP boards are going for more like $200 on average. Not to mention the fact that the MP's are significantly cheaper.

But now that AMD has demoed their ClawHammer, this will all be a moot conversation soon enough. 🙂

 

[rawko]

<<

<< Also, the price of the Xeon seems high - intended for the server market. >>

Intel sells the Xeons for $50 more than the equivalent P4 in lots of 1000. Thus the prices really aren't that much higher. However, many companies will buy P4 chips in lots larger than 1000, and get a price break. Few if any companies buy Xeons in huge lots. Thus the street price shows >$50 difference. >>



The price difference is very small in the 256K chips, but is insane in the 1 and 2 meg versions..