Wow....dual 1.8 Oppies laying the smackdown on Dual Xeons...

[magomago]

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030623/images/seti.gif

I'm actually suprised over that - I didn't think the Opteron (which somehow got into that test) would do so well....

I wonder the potential of this chip once it matures and we get 64bit programs...

If I'm correct the Athlon64 is the same but it can't SMP? What were the differences between the Operton and A64?

EDIT:

If AMD is banking on Opterton/A64 and these are the initial results I'm VERY impressed mainly because it seems that launches of new chips usually never go off much greater than the former. The first P3s were nothing more than Pentium 2s with SSE, The P4 was slightly slower than the P3 at the time, T-Birds were friggin hot as hell...

If nothing major arises I do see a rebirth of AMD 🙂

 

[mechBgon]

Opteron has an extra Hypertransport so it can chat with other Opterons 😀 and a dual-channel memory controller versus single. edit: 'scuse me, I believe I should say two extra Hypertransports.

 

[dexvx]

I wasnt even aware that SETI was multi-threaded.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

The situation could be turned around if you ran twice as many at the same time because with Xeons, you get Hyper Threading and so you can set each of the 4 runnings to its own logical cpu, and on an Opteron with 2 at the same time, it would slow down... just a thought

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: dexvx
I wasnt even aware that SETI was multi-threaded.

AFAIK it isn't. Tom's Hardware is running two concurrent instances, I believe. On his i875P/P4C tests, he came up with times of 1:29, which are not attainable on one WU. I'm pretty sure he ran two concurrent instances which completed in a combined 2:58 (hence taking advantage of hyperthreading), then divided the time by two. A single WU completes in about 2:12 on i875P/3.0C.

Still, it's very natural for the Opteron to do well, considering it has a 1Mb L2 cache and a low-latency, high-bandwidth connection to system memory.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Originally posted by: mechBgon

Originally posted by: dexvx
I wasnt even aware that SETI was multi-threaded.

AFAIK it isn't. Tom's Hardware is running two concurrent instances, I believe. On his i875P/P4C tests, he came up with times of 1:29, which are not attainable on one WU. I'm pretty sure he ran two concurrent instances which completed in a combined 2:58 (hence taking advantage of hyperthreading), then divided the time by two. A single WU completes in about 2:12 on i875P/3.0C.

Still, it's very natural for the Opteron to do well, considering it has a 1Mb L2 cache and a low-latency, high-bandwidth connection to system memory.

Lol, I completely forgot how Opteron has 1mb L2 cache... doh!

 

[dullard]

One problem though: Two months after its announcement you still cannot be guaranteed that you can buy a 244 Opteron at any given time. You might be able to get one on backorder, but then who knows when you'll ever get one. Here is a copy and paste from a post I did early last week:

For 2 months now they have been giving prices for the chip yet when you get further into the order you get a message saying availability in mid-June. That has been happening since the release of the Opterons. Maybe finally this mid-June date has arrived, but you still cannot get it in any relable place. Spartan Tech reseller rating 3.64 over the past 6 months. Or try another seller on that pricegrabber list: PC Connection, and click on Check for Availability link (then choose your state). I get this message:

Availability: On Back Order
Item#: 440999
Manufacturer: AMD
Product Name: AMD Opteron DP Server Model 244 Chip

Now try the same search for the Opteron 240. You'll find on pricewatch triple the number of companies listed for the 240 than the 244 as well as reliable companies like NewEgg selling it. NewEgg reseller rating of 9.81 for last 6 months.

Even The Inquirer listed the first date the 244 was ever sold was on May 26th and that was only in Japan. That was 1 month and 4 days after the April 22nd release.